A Twist of the Long Knife: Ernst Röhm (Ep.45)

Ernst Rohm was one of Hitler's besties and had a hand in the creation of the Third Reich. He was also gay. I can't reconcile the two either, but I was raised to believe that all gay people are pious do-gooders. Therefore, a gay Nazi is just insane to me. (Some of that is sarcasm.)

Transcript

Munich, Germany. July 1st 1934

At Stadeleheim prison, two officers of Adolph Hitler’s SS strode with purpose past the cells, their jackboots knocking on the cement. When they reached their destination, a guard unlocked and let them into one particular cell. Its occupant, a formerly close friend and ally to Adolph Hitler, a man who, in fact, was instrumental in the Fuhrer’s terrifying ride to power, stared at them defiantly. He wouldn’t give them an inch, there would be no begging, no tears. It’s possible they called him a Warmer Bruder, which means “a warm brother.” It was a slur for gay men back then. One of the SS officers handed the man a Browning pistol loaded with a single cartridge and told him that he had 10 minutes to shoot himself in the head or they would do it for them. The prisoner refused, saying, “If I am to be killed, let Adolf do it himself." The SS officers stepped out of the cell and walked a distance to at least keep their word. They heard nothing in that 10 minutes, and who knows what was going on in the prisoner’s mind? They returned to the cell. The very much alive, very much defiant prisoner puffed out his chest at them. If they wanted him dead, they were going to have to do it themselves. So they did. Bang bang. Blood all over the cell. A potential threat to Hitler’s power was neutralized.

So, why did the SS imprison and execute a man who was one of Adolph’s former besties? Because he was gay. Don’t cry for the prisoner, though. He was just as bad as his murderers and absolutely should be considered responsible for the inhuman horrors to come. Basically? Everyone in this story sucks. Warm wishes this holiday season!

[theme] 

Hello! I’m your host, J. Harvey, and I get a little teary-eyed when Boris Karloff speaks directly after the Grinch carves the roast beast. You know when the camera pulls out of the house, and then out of Whoville and pulls back, and they’re all those beautifully drawn Chuck Jones mountains…

You know - welcome Christmas. Bring your cheer,

My family associates me with the Grinch. I had a resting bitch face before it was a thing, and when I frown - I actually look like him. To the point where a friend of mine, a friend who created Wicked Gay’s cover art, by the way, took a picture of me glowering and super-imposed the Grinch over it and made me green, and it was startlingly…let’s just say we’re a match. And the nephews loved that Uncle Jay is the Grinch, and then my mother thought this was the funniest thing in the world and had wallet sizes made and put them in everyone’s Christmas stocking. 

I’m just blank, staring at you as you laugh.

Anyway, I’m telling this story because it’s December, and my family celebrates Christmas. I apologize that we’ve usurped all the holiday attention for so long. The holidays are way more than Christmas, and you might not celebrate ANY holidays, but please know that you are seen. Holidays can bite. You are not alone in feeling that.

Which is why, over here at Wicked Gay, we’ve got Nazis for Christmas! Cuz’ nothing says warn wishes like a bunch of evil straight white guys with delusions and what I’m guessing was penis envy trying to wipe out whole civilizations. And nearly succeeding. A lot of that shit seems to be going around nowadays. I feel like no one, and when I say NO ONE, that NO ONE covers everyone, no one’s remembering the past, and we’re all doomed to repeat it. Repeating it now.  Lot of corpses piling up. Hence, Nazis seem to fit the vibe.

Ernst Röhm was a decorated World War I veteran and played a pivotal role in the formation of the Nazi Party and as well as the creation of the infamous Sturmabteilung (SA), also known as the Storm Detachment., and the Brownshirts, the violent paramilitary group that acted as storm troopers for the burgeoning Nazi party.. Rohn was described as a brutal, unscrupulous man, and fiercely loyal to Hitler and his commitment to the Nazi cause.

But he was also gay.

This is episode 45, A Twist of the Knife: Ernst Rohm.

