Horrible EXECUTION of Karl Ernst - Brutal NAZI SA Leader murdered during Night of the Long Knives
Horrible EXECUTION of Karl Ernst - Brutal NAZI SA Leader murdered during Night of the Long Knives
Karl Ernst was born on the 1st of September 1904 in Berlin then part of the German Empire. From 1927 to March 1931 Karl Ernst belonged to the supreme SA leadership in Munich. As the SA grew, the organization continued to embrace violence. Storm Troopers aggressively interfered with the meetings of opposing political parties, fought in the streets with other paramilitaries, influenced elections, and intimidated Jews, Roma, Communists, and Social Democrats—groups they believed were “enemies of Germany.” For example, in March 1933 brownshirts in Königsburg ransacked the office of local Social Democrats, beat one of the Social Democrats to death, and then used the office as a torture location. Under Ernst Röhm, the SA not only grew, but also became much better organized. However, Röhm’s position was weakened by his homosexuality and he was dependent on Hitler’s personal support. Röhm’s appointment was opposed from the beginning by some in the SA who saw it as cementing the subordination of the SA to the Nazi Party’s political wing. His homosexuality was seized upon by those who disagreed with the organizational reforms but could not openly criticize Hitler without breaking with Nazism. Hitler said that the personal life of a Nazi was only a concern for the party if it contradicted the fundamental principles of Nazism.
In 1931, the leader of the Berlin SA, Walther Stennes, rebelled against the SA leadership and declared that he and his followers would “never serve under a notorious homosexual like Röhm and his Pupenjungen meaning “male prostitutes”. Among these so called Röhm’s prostitutes” also belonged Karl Ernst. The internal opposition to Röhm intensified in February 1931 when Hitler replaced Stennes with Paul Schulz, who promoted two suspected homosexuals, Edmund Heines and Karl Ernst, within the Berlin SA. Rumor had it that Ernst was only promoted because of an intimate relationship with Paul Röhrbein, a friend of Röhm’s who was not a member of the party or SA. Many Berlin SA personnel disagreed with these appointments, complaining about the “Röhm-Röhrbein-Ernst Triple Alliance”, which was perceived as a homosexual clique. Karl Ernst was generally called “Frau von Röhrbein” meaning “ Mrs. Röhrbein” because of his long-standing relationship with Paul Röhrbein, who had helped him to rise within the party.
On the night of 26th of June 1931, a Nazi named Walter Bergmann was arrested at a Berlin pub where he had found Ernst and Röhrbein together. Bergmann shouted, “Look at these parasites on the party, these Pupenjungen, these damned sodomizers who let the party’s reputation go to hell.”
Even though Ernst gave his word of honor not to be homosexual, he was said to have participated in orgies organized on yacht of Erik Hanussen, a Jewish charlatan and clairvoyant who lent Karl Ernst as well as other high-ranking Nazis substantial sums of money but despite Hanussen’s generosity, Ernst would participate in his murder which took place 2 years later.
On the evening of the 12th of September 1931, Karl Ernst, together with a radical Nazi antisemite, Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorff organized a riot in Kurfürstendamm, one of the most famous avenues in Berlin, during which about 1000 SA men physically attacked Jews leaving the synagogue and passers-by with slogans such as “Jews, die” and “Beat the Jews dead!”
In December 1931 Ernst became an adjutant to the SA group in Berlin as an SA OberFührer and from July 1932 to March 1933 he led the SA subgroup Berlin East.
After Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party came into power in January 1933. On the night of the 27th of February 1933 the Reichstag building - burned down due to arson. The Nazi leadership and its German Nationalist coalition partners exploited the fire to persuade President Paul von Hindenburg that Communists were planning a violent uprising to derail Germany’s “national renewal” and that emergency legislation was needed to prevent this. Commonly known as the Reichstag Fire Decree, the resulting act “For the Protection of the People and State” abolished a number of constitutional protections and paved the way for Nazi dictatorship.
Join World History channel and get access to benefits: / @worldhistoryvideos
Disclaimer: All opinions and comments below are from members of the public and do not reflect the views of World History channel. We do not accept promoting violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on attributes such as: race, nationality, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation. World History has right to review the comments and delete them if they are deemed inappropriate.
