Röhm, Ernst Julius.

Röhm, Ernst Julius, born 28-11-1887 in Munich, Germany, son to Emile and Julius Röhm his proud parents. The youngest of three children and he had an elder sister and brother. His father Julius, a railway official, was described as strict, but once he realized that his son responded better without exhortation, allowed him significant freedom to pursue his interests. Although the family had no military tradition, Röhm entered the Royal Bavarian 10th Infantry Regiment Prinz Ludwig at Ingolstadt as a cadet on 23-07-1906 and was commissioned on 12-03-1908  A native of Munich Ernst served as an Oberleutnant with the 13^th Infantry Regiment in the Bavarian army at the beginning of the first World War. In September of 1914 in Lorraine, France, Ernst was severely wounded to his face, he would carry the scars through out his lifetime,

   and it was some time later he was promoted to Hauptman. When the first world war ended in 1918 some bitter hard four years later with countless losses on both sides the allies won and the Germans were defeated, Ernst returned home to Munich where he was one of the senior members in Colonel Franz Ritter von Epp  Bayerisches Freikorps für den Grenzschutz Ost, formed at Ohrdruf in April 1919, which finally overturned the Red Republic in Munich by force of arms on 03-05-1919 upon he joined the Freikorps, which was one of the many private militias formed in Munich to combat the communism insurgent that had gained such strong support. Ernst became a well known man almost a legend in Munich at that time for keeping the communists in their places, He then met Adolf Hitler

(did you know) in 1919 where they became political allies and close friends. Hitler regarded Röhm as one of his best friends allowing him to address him as “Adolf” rather than “Mein Führer” as every one else did. In 1920 Ernst joined the National Socialist German Workers Party or NSDAP   where he helped organize the Sturmabeitilung (SA)  which was a political army mainly used for protecting party leadership and battling opponents such as the communist red front and was also used to terrorize Jews. Following the failed Beer Hall Putsch on 9 November 1923, Röhm, Hitler, General Ludendorff

Erich Ludendorff     Oberst Kriebel,  he died, age 65 on in Munich, and six others were tried in February 1924 on charges of treason . Röhm was found guilty and received one year and three months in prison. However, the sentence was suspended and he was granted a conditional discharge. Hitler was also found guilty and was sentenced to five years imprisonment, although he would only serve nine months Rohm had now become one of the main heads of the party second only to Hitler himself but with one flaw, which would be the weakness that many jealous members in the party would use against him that ended in a dreadful betrayal. Ernst Röhm was homosexual, he liked young men and preferred them to be Aryan mainly blonde and blue eyes this was an unfavorable flaw and was strongly disliked by certain other Nazi members who were jealous and yet afraid of Röhms close friendship with Hitler    and strongly wanted him out of the way, they tried always to get rid of Ernst but each time Adolf dismissed the tales he was told until a cleverly forged document was handed to Hitler. In 1933 Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany therefore opening a dark chapter in history that would alter the future for generations to come. One year on from this in 1934 events occurred that would lead to the betrayal and untimely demise of Röhm and seal the fate for many others.

Death and burial ground of Röhm, Ernst Julius.

After the betrayal of Victor Lutze then a high SA officer a forged document organished by Heinrich “Reichsheini” Himmler  and Reinhard Heydrich,  was presented to Hitler stating that Röhm was involved in a revolt against the Nazi party and also named his co conspirators also in the SA, it also stated that the revolt was funded and planned by France. This document that had been presented to Hitler depicting Röhm’s alleged involvement in this revolt caused Hitler to plan his arrest. Rohm and several other SA men, (see Heines ) had gone to the spa on the lake in Bad Weissee, Hotel Hanselbauer, their favorite spa in Bavaria and in the early hours Hitler along with the Gestapo raided it. They found Röhm with his boyfried Karl Günther Heimsoth, a physician, polygraph, and politician and they were taken to prison, and the rest of the men in the spa were executed. In early July 1934, Heimsoth was shot dead by an SS command in Berlin, as part of the purge carried out during the so-called Night of the Long Knives , in which Hitler got rid of political enemies both real and imagined. Ernst Jünger later said of the murder that Heimsoth “kept a dubious practice in the Wittenbergplatz, a real pitfall. Just like the clairvoyant Hanussen, he was full of dangerous secrets and was one of the first to be killed.” Ernst Junger was a a highly-decorated German soldier, author, and entomologist who became publicly known for his World War I memoir Storm of Steel. Junger died on 17-02-1998 in Riedlingen, Upper Swabia in his 103rd year. He was the last living bearer of the military version of the order of the Pour le Mérite. His body was buried at Wilflingen Cemetery. Jünger’s last home in Wilflingen, Jünger-Haus Wilflingen, is now a museum.

In the Stadelheim Prison, where Rohm was detained, he was offered the chance to take his own life by Hitler to which Rohm refused. Michael Lippert, Theodore Eicke walked into his cell, laid a Browning automatic and a fresh edition of the Völkerischer Beobachter containing ab account of what the paper called the “Röhm Putsch” on the table, told Röhm he had ten minutes to use it and left. He refused, stating, “If I am to be killed, let Adolf do it himself.” Having heard nothing after the stipulated ten minutes, Eicke and Lippert and Ernst Schmauser returned to Röhm’s cell to find him standing with his bare chest puffed out in a gesture of defiance. Eicke shouted, “Röhm, make yourself ready at which point Lippert fired two shots in the chest at point black range. The first salvo did not kill Röhm. He lay on the floor moaning, “Mein Führer, mein Führer.” A final bullet was fired into his temple..

As a reward SS Obergruppenführer, Theodore Eicke    received a promotion as Kommandant of the Dachau concentration camp , SS Obergruppenführer Ernst-Heinrich Schmauser,  was missed in action on 10-05-1945 near Altenrode/ Breslau, and SS-Obersturmbannführer, Michael Lippert, Lippert died age 72, on 01-09-1969 in Wuppertal  and is described as “filled with a dangerous and unrepentant fanaticism”. Hitler named traitor SA Führer, Victor Lutze   to replace Röhm as head of the SA. Hitler ordered him, as one prominent historian described it, to put an end to “homosexuality, debauchery, drunkenness, and high living” in the SA. A weak man, Lutze did little to assert the SA’s independence in the coming years, and the SA lost its power in Germany. Lutze lost his live in a car accident. The regime had all of the decorative SA daggers ground to remove the name of Röhm from the blade, which was replaced with the words “Alles für Deutschland”, Everything for Germany”. The SA was later merged into the SS and Gestapo which were the secret police. The Night of the Long Knives sent a clear message to the public that even the most prominent Germans were not immune from arrest or even summary execution should the Nazi regime perceive them as a threat. Before the events of the Night of the Long Knives concluded, not only was Röhm dead, but more than 200 additional people had been killed, including Nazi official Gregor Strasser, age 42 , former chancellor General Kurt von Schleicher, age 52, and Franz von Papen‘s secretary, Edgar Julius Jung,.age 40, Jung’s body was found dumped in a ditch near the town of Oranienburg near Berlin on July 1. Most of those murdered had little to no affiliation with Röhm but were killed for political reasons

Ernst Röhm is buried in a family grave on the Westfriedhof of Munich. Also buried there the killed SA leaders, Edmund Heines and Johannes Schweighart and the grave of Adolf Hitler’s pilot, SS Obergruppenführer, Hans Baur,   the Generalleutnant der Wehrmacht, Inspecteur der Fahrtruppen, Rudolf Trauch  and General der Flieger, Chef Kommandeur der Luftwaffe, Josef Kammhuber.