Ernst Rohm was born on November 28, 1887, in Munich, Germany, and came from what was then your typical Bavarian family. He was the first person in his family to join the Army and became a lieutenant in 1908. He fought in World War I, receiving a facial injury that gave him a scar he carried for the rest of his life; he also received a chest wound and spent the rest of the war as an officer in France, making Captain and being awarded the Iron Cross. His experinces in the war solidified his patriotism and his fierce loyalty to Germany. Well, a certain vision of Germany . In 1919, he joined the German Workers' Party, which the following year became the National Socialist German Workers Party. Not long afterward, he met Adolf Hitler, and they became political allies and close friends. He began to associate with far-right paramilitary groups, in fact, sort of bringing them together under a single banner. They came to be called the Sturmabteilung or the SA, the Englsh would be Storm Division or Storm Troopers.  Not the easily defeated guys in the black and white plastic who worked for Darth Vader and Kylo Ren, more like soulless creeps who would eventually aid and abet the ulimate evil 

Mostly, they were called the Brownshirts due to the color of their uniforms. 

As the Nazi Party came into being under Hitler, Rohn and the SA would protect them at rallies and assemblies, fight with any and all opposing factions, and spend a lot of time indulging in their favorite leisure activity - intimidating and as time went on, bullying and assaulting groups like trade unionists (the Nazis hated unions because budding authoritarians hate organizations other than them that hold significant power and promote a democratic humanitarian outlook among workers. In fact, Hitler’s first act when he came to power was to utterly destroy unions in Germany, with many union leaders ending up in concentration camps, the Romani people, and especially, you guessed it, Jews. In Septeme rof 1923 the Nazis held there German Day celebration at Nuremberg, some fo them would end up tin Nuremberg many many years later on the wrong side of the jdufucial bench and fuck yeah, for that i say. 100,000 people showed up for this, most of them members of all the Brownshirt-type organizations that Rohn had managed to gather together, and as a collective alliance, they all bowed down to Hitler as their leader. 

That November, Rohm was a leader of an attempted coup that came to be called the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. For some more political background, after World War I, Germany embraced democracy and progressive values. In 1919. Unfortunately, it wasn’t perfect, and because of economic instability, social unrest, and political polarization, caused Hyperinflation, widespread unemployment, and a series of failed attempts to form stable coalition governments. This allowed far-right groups like the Nazis to try and move in . Because as you know, Nazis hate democracy almost as much as they hate dreidels and excessive amounts of melanin. 

The Beer Hall Putsch whenever i see it i think it says putz which means a fool in yiddish which is oddly fitting in this situation. The Nazis aimed to seize control of the Bavarian government and, ultimately, the nation. Hitler, along with other Nazi leaders like ole Ernst there,, stormed a beer hall where a government meeting was being held, and attempted to force attendees to support their takeover. They should ave just started drinking, everyone could have gotten drunk, hashed out their differences, ende dup sing Oktobefest dirking songs with their arms around each other, ad thay would have solved ht whole thing. Nope, Didnt happen. The coup was shut down by copus, but not before 16 Nazis and four police officers died. It failed, but not entirely. Remember when 45 came down the escalator> This was sort of that for Hitler. He was suddenly known throughout the country. It gave him a platform to spout his extremist ideologies and began paving the way to power for him. 

As a result, Rohm and some of the other jerks were tried for high treason, which sounds pretty serious and like a sentence where the verdict could involve a noose, but no, he was paroled after three months. For what was basically an insurrection. 

After his short prison stint, Rohm contiuned with his quest to keep all of the armed militia types under the Nai banner, the failed putz and short prison stay didnt discourage him. However, Hitler was starting to grow wary of all these groups that Roh was trying to bring into the fold.  Rohn got into a snit over this, took his ball, and went home in May of 1925. He quit all of his political and military groups. Five years later, he joined the Bolivian Army, accepting a post as a lieutenant colonel. But then in the fall of 1930, his bestie Hitler phoned up and asked him to come back to the NAzis. Which he did.

Hitler made him the SA’s chief of staff. Which was fine until Rohm once again began to have raidcal new ideas and appointed close friends as his chief of staff. Hitler once again became wary of him. The SA were no longer recruited to defend the Nazi leaders at rallies. That was now the job of the SS, which Hitler first created to be his personal bodyguards, but then they started to crowd all the different branches and groups under the eNazi banner out. The SA was sort of shoved to the side, but they continued to spend their time harassing communists and rival political parties and began taking violent action against Jews and others deemed hostile to the Nazi agenda. They began to get very sloppy in the eyes of their peers and developed a reputation for public drunkenness, a little too much street violence than the Nazis were ready for just yet, and, more interestingly, homosexual. Rumors began to spread that all of the top dogs in the SA were gay, Frolich! 

