It has been reported that Rohm’s last words were:
“Sieg heil! (Hail victory.) Heil Hitler.”
It is hard to spare sympathy for Rohm or his decimated legions. These storm troopers were the bullies who smashed shops, beat up and murdered innocent people and became the billboard for Hitler’s anti- Semitism, one of the tenets of the Nazi party and Hitler’s Third Reich.
But the cowardly manner in which it was done during a night and day in which friend murdered friend and brother turned on brother chills the blood.
Like rainwater after a storm, blood collected in deep pools in the courtyard of Stadelheim Prison and the SS barracks as the execution of innocent SA military cadets from the training school continued throughout the day. There are reports that many members of the SS firing squads who executed hundreds of cadets became physically ill from the terrifying spectacle and had to be replaced.
Nor was the butchery confined merely to Rohm and his henchmen. Dozens of Hitler’s political opponents were murdered, some as they slept. The SS was given carte blanche in its murderous forays. Mistakes were made during this Night of the Long Knives. Several people were killed because of mistaken identity.
We have managed to compile only a partial list of those murdered during the night of terror. Estimates range from two hundred or three hundred to as many as three thousand. The actual number of people murdered in Germany in the last twenty-four hours may never be known.
One thing is obvious. With the destruction of the Sturmabteilung, the brown-shirted storm troopers who helped elevate him to dictator, Hitler’s power is unchallenged. His personal elite guards, the Schutzstaffel, known as the SS, which number fifty thousand to sixty thousand, are now the undisputed rulers of the streets. The Gestapo, the secret police, his replaced the civilian police.
In Man Kampf Hitler wrote: “Racism gives the Germans blood and soul. It identifies the enemy and gives the People a sense of self-identity and self-confidence.” Racism has now become the law in Germany.
But this was different. This was not Nazi against Jew, this was German against German, soldier against soldier, comrades killing comrades. This was power through mass murder. This was an outrageous violation of contemporary morality.
Those of us who have watched the frightening malignancy of Nazism grow within this nation recognize this purge as the prelude to the nightmare. Germany has bowed to the law of terror and Hitler has once again proven himself the master of treachery.
She folded the paper and stuffed it in her bag. As always, she was proud of Bert for being so outspoken. But she was also humiliated by the horrible news—another humiliation she as a German had to endure. The leader of their country had sanctioned mass murder, like some psychotic despot from medieval times.
She hurried to the corner and turned into Rue Fresnel, a short, bright street lined with gay shops. A flower stand dominated the center of the block. She went to the stand and looked over the freshly watered bundles of flowers, glistening in the morning sunlight.
“M’amselle?” the stand keeper said pleasantly.
“I am looking for something special,” she said in French.
“Perhaps I can help.”
“I am looking for a black lily,” she said.
His expression changed only slightly, a shift in the eyes, a tightening of the jaw.
“I am sorry,” he said. “Try deux cent cinq.”
‘Merci.”
He tipped his hat and turned to another customer. She went on down the street, checking the numbers; 205 was near the middle of the block. It was a tiny tailor and cleaning shop, cramped and hot and smelling of steam and cleaning fluid. It was empty except for a young man in his shirtsleeves pressing pants on a steam machine. He smiled as she entered.
“Picking up or leaving off?” he asked pleasantly.
“I came to see Uncle,” she said quietly.
“Uncle?”
He was tall and slender with long, shaggy hair and soft brown eyes. He looked out the window, quickly perused the street.
“Uncle Eli,” she said. “I brought a flower for him, a rare flower.”
His smile grew more cautious.
“Oh? An orchid perhaps?”
“A lily.”
“Lilies are not so rare.”
“The black lily is.”
He nodded, still staring intently at her.