► CLICK the SUBSCRIBE button for more interesting clips: / @worldhistoryvideos
#ww2 #worldwar2videos #worldhistory
Content
0.6 -> The 30th of January 1933. Adolf Hitler is
appointed chancellor of Germany bringing
7.86 -> an end to German democracy. A critical
component of the Führer’s rise to power is
13.08 -> the Sturmabteilung or the SA, a paramilitary
organization associated with the Nazi Party,
19.14 -> now counting more than 3 million members. Soon
its leader Ernst Röhm will start to demand the
26.16 -> removal of German elites from power and their
replacement with fanatical Nazis. However, Hitler
32.16 -> needs the support of these elites—particularly
the military leadership—to consolidate power
37.14 -> and ultimately sees the SA as a threat. During
the Night of the Long Knives he purges the SA,
43.26 -> effectively ending their political and military
power. One of its leading men is Karl Ernst.
50.4 -> Karl Ernst was born on the
1st of September 1904 in
54.78 -> Berlin then part of the German Empire. His
father was a cavalryman who after the First
60 -> World War worked as a bodyguard of Friedrich
Flick – an extremely wealthy industrialist
64.68 -> whose enterprises were instrumental
in Nazi Germany's rearmament efforts.
69.36 -> After completing elementary school, between
1918 and 1921 Karl Ernst took a commercial
75.54 -> apprenticeship as an export merchant.
He then worked as a hotel bellboy,
79.68 -> a bouncer at a gay nightclub as well as a
commercial clerk in Berlin and Mainz. In
85.02 -> 1923 he entered the Sturmabteilung
– the SA – the Nazi paramilitary
90.18 -> force also known as the Storm Troopers or the
"Brownshirts" for the color of their uniform.
95.16 -> In the aftermath of the First World
War which ended in 1918, Freikorps,
100.92 -> or independent paramilitary units, proliferated
across Germany. Composed primarily of World War
106.98 -> I veterans returning from the war, the
Freikorps fought against communists and
111.36 -> other groups they believed were responsible for
German defeat. By 1921, approximately 400,000
117.78 -> men were involved in paramilitary groups.
One of these groups was the Gymnastics and
122.34 -> Sports Division in Bavaria, which was
later renamed the Sturmabteilung or SA.
126.84 -> The SA was associated with
the German Workers’ Party,
130.2 -> which in turn was renamed the National Socialist
German Workers’ Party, better known as the Nazis.
136.02 -> The SA’s primary responsibilities were to
serve as Adolf Hitler’s security detail,
140.88 -> provide military support to enforce Hitler’s
orders, and prevent the functioning of opposing
145.74 -> parties, by whatever means necessary. One of the
SA’s first organized activities was the Munich
151.44 -> Beer Hall putsch which took place on 8–9 November
1923 when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party led a
158.58 -> coalition group in an attempt to overthrow the
German government. The plotters hoped to march
163.26 -> on Berlin to launch a national revolution but the
insurrection failed miserably. Units of the Munich
168.9 -> police force clashed with Nazi stormtroopers
as they marched into the city center. The two
174 -> groups exchanged fire, which resulted in the
deaths of 16 Nazi Party members and four police
179.1 -> officers. This attempted coup d'état came to be
known as the Beer Hall Putsch. Its ringleaders,
184.86 -> including Adolf Hitler, were arrested.
Hitler was convicted of high treason and
189.84 -> sentenced to five years in prison. However,
he only served eight months of his sentence.
193.98 -> After Hitler was released from jail, the SA was
formally reestablished in February 1925. In 1926,
202.86 -> 6,000 Storm Troopers participated
in the Nazi Party rally in Weimar.
206.4 -> By 1930, however, the SA had grown to 60,000
members. With the devastating economic effects
213.06 -> of the Great Depression, the SA grew quickly,
reaching 77,000 members by January 1931; 221,000
220.92 -> by November 1931; 445,000 by August
1932; and 3 million by April 1934,
229.26 -> once Hitler was in power. At this time, it
significantly outnumbered the German army.
235.26 -> From 1927 to March 1931 Karl Ernst belonged
to the supreme SA leadership in Munich.
241.74 -> As the SA grew, the organization
continued to embrace violence.
246.3 -> Storm Troopers aggressively interfered with
the meetings of opposing political parties,
250.44 -> fought in the streets with other paramilitaries,
influenced elections, and intimidated Jews, Roma,
256.68 -> Communists, and Social Democrats—groups they
believed were “enemies of Germany.” For example,
263.1 -> in March 1933 brownshirts in Königsburg
ransacked the office of local Social Democrats,
268.8 -> beat one of the Social Democrats to death, and
then used the office as a torture location.
273.42 -> Under Ernst Röhm, the SA not only grew, but
also became much better organized. However,
280.14 -> Röhm’s position was weakened by his homosexuality
and he was dependent on Hitler's personal support.
286.2 -> Röhm's appointment was opposed from the
beginning by some in the SA who saw it
290.46 -> as cementing the subordination of the
SA to the Nazi Party's political wing.