In June 1931, the Münchener Post, a Social Democratic newspaper, began attacking Röhm and the SA regarding homosexuality in its ranks, and then in March 1932, the paper obtained and published some private letters of his in which Röhm described himself as "same-sex oriented" (gleichgeschlechtlich). These letters had been confiscated by the Berlin police back in 1931 and subsequently passed along to a journalist named  Helmuth Klotz.[35]

Wait, what - was Ernst Rohm openly gay? Yeah. Pretty much. 

About those letters:

In 1928, a doctor named Karl-Günther Heimsoth wrote to Röhm about a bit in Röhm's autobiography dissing conservative society, blaming it for a bunch of bad stuff, even suicide. Röhm's ideas didn't get much love from other Nazis. Heimsoth asked if Röhm was taking a shot at this German law against guys being together, aka Paragraph 175, in that passage. Röhm basically said, "You got it!" He admitted he wanted to be more direct but got talked out of it by pals. Turns out, Röhm and Heimsoth hit it off and hung out at spots in Berlin where gay folks gathered. They kept in touch while Röhm was in Bolivia, working as a military advisor after leaving Germany. Both of them thought being gay could jive with Nazism. Heimsoth hoped Röhm could make the Nazi Party cool with homosexuality. Röhm straight-up talked about his orientation in letters, once calling himself "same-sex orientated" and saying he wasn't into women.

Now one could hear this whole I'm going to make the Nazis cool with f****try and be like really, girl? But Ernst was nothing if not an egomaniac, one of those ones who, like, I want it, I wish it will happen. I mean - if only - Nazis might actually lighten up more if they bottomed once in a while. That's not scientifically proven, but it’s just a matter of time. Don't punch a Nazi - bang them in the butt. With consent, of course. What the hell? What kind of Christmas crazy - where was I? 

A little bit on Paragraph 175 - 

A law that made it illegal for guys to have relationships with other guys, referring to same-sex stuff as  "unnatural." and yeah - and? This law was a thing from the late 1800s through the Nazi times and even after. 

As a Nazi once responded to a questionnaire about why they supported the infamous paragraph - , "Anyone thinking about loving someone of the same gender is on our bad side." These dumbkopgs (look, I snuck some German in) really thought gay a sneaky Jewish plot to mess with Germany. They even said they'd sterilize us if they got in charge. And because the majority of theNazis were all about traditional morals, feel my air quotes, they couldn't handle Röhm and his crew, some of whom were into guys. Back then, if any government worker or officer was found out to be gay, they'd get the boot, no questions asked, even if they didn't break Paragraph 175 as in actually blowing a guy or whatever. The SA, though, kinda let some gay peeps slide in their ranks, but only if they kept it super secret. They didn't want their tough-guy image questioned. Röhm tried to keep his private life separate from his political one, but lots of Nazis saw personal stuff like who you liked as a major public and political deal. Rohm’s biographer, yes he had one, if his ass had one, I better get one - biographer  Eleanor Hancock said, "If Ernst Röhm was shaking things up at all, it was by demanding that National Socialism and German society accept him as he was—a guy who liked other guys.

Röhm came back to Germany when Hitler asked him to in November 1930 and officially took charge of the SA on January 5, 1931. Lots of folks saw this gig as the second most important spot in the whole Nazi crew. But here's the twist—Röhm's gig wasn't a cakewalk. His being gay made his position shaky, and he relied a ton on Hitler's personal backup. His predecessor spilled the beans, hinting that Röhm got the job partly 'cause of who he liked, making him vulnerable to attacks. Some SA peeps weren't happy from the get-go, thinking this move made the SA less independent and more under the Nazi Party's thumb. They couldn't openly diss Hitler 'cause of the party rules. Hitler played it cool, saying a Nazi's personal life only mattered if it clashed with the Nazi beliefs. One top guy in the Berlin SA totally rebelled, one Walter Stennes, swearing he and his crew wouldn't follow a gay boss like Röhm or the “male prostitutes” he was surrounding himself with. It sounds like a rad cabinet meeting to me. . But Hitler shut that down, saying the SA wasn't a girls boarding school.. I don't know if he was being a phone and comparing an all-gay leadership to a girl's boarding school or if the guy with the issue was acting like a little girl in a snit. Who knows. Röhm also caught heat for giving top roles to his pals, which ticked off his critics, even though not all of these dudes were gay—they just got the job 'cause Röhm thought they were loyal. Or he wanted to see how they swung during the Nazi’s gray sweatpants season. 

