Hitler's "Night Of The Long Knives:" (Written In June Of 2020, A Retropspective) Model For Today's Trump/MAGA "RINO Hunting" GOP Purge?---
Today in History, June 30, 1934
Adolf Hitler initiates "Operation Hummingbird", aka, "The Night of the Long Knives"
(New Introduction, written July 17, 2022)
Most folks are aware of the increasingly violent threats and imagery coming from the campaigns of Trump's hard core MAGA candidates, such as Greitens of Missouri and Mastriano of Pennsylvania.
They, in conjunction with many others, have referred to "RINOS" and "Left-Wing fascists" as traitors, and are deeply involved in promoting the phallic-worshipping cult of automatic weapons as the pathway toward restoring patriarchical white Christian nationalist supremacy. They are domestic terrorists in suits, many of whom were recruited to white supremacy and armageddonism in the military and law enforcement. They are serious threats, and not clowns.
Trump has avoided endorsing Greitens, though son Don Jr. is a fan and accompanies him to his gun range. You'll notice that Trump hasn't disavowed or distanced from him. But he has fully endorsed Mastriano, and as well a whole asylum-full of sociopathic conspiro-trash right out of the QAnon recycle bin. He is even backing his guy in Georgia with serious brain damage who was an idiot even when healthy.
What Is this? What is Trump doing besides his usual incitement to violence? We know he gets off on it, as he famously did on January 6th, rewinding for hours and watching with glee the bloodshed carried out by his mob, all marching under the banners and flags bearing his name. But this is something else.
He is carrying out a "slow-motion" purge of any dissenters within his party, using the threat of gun violence by his hard core supporters. He is out to break anyone who dares to tilt elsewhere or distance themselves in the aftermath of the damaging January 6th hearings.
So, in this light I thought it appropriate to repost this article from June 30, 2020, the subject being "Operation Hummingbird," aka, "The Night Of The Long Knives." Adolf Hitler kept and consolidated his dictatorship by carrying out a bloody purge of his own Nazi Party, while simultaneously murdering and jailing conservatives and Christian centrists who were part of his ruling parliamentary coalition (previous to the Reichstag Fire) and "settling scores" with old enemies.
Trump made a study of Adolf Hitler's rise to power and use of propaganda according to his recently deceased ex-wife, Ivana.
He would never admit to "liking" Hitler, but as with his praise of Vladimir Putin today he would say he was "really smart." He admires Hitler because up until he shot himself, he was, in his mind, a winner, because he was ruthless. And of course those today who fly the swastika or praise Hitler on Telegram or Gab would be described by Trump as "my people."
Therefore yes, I'm saying that Trump's campaign emphasis on "RINO hunting" is not hyperbole or a meme. He is operating based on Hitler's playbook, just like he was re-enacting the Reichstag Fire coup in the November through January 6th lead-up to his attack against the government. And he has recruited candidates to run who are made in his own violent and lawless image.
This phase of the purge of the GOP will just be the beginning. It will expand outward once he announces formally for President. It will increase exponentially when he is indicted. And if he manages to seize the Presidency again, he intends to settle accounts with all of us. Don't kid yourselves. He will personally be at war with the majority of Americans.
We had better learn a few things from history, especially how to act with urgency. And start with getting into campaign mode now. This is a PSA from the guy who warned what Trump would do when he lost the election three years in advance. --LFR
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On June 30, 1934, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler consolidated his dictatorship in Germany by ordering the mass executions and arrests of all of his political enemies, rivals, potential plotters, and those with whom he had old scores to settle.
Emphatically, Hitler decapitated the leadership of his own organization, the Sturmabteilung, (SA) known to us today as the Stormtroopers, who were under the leadership of long time Nazi Party leaders, Ernst Roehm, and Gregor Strasser. The purges were conducted by the SS under Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich and the SD, (Secret Police), as well as Hermann Goering. From that day on, there was never a serious opposition to anything Hitler did until breakaway leaders of the Wehrmacht began a series of assassination attempts, leading up to the famous von Stauffenberg Plot (Operation Valkyrie) on July 20, 1944.
First, some background. The Stormtroopers were the Nazi's mass based organization, deployed into street fighting, building mass meetings, destroying Jewish businesses, administering public beatings and electioneering. They were largely psychologically damaged WWI Veterans, lumpenized workers (poor and uneducated), police, and some local officials. They would break up political meetings, provoke violence in beer halls, engage the communists in paramilitary combat, and intimidate trade union leaders. Their model were the "Blackshirts" of Mussolini's Italy, hence in Germany were known as the "Brown Shirts". Many of the SA were veterans of the right-ring WWI veteran paramilitaries which engaged in street fighting after the war named the Freikorps, who fought the communist leaning Spartacist League amidst the chaos of the post-war economic dislocation. So, they were seasoned, armed brawlers, not unlike the US domestic terrorist militia movement of today.
The context of what was called the "Roehm purge" was that in March of 1933, Hitler arranged for the burning of the German Reichstag, and used the crisis as the pretext to declare a state of emergency, to ban political parties, censor and shut down opposition press, and nationalize the police. He asserted the provision under the Weimar Constitution's "Enabling Act" to rule by decree, as was agreed to by the failing President Von Hindenburg, therefore Hitler was able to take over as dictator "legally", a fact that should not be lost on us today.
The leader of the SA, Ernst Roehm, represented a "leftist" faction of the Nazi Party, the part that identified with socialism. They were on board with Hitler's program and anti-semitism, their only difference with Hitler being their insistence that the Nazi Party should carry through with their election plank calling for redistributing wealth. Additionally, Roehm and Strasser were ambitious and wanted the army reorganized and put under SA control.