294.72 -> His homosexuality was seized upon by those who
disagreed with the organizational reforms but
300.24 -> could not openly criticize Hitler without breaking
with Nazism. Hitler said that the personal life
306.42 -> of a Nazi was only a concern for the party if it
contradicted the fundamental principles of Nazism.
312.9 -> In 1931, the leader of the Berlin SA, Walther
Stennes, rebelled against the SA leadership and
319.68 -> declared that he and his followers would
"never serve under a notorious homosexual
323.76 -> like Röhm and his Pupenjungen meaning
“male prostitutes". Among these so called
328.98 -> Röhm’s prostitutes” also belonged Karl Ernst.
The internal opposition to Röhm intensified
334.8 -> in February 1931 when Hitler replaced
Stennes with Paul Schulz, who promoted
339.84 -> two suspected homosexuals, Edmund Heines and
Karl Ernst, within the Berlin SA. Rumor had
345.9 -> it that Ernst was only promoted because of
an intimate relationship with Paul Röhrbein,
350.22 -> a friend of Röhm's who was not a member of the
party or SA. Many Berlin SA personnel disagreed
357.18 -> with these appointments, complaining about
the "Röhm-Röhrbein-Ernst Triple Alliance",
361.26 -> which was perceived as a homosexual clique.
Karl Ernst was generally called
366.06 -> "Frau von Röhrbein" meaning “ Mrs.
Röhrbein” because of his long-standing
370.14 -> relationship with Paul Röhrbein, who
had helped him to rise within the party.
373.56 -> On the night of 26th of June 1931, a Nazi named
Walter Bergmann was arrested at a Berlin pub where
381.54 -> he had found Ernst and Röhrbein together. Bergmann
shouted, "Look at these parasites on the party,
387.24 -> these Pupenjungen, these damned sodomizers
who let the party's reputation go to hell."
393 -> Even though Ernst gave his word of honor
not to be homosexual, he was said to have
397.44 -> participated in orgies organized on yacht of Erik
Hanussen, a Jewish charlatan and clairvoyant who
403.2 -> lent Karl Ernst as well as other high-ranking
Nazis substantial sums of money but despite
408.18 -> Hanussen’s generosity, Ernst would participate
in his murder which took place 2 years later.
412.86 -> On the evening of the 12th of September 1931, Karl
Ernst, together with a radical Nazi antisemite,
419.34 -> Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorff
organized a riot in Kurfürstendamm,
423.48 -> one of the most famous avenues in Berlin, during
which about 1000 SA men physically attacked Jews
429.78 -> leaving the synagogue and passers-by with slogans
such as "Jews, die" and "Beat the Jews dead!"
436.62 -> In December 1931 Ernst became an adjutant to
the SA group in Berlin as an SA OberFührer
443.28 -> and from July 1932 to March 1933
he led the SA subgroup Berlin East.
449.16 -> After Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party came into
power in January 1933. On the night of the 27th
456.3 -> of February 1933 the Reichstag building - burned
down due to arson. The Nazi leadership and its
462.84 -> German Nationalist coalition partners exploited
the fire to persuade President Paul von Hindenburg
467.64 -> that Communists were planning a violent uprising
to derail Germany’s "national renewal" and that
472.98 -> emergency legislation was needed to prevent this.
Commonly known as the Reichstag Fire Decree,
479.1 -> the resulting act “For the Protection of
the People and State” abolished a number
482.1 -> of constitutional protections and paved the way
for Nazi dictatorship. The decree suspended the
487.86 -> right to assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of
the press, and other constitutional protections,
493.32 -> including all restraints on police investigations.
It has been suggested that it was Karl Ernst who,
499.86 -> with a small party of stormtroopers, passed
through a passage from the Palace of the President
503.76 -> of the Reichstag, and set the Reichstag building
on fire on the night of 27 February 1933 but the
510.42 -> consensus of nearly all historians is that Marinus
van der Lubbe was the one who set the fire.
515.28 -> After Adolf Hitler became a chancellor, many
political leaders, including President Paul von
520.8 -> Hindenburg and Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen,
feared that the SA had become too powerful.
526.68 -> The SA continued to provide key support to the
Nazi regime as it consolidated its power into a
532.26 -> dictatorship in 1933. However, the SA leadership
had demands to “finish” the Nazi revolution.
537.9 -> Röhm’s plan was for the SA to absorb and replace
the German military. This behavior became a source
544.62 -> of embarrassment and discomfort for Hitler in his
dealings with the traditional German nationalist
548.82 -> elites. The SA leadership sought to remove the
elites from power and replace them with fanatical
554.04 -> Nazis. However, Hitler, Nazi Party leadership, and
the leadership of the SS, at the time a formation
560.28 -> of the SA, understood that the Nazi regime needed
to work with the traditional elites as they would
565.86 -> need their support to consolidate power and
prepare the nation for a war of expansion.