In February 1931, Röhm faced even more opposition within the Nazi crew when Hitler swapped Stennes for one Paul Schulz, who then bumped up two guys suspected of being into guys, Edmund Heines and Karl Ernst, in the Berlin SA. Word was the other Ernst only got the nod 'cause he was cozy with Paul Röhrbein, a pal of Röhm's not linked to the party or SA. Loads of Berlin SA folks weren't happy about these picks, griping about what they called the "Röhm-Röhrbein-Ernst Triple Alliance," thinking it was a gay gang. There’s no way a gay gang would call their clique such a professional wrestling WWE-sounding name. Please. Röhm's enemies even claimed that Berlin party folks knew about these so-called gay hangouts. They got pretty pleased when left-wing media started talking about these supposed gay groups. Then, one wild night in June, a Nazi named Walter Bergmann got busted at a Berlin pub where he found Ernst and Röhrbein together. Bergmann made a scene, calling them out and trashing the party's rep. 

As for what he called out a quote - Look at these parasites on the party, these Pupenjungen, these damned ass-fuckers who let the party's reputation go to hell!” OK, calm down. People were probably just trying to do poppers white while listening to Marlene Deitrich or something. No one’s looking to ass fuck you, ugly. And trust that it’s always the most demonic-looking ones that are worried about us punching their busses. The hot, straight ones with half a brain are usually just flattered, 

So Even though Röhm once said the party was cool with his "weirdness," some folks think he might've been a bit too hopeful.

As Röhm's fame grew and the Nazi Party got more popular, keeping his secret life quiet got tougher. He got more careful, steering clear of gay spots. His buddy Peter Granninger played matchmaker, setting up meetups with young guys between 16 and 20, Erns liked htem yotuhful, at apartments owned by friends.. Trouble brewed when an unemployed waiter in Munich tried to blackmail Ernst in April 1931, and the papers got a hold of it. By early 1931, the rags were dropping hints about his sexuality. Even Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi spin doctor, among other horrific duties he carried out for his party, even Goeblles noted in his diary that the Nazi Party was being seen as the go-to spot for guys into that Paragraph 175 thing, you know, gay sex. And it wasn't long before this got back to Hitler, who was vying for world domination and knew this would probably put a crimp in his take over and kill a whole mess of people plans.

In April 1931, things got really heated when a newspaper, the Münchener Post, started dropping front-page bombs about what they called some serious "175 stuff," hinting it was all over the Nazi Party. First, they claimed Röhm and Heines were in on a gay group within the SA, even strolling around arm-in-arm with Hitler, which, when homophobes try to be subtle with their propaganda, it's not subtle, and it's funny. ? Then, a second story popped up on April 23, dishing about Röhm hanging out with a male escort. Then a third story called out the Nazis for slamming gay folks in public but ignoring it in their own ranks, saying Hitler turned a blind eye to Röhm's deal. That same paper even went as far as claiming, without proof, that German youth were at risk because of Röhm's sexuality. They coined the term "Röhmisch" to describe what they thought was the SA's moral mess. Other newspapers from different political angles picked up the same tales.

Turns out, the source for all this drama was supposed letters between Röhm and an ex-Nazi named Eduard Meyer. Röhm fired back in the Nazi newspaper, saying those letters were fakes. He even took the Münchener Post to court. Eventually, it came out that Meyer indeed faked those letters. But before any trial could start, Meyer offed himself in prison. The left-wing media started cooling off about the scandal, but the rumors didn't just vanish. They kept pointing fingers at Röhm's sexuality, saying it was proof the Nazis weren't fit to lead. In September 1931, another paper with the delightful name of the Hamburger Echo brought up "the gay captain Röhm" in response to a Nazi poster preaching about a "clean Germany, a real family life."

Amid the whole Meyer mess, the SPD, Germany’s democratic party leaders, decided they needed real proof of Röhm's being into guys to slap him with Paragraph 175. The Berlin cops, usually not big on enforcing this law, started looking into Röhm thanks to the welfare waiter's story. They snagged the letters between Röhm and Heimsoth and grilled both of them. When Röhm was under the spotlight, he admitted to being bi and doing some stuff with other guys, but he swore he didn't break Paragraph 175. Then, in June 1931, they hauled me to court. Reif spilled that he and a buddy, a hotel employee named Kronninger, had some, uh, mutual time with Röhm in a hotel room, but when Reif didn't get paid as promised, he spilled to the cops. Röhm and Kronninger denied everything, and since there wasn't enough proof, the trial got tossed. They tried to pin Röhm with this five times in 1931 and 1932, but they couldn't prove he broke Paragraph 175. Obvi Ernst wasn't putting his shit up on Twitter, I mean, X I mean Twitter, even with the faces blurred out. Smart move, Ernst.