For Hitler, the continued independence of the SA was unacceptable, as he had made promises to the army leadership to purge them and integrate what remained into the regular army. This was a deal made in exchange for which the army would institute a personal "loyalty oath" to their Fuehrer, known as the "Fahneneid". Also, Hitler wanted to take the occassion of getting rid of Roehm and Strasser to conduct a broader purge of all of his old enemies, plotters, or any potential opposition going forward.
On June 30, 1934, Hitler personally led the raid on SA headquarters in Munich Bavaria, where in a rage, he ripped the epaulets from the uniform of the Chief of Police Schneidenhuber, denounced him as a traitor, and had him summarily executed on the spot. From there, he personally was escorted to the hotel where Roehm was staying, had him arrested and imprisoned. Hitler then turned to SA leader Heines who was in bed with an 18 year old man, and took them out to the street to have them shot for "moral turpitude", a big propaganda point made by Goebbels in the aftermath. Hitler then proceeded to a beer hall where hundreds were assembled, in order to denounce Roehm and the others as the worst traitors in history. He had his Vice- Chancellor Franz Von Papen arrested, ordered his secretary shot without even an arrest, and after a while had von Papen sent to Vienna in exile as ambassador. Von Papen was a conservative whom he despised, but allowed to live to placate others in his Party.
At that point, Hitler gave the go ahead for Himmler's Gestapo to execute his old enemies, including Kurt von Schleicher, who was a previous Chancellor of Germany! He also ordered the murder of Ritter von Kahr, who had presided over Hitler's Munich arrest and prosecution in 1923 for the attempted "Beer Hall Putsch". His body was hacked to death with pickaxes. One person on the murder list was some unfortunate fellow named Willy Schmid, who happened to have the same name as the actual intended victim, so Willy, the apolitical music critic was shot to death in his apartment by the SS in a case of mistaken identity.
So, along with Roehm and Strasser, the larger part of the SA leadership was purged, and executed, along with leaders of the Catholic center parties. Roehm was given a pistol in jail with which to kill himself, and they gave him 10 minutes to do it. Roehm said no, "let Hitler himself come here and shoot me". An SS Officer named Lippert instead shot him point blank. (23 years later was tried for it by the West German government).
Hitler had ordered the execution of hundreds. The official figure was 85, but it was estimated that number was between 700-1000. At least 1000 more were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Goebbels scrambled to contain the damage with propaganda, and went on radio to claim that Hitler had narrowly prevented a coup and takeover of the government by von Schleicher which would have thrown the country into turmoil. Goebbels commandeered German radio to send out that message, while taking action to prevent the German press from getting hold of the list of the dead.
Hitler then convened the virtually all-Nazi Reichstag to deliver a speech justifying his actions. He claimed he had given the orders to shoot the "ringleaders of treason", and threatened with death anyone who challenged his authority in the future. He convened his emergency cabinet to have them approve a measure stating that the "measures taken on June 30- July 2 to suppress treasonous assaults are legal as acts of "self-defense" by the State. He had a statute drawn up to add a legal veneer to the purge, retroactively declaring the murders legal. The leading German legal scholar Professor Carl Schmitt, was asked to write an article for publication defending Hitler's murders, and Schmitt's justification was cited in Hitler's July 13 Reichstag speech. The article was called, "The Fuehrer Upholds the Law".
Professor Carl Schmitt is the legal scholar who has been the career long model and intellectual mentor of U.S. Attorney General William Barr, and is openly promoted by Barr's organization, the Federalist Society, as the leading legal expert on expanding executive authority in times of national emergency.
I'll leave you with that, and a couple of thoughts. You have all seen the paranoia and rage of Trump over the past three years, and its progressive worsening. You have read his accusations of treason against multiple people, John Bolton, Barack Obama, Black Lives Matters, Hillary Clinton, and others. He has even mused that in the "old days" traitors were executed. He has attempted to nationalize the police under the military, using the "1807 Insurrection Act" as his legal justification. He wanted to deploy the military to shoot protesters in the street outside the White House.Thankfully, the military leaders who refused to carry out the order have not been purged. Yet.
Trump has attempted to circumvent the Constitution and separation of powers by ruling though executive orders, and has been more and more blatant in the aftermath of the failed Impeachment. He has also threatened to jail reporters and current or former White House officials if they release information to the public which is critical of him. He has governed the country through largely one party, freezing out the opposition from any policy deliberation or cooperation, with the help of his nearly nazified Republican Senate.
Remember as well, that in his earlier phases, Hitler was ridiculed as a clown, a buffoon. People made fun of his Charlie Chaplin mustache, never believing he would ever attempt to do what he stated in his book, "Mein Kampf." It was argued that his ascendancy would tame and civilize him, that he would be forced by traditions to make deals and compromise. It was assumed he would fail because of his shortcomings, and Germany would move on, the Social Democratic opposition claiming "let Hitler have his run, and we will win the 1934 elections and come back to power." And of course, we all see in hindsight how deluded people were, as there never was another free election.
Week after week, month after month, Hitler and his Nazis pushed the envelope further and further, and every step of the way, people were shocked. "He can't do that !" "He can't get away with that." "Is that even legal?" people asked. And Hitler said, "It's legal if I say it is, because I am the Fuehrer, and the Fuehrer IS the law." And he was supported in this by Germany's leading jurist, the top law professor of Germany, Carl Schmitt, who to this day is the personal intellectual influence on our Attorney General, William Barr.
You all have seen what he is, what he has said, what he has done since taking office, more than three years ago. What do you think he will do if he has a second term? Or worse, what if they contrive a national emergency to disrupt the election in order to keep power?