570.6 -> As early as April 1934, Himmler
and Heydrich began to conspire with
575.28 -> Göring to persuade Hitler to eliminate Röhm.
In June 1934, in preparation for the purge
581.34 -> known as the Night of the Long Knives,
both Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich,
584.88 -> chief of the SS Security Service, assembled
a dossier of manufactured evidence to suggest
589.8 -> that Röhm had been paid 12 million Reichs Marks,
60 million usd in today’s value, by the government
595.08 -> of France to overthrow Hitler. Leading officers
in the SS were shown falsified evidence on the
600.78 -> 24th of June that Röhm planned to use the
SA to launch a plot against the government.
606.18 -> At Hitler's direction, Hermann Göring,
Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich
611.04 -> drew up lists of people in and
outside the SA to be killed.
614.94 -> Meanwhile, President von Hindenburg,
the leadership of the Reichswehr,
618.9 -> and Hitler’s conservative coalition
partners, including Vice-Chancellor
622.74 -> Franz von Papen, issued warnings about
the increasingly radical Nazi regime.
627.6 -> If the “revolutionary elements” of the Nazi regime
were not brought under control, the army leaders
632.88 -> threatened to overthrow the Hitler government
and place the country under martial law.
636.6 -> Despite radical rhetoric, neither Röhm
nor his top commanders ever planned to
641.58 -> seize power in Germany. Hitler
considered Röhm one of his few
645 -> friends and procrastinated over
the decision. Tension, meanwhile,
648.96 -> increased towards the end of spring 1934. The
plot against Röhm took on a more defined shape.
655.02 -> Hitler tasked Himmler and the SS with carrying
out the purge. On the 28th of June Hitler
661.32 -> ordered Röhm to assemble the top SA leaders
at a Bavarian spa in Bad Wiessee. SS units,
667.08 -> commanded by Dachau concentration camp commandant
Theodor Eicke, surprised the SA leaders on the
672.78 -> morning of the 30th of June. They transported
them to Munich’s Stadelheim prison. There,
678.66 -> SS men shot most of the SA leaders. Hitler
remained indecisive about Röhm’s fate
684 -> until the 1st of July. On that day—on Hitler’s
order—Eicke shot Röhm in his cell. All evidence
691.26 -> suggests that Röhm was loyal to Hitler until
the very end, despite Nazi claims otherwise.
696.36 -> The SS murdered the top SA leaders both
in Munich and around the country and it
701.76 -> also took the opportunity to eliminate
several other political opponents such
705.6 -> as General Kurt von Schleicher -
Hitler’s predecessor as Chancellor.
708.72 -> They mostly targeted right-wing nationalists,
711.54 -> as well as former supporters whom they
believed betrayed the Nazis. Among those
716.34 -> the SS killed between the 30th of June
and the 2nd of July was also Karl Ernst.
721.5 -> On the 30th of June, he planned to travel
from Bremerhaven to Madeira on a ship,
726.48 -> where he intended to spend his honeymoon.
On that day, when he wanted to board the
731.22 -> ship together with his bride and his friend Martin
Kirschbaum, who had financed the passage for him,
736.2 -> he was arrested on the basis of an arrest
warrant arriving from Berlin. Previously,
741.84 -> Ernst had been sought in Berlin in vain. After his
arrest, he was brutally beaten and handed over to
747.3 -> an SS commando led by Kurt Gildisch, one of Adolf
Hitler's personal bodyguards who together with his
753.06 -> men brutally tortured and interrogated Ernst.
Gildisch together with Ernst then traveled to
758.76 -> Berlin in a special plane and after arriving at
the central airport of Tempelhof, he was taken to
764.04 -> the SS barracks in Berlin. Karl Ernst was 29 years
old when he was shot on the the 30th of June 1934
771.66 -> by a firing squad consisting of the members of
Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler which was Hitler's
777.42 -> personal bodyguard unit, responsible for guarding
the Führer's person, offices, and residences.
783.12 -> His death certificate put the time of death
at 9:37 am. His shooting had been reported
788.76 -> on the radio a few hours earlier as having been
carried out. Since Ernst considered himself the
794.28 -> victim of an unfortunate mistake right up to the
end, he died with the Nazi salute on his lips.
799.86 -> Although the assertion was made several times
that Ernst's wife had also been murdered,
804.42 -> it is not correct. She was released