In the German presidential election of 1932, Adolph Short Stache was up against a man named Hindenberg, no relation to the burning dirigible, I’m sure. The Social Democratic Party, the SPD for short, decided to mess with Hitler’s campaign in a big way. And wow, there were SO MANY parties and factions vying for control; you had Hitler, Nazis, t the SDP, the National Socialist German Workers Party, the Centre Party the Communist Party; heads must have been spinning, and yet they ended up making the murderous megalomaniac Chancellor in the end and that's when shit went off the rails. Ok, so the SDP has this guy Klotz who used to be a Nazi now wants them done with, he publishes the letters between Ernst Rom and Karl-Gunther the doctor in a pamphlet called the ROhm Case. They sent them to big shots like politicians, army peeps, doctors, teachers, and notaries. Klotz went all in, saying if the Nazis were okay with high-ups being into guys, it was a sign they wanted to mess up Germany's morals, comparing it to the fall of ancient Rome. He even said leaving Röhm in charge would mean Nazis were down with leading German youth into being "gay minions." By the way, I'm a gay minion, and I love it. I hope that guy from the GOP who secretly recruited me enjoyed his Keurig machine. Yes, I said Keurig instead of toaster over because I'm too young to know what a toaster oven is. Don't look at me like that. So this  Klotz claimed he wasn't against gay folks, but his campaign against Röhm stirred up a lot of hate towards both homosexuals and Nazis. Which no, wait, yay, but no. Ugh, same waters, different boats. 

Röhm tried to stop those letters from spreading, but the court shut that down 'cause he didn't say they were fakes. He even admitted to writing them. This legal mess made its way into the news for months. Soon, papers were picking up Klotz's pamphlet, sharing parts of those juicy letters. The accusations against Röhm popped up on election posters and stickers, painting a picture of a Nazi crew full of gay folks and suggesting they were putting German youth at risk. Let’s be real: jockstraps ticklefights and Edith Piaf swoonfests are a lot healthier than gassing people, so they could have used our velvet touch. 

Just before the second round of the presidential election, Hitler jumped in to defend Röhm, saying he'd stay as the SA chief of staff. Röhm later told another Nazi that he'd offered to step down, but Hitler said nope. Lots of Nazis were shocked 'cause they thought this scandal would wreck their shot at power. Some were worried it'd ruin their image among conservative voters. Historians think Hitler had Röhm's back because of personal feelings, Röhm's skills, and maybe a bit of protecting his own choices. No, thank you. I refuse to lump Hitler in with anything that has formed such a large part of my identity. If he was getting railed by dudes and sucking off dudes, he gets his own damn category. How’s dick-fiend? That covers him. Dickfiend, party of one. 

As if things weren't wild enough, in March '32, a Nazi named Walter Buch planned to off Röhm to save the Nazi Party from this mess. They wanted to kill him, along with du Moulin-Eckart, the Nazi chief of information as well as  Röhm's press officer, and blame it on another political party. Walter worked through an ex-Naxi, but the hitman the ex-Nazi hired spilled the beans, and the plan fell apart. Röhm tried to hush it up by telling Hitler and Himmler, but it got out when the Münchener Post covered it. The ex nazi guy got in trouble for this plot, making the Nazis look even worse in the news.

Although most of the media kept mum about the mess until May 1932, word on the street was that everyone pretty much knew what was up with Röhm before that. The whole scandal was like a bad smell for the Nazi Party, but oddly enough, it didn't mess with their votes. Hindenburg came out on top in the election, but Hitler still bagged 37 percent, so not too shabby for him. Historians think these Röhm revelations might've been a real headache for Hitler's campaign, maybe even a hit to his credibility for the top job. On March 4, the Prussian Minister President wanted the big boss Hindenburg to know all about those Röhm-Heimsoth letters. Hindenburg wasn't too keen on the situation, saying in the old days, a guy like Röhm would've been handed a pistol to deal with it himself. The scandal even made it tough for Hindenburg to think about making Hitler chancellor, especially when they met up in August, and he had to shake hands with Röhm, calling him not-so-nice names in private after, saying it was disgusting to have to touch him and dropping the eff bomb and I don't mean the beautiful one called fuck.

