Discussion: Ernst Roehm

The Vulture

Banned
While I'm on my Nazi Germany kick, thought I'd follow up with a slightly more esoteric question.

What if Roehm was straight or deeply closeted? What would the effects on the SA and/or Night of the Long Knives be?
 
I'd imagine Hitler would still massacre the SA. Did he even know Roehm was gay in the first place? I wouldn't think so. Homosexuals were as bad as Jews to Hitler.

The Night of Long Knives would still occur, in my opinion, and the SA would still be sluaghtered or assimilated into the SS.
 
Hiteler went after the SA for several reasons: the SA was too "independent", the SA's labor/economic position was too radical for the conservatives and businessmen Hitler needed, and others. The homosexuality of Roehm & other top SA officials was icing on the cake.
 
Roehm is still a threat to Hitler, period. When he said that the SA was going forward, with or without Hitler, that was viewed as High Treason by the SS. Even if Roehm kept his...preferences to himself, when Hitler kicked down the door at that inn and found Roehm's driver in bed with another SA man, that was enough, and Goebbels has another reason to justify the purge. Both the driver and his partner were taken outside, stood up against a wall, and shot by the SS, then and there. Roehm would've been tarred with the same brush, and nothing really changes. Btw, the whole Night of the Long Knives was called Operation Hummingbird by Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, and Goering. (he was in charge still of the Prussian Police and the Gestapo)
 
Top