On a day in May 1932, things went wild at the Reichstag café. Helmuth Klotz was there to meet Otto Wels, the head honcho of the SPD. While Wels stepped away for a vote, Klotz got spotted by Heines, who barged in with a gang of Nazi crew. Heines called Klotz out as the guy behind the pamphlet and gave him a solid slap. The Nazis went further, throwing punches and even a chair at Klotz, but they bolted when a waiter and some other deputies stepped in. Two cops offered to walk Klotz out to ID his attackers, but when they got outside, a mob of Nazis jumped them. Witnesses heard someone threaten to beat Klotz to bits and even called his wife, telling her to come "collect his bones" at the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament.

Since the parliament was in session, the president called for Heines and a few others to get suspended for 30 days for attacking Klotz. He tried to get the police to restore order and arrest these guys, but they wouldn't leave, and the whole Nazi crew in the Reichstag started shouting, "Heil Hitler!" Things got chaotic, and even when the cops came in, there was a ruckus with antisemitic insults thrown at the Jewish police chief. It was a mess to figure out who to arrest among the Nazis, and the parliament session had to be cut short.

This attack made front-page news all over the country. One guy got off the hook, but Heines and a couple of others got three months in the slammer. The judge wasn't happy, saying the Nazi deputies acted like hooligans in a place meant for democracy. The whole thing kept the Röhm scandal in the spotlight, even if the papers didn't always spell out the details. But when the July election rolled around, it didn't make a huge dent. The scandal stuck around, though, even in January '33 when the Münchener Post guessed Hitler might boot Röhm out.

The Nazi media dealt with the scandal by often pretending it didn't exist or by vaguely denying accusations against Röhm, saying they were just cooked up by socialists and Jews. They even exaggerated Röhm's role in Bolivia, making up stories that he was offered a high-ranking military job there. Some say that even folks against the Nazis didn't really use Röhm's private life against the party. It's kinda surprising that the media back then, especially in Germany, didn't make a huge fuss about a high-up politician's gay scandal.

After the Klotz attack, the main focus of the news was all about how the Nazis used violence instead of following the rules and how they didn't really dig for democracy. Röhm's sexuality wasn't the big deal; even the folks on both ends of the political spectrum, from the SPD to the German National People's Party, didn't see it as the main issue. Some conservatives and liberals pointed fingers at Klotz for even bringing up Röhm's private life. While some right-wing newspapers backed the attack on Klotz, others felt uneasy about the Nazi roughness. Even a far-right guy like Erich Ludendorff criticized Hitler for supporting Röhm, hinting at an old practice of drowning homosexuals in swamps. This pamphlet got a thumbs-up from the left-wing media. The left wing has changed A LOT, huh? 

The SPD newspapers kinda played up homophobia to knock down Nazism, linking homosexuality to the Nazi Party. They used terms like "healthy people's sentiment" in Nazi jargon and hinted that anyone joining Hitler Youth or SA might end up facing some unwanted advances. The antifascist papers linked Nazi homosexuality with their violence and even murder. Some newspapers even published satirical pieces saying the SA was seducing innocent youth into a mix of homosexuality, extreme politics, and militarism.

The communist papers had mixed reactions. Some said Röhm used his power to take advantage of vulnerable workers, while others claimed the Nazi Party was a breeding ground for homosexuality and that Röhm shouldn't be leading young people. Only a few leftists criticized outing Röhm, like Kurt Tucholsky, who argued against banishing someone from society because of their sexual orientation.

On the other hand, homosexual activists didn't like how the Nazi Party was being two-faced about the whole thing. They thought Röhm's private life should've stayed private and criticized the SPD for using homophobia to take down the Nazis. Some said the Nazis' beef was more with Jews than homosexuals and predicted they'd drop their support for anti-gay laws soon.

It was a mess of conflicting opinions and strategies, with some activists warning about the dangers of outing others and how it might come back to haunt them. Röhm himself later slammed the whole scandal as a massive smear campaign, calling it shameless and mean beyond belief.

Röhm made a bunch more enemies in the party when his homosexuality came out, and he ended up feeling pretty alone. He even admitted he was super reliant on Hitler and had to stick to his job without making too many demands. Some of Hitler's pals weren't happy about Röhm and his "homosexual clique" having so much pull. Surprisingly, Röhm got a gig in Hitler's cabinet, probably the first openly gay person in the German government. Nobody else in Weimar politics was out like that. People thought any other party would've kicked Röhm out right away. Some say he was the first openly gay politician worldwide due to all the drama. And look, let’s just avert our eyes, keep walking, and say it was Harvey Milk. The Nazis kinda tolerated Röhm and other gay folks in their crew as long as they were helpful, but they never changed their stance on homosexuality.

The whole Röhm scandal really fueled this wrong idea that the Nazi Party was full of gay folks, which was a big thing in left-wing propaganda back in the 1930s. After the scandal, leftist groups started messing with the SA by shouting stuff like "Hot Röhm" or "Heil Gay," which always led to fights. There were even jokes making fun of Röhm's sexuality, like this one about the perfect German dude. People were talking about this scandal way before 1933, and it got linked to the SPD.

There was this super popular book called "The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror" that said Röhm's assistant was his pimp and got the guy who set the Reichstag on fire for him. They made up this whole story about a gay stormtrooper gang causing the fire, but there was zero proof. The Soviet Union even used this scandal to criminalize being gay, saying it was a threat to the country and linked to fascism. They were really convinced that if they got rid of all the gay people, fascism would just disappear.

The Nazi Party assumed power over all of Germany in 1933.The rise of the Nazis in Germany in 1933 was propelled by a combination of factors. Economic turmoil after World War I left the country in disarray, fostering widespread discontent. Amidst this instability, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party exploited the populace's grievances, employing powerful propaganda, promises of economic recovery, and scapegoating of minorities, especially Jewish citizens, to gain support. The failure of existing political parties to address the nation's challenges further fueled the Nazis' ascent. Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in January 1933 marked the pinnacle of their rise to power, solidifying their control through a mix of manipulation, coercion, and the eventual establishment of a totalitarian regime.

Around mid-1934, Hitler had Röhm and a bunch of his political buddies taken out during what he called the "Night of the Long Knives." The Nazi story was that they found out Röhm was gay and that these killings were to stop an SA coup against the government. They used this idea that gay guys were sneaky plotters to explain it all, and surprisingly, a lot of Germans bought into it. This fear of homosexuality helped Hitler get away with these illegal killings and set the stage for even more violence.

In June 1934, before the Night of the Long Knives purge, Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich cooked up a bunch of fake proof to make it seem like Röhm got a huge pile of cash from France to overthrow Hitler—like, we're talking millions in today's money. They fed made-up stories to SS big shots, saying Röhm was plotting to use the SA against the government. At Hitler's command, a group including Göring, Himmler, Heydrich, and Lutze made hit lists of who to take out, both inside and outside the SA. Göring even brought in a Gestapo guy and spy to help out. Things got real tense when the army went on high alert, but eventually, Hitler got their backing after a couple of key army guys kicked Röhm out of their club.

Hitler played it cool and even went to a wedding bash, but behind the scenes, he was setting up a meeting with SA leaders, giving them a chilling appointment for June 30th. The newspapers were also pumping out articles saying how the army was totally on Hitler's side.

On June 30th, 1934, bright and early, Hitler and a bunch of SS and cops flew over to Munich and rolled up to the Hanselbauer Hotel in Bad Wiessee, where Röhm and his crew were crashing. They caught the SA leaders off guard since they were still snoozing. The SS barged into the hotel, and Hitler himself slapped the cuffs on Röhm and the other top SA guys. According to this guy Kempka, Hitler handed Röhm over to these detectives packing heat without the safety on.

The SS found this Breslau SA leader chilling in bed with an eighteen-year-old dude, and Goebbels made a big deal out of that in Nazi news, saying this whole thing was about cleaning up morals. Kempka spilled in an interview later on that Hitler ordered both that leader and his buddy to be taken out and shot right there. Meanwhile, the SS nabbed the rest of the SA leaders as they were getting off their train for the meeting with Röhm and Hitler.

Even though Hitler didn't prove Röhm was plotting anything, he still went off, trashing the SA leadership. When he got back to party HQ in Munich, he went on a rant in front of a crowd, calling it the worst betrayal ever. He went on about wiping out anyone who wasn't playing by the rules or was "diseased." The crowd, filled with party folks and lucky SA members who dodged arrest, cheered him on.

After hanging with Hitler at Bad Wiessee, Goebbels headed back to Berlin and gave Göring the secret signal "hummingbird" over the phone at 10:00 AM. That was the cue to unleash the execution squads on the rest of their targets, catching them totally off guard.

Hitler told his SS big shot Sepp Dietrich to put together a firing squad and head to Stadelheim Prison in Munich, where Röhm and the other SA leaders were locked up. At the prison yard, the SS squad took out five SA big shots and a colonel. Some others were dragged back to the SS barracks and given these lightning-fast "trials" before getting shot.

Now, when it came to Röhm, Hitler was kind of unsure about pulling the trigger, maybe feeling weird about offing someone he'd worked closely with. But eventually, he gave the green light and even gave Röhm a chance to off himself. On July 1st, a couple of SS guys showed up at Röhm's cell, handing him a loaded pistol, saying he had ten minutes to do the job himself. Röhm wasn't up for it and said if anyone's gonna do it, it should be Adolf himself. When they came back later, Röhm was standing there all defiant, so those SS dudes shot and killed him.

Oh, and Lutze, who had been spying on Röhm, got named the new top dog of the SA after all this chaos.

After the purge, gay men in Nazi Germany faced serious persecution. Himmler thought the country was almost taken over by gay folks and went on a mission to wipe out any gay groups in the Nazi security teams. By the end of World War II, Nazi big shots started blaming Röhm's homosexuality for their failure in the war. They said if Röhm hadn't been gay, they would've shot a bunch of generals instead of SA leaders. It was a pretty messed-up way to shift the blame.

In the 1950s in West Germany, when the Cold War was going strong, the government used the Röhm situation to justify keeping strict anti-gay laws from the Nazi era. They called it the "danger of homosexual subversion."

After the killings from June 30th to July 2nd, 1934, some Germans were pretty shocked, but others saw Hitler as the guy who brought "order" back to the country. Goebbels went full blast with propaganda, making a big deal out of the whole "Röhm-Putsch" in the days after. They made a public spectacle out of Röhm and the other SA leaders being gay, even though Hitler and the gang had known about it for ages.

On July 3rd, they purged the SA officials with this short legal decree called the Law Regarding Measures of State Self-Defence. Some historians think Hitler did this to cover his tracks. The law basically said, "Hey, all that stuff we did a few days back to stop the traitors? Totally legal, 'cause it was self-defense for the State." They didn't really talk about the supposed SA rebellion in public; they just hinted at misconduct and this vague plot.

Hitler even went on national radio on July 13th to explain why he did the whole purge, saying it was to defend against treason. By the time the Night of the Long Knives was over, not just Röhm but more than 200 others were killed, including some big Nazi figures and even folks like a former chancellor and a secretary.

They tried to wipe Röhm out of history by destroying most copies of the 1933 propaganda film he appeared in, "The Victory of Faith." They replaced it with a new one in 1935 called "Triumph of the Will," where they swapped Röhm out for Lutze and downplayed the SA's role.

And then, well - the Holocaust. Hitler wanted it all white, all straight, all pure - note the sickening air quotes, all the time. And he and his creeps and their campaign of terror were responsible for the near decimation of an entire race of people in Germany - the Jews. Not to mention the disabled, the Romani, enemies of prisoners of War, and yeah - gays. Ernst Rohm would have probably had a hard time holding onto power if he hadn't received those bullets back at Stedeikhei prison. He probably would have ended up sporting a pink triangle and a lot slimmer before he bought it in a gas chamber.  And it was the most horrifying evil the world had ever seen, and it was pretty much a black mark on the human race, and yet…shit like that is STILL going on. Like this week? And creeps, very recently, are still spouting Nazi shit, even if it's in the form of dog whistling at political rallies. Shake your head for the world. 

I can’t end on that. Hey! You want to feel better and show the universe we aren’t all bad. Right now, after listrnring to this, shut my annoying voice off and go over to Doctors Without Borders or the Red Cross. These are organizations helping war victims regardless of what side Cooke is on political, looks, choice of mouthwash - give a little, ya know? I will. Cuz’ we’re all we have, people. We’re it. 

If you love Wicked Gay as much as I do - won’t you go and review it on your favorite podcast app, subscribe, and click some stars? I’ll put you on a Christmas list, I swear. And if you REALLY love Wicked Gay, consider signing up for our Patreon. You’ll get what’s becoming a good amount of bonus content, including Wicked Gay episodes only available to subscribers. And there’s something new at least once a month! 

Thank you to Gino and the Goons for Wicked Gay's theme song. And Paul Chapman for the cover art. And JB for additional music And my darling husband for the audio. And you. Cuz’ you’re special, and you’re enough, and it’s ok if the holidays suck in your head. You're not alone. Give yourself the gift of easing up on yourself for once and doing something that makes you smile, gets you off (consent is essential), or brings you peace. And that’s where I’ll leave you. Happy holidays or happy fuck the holidays., Your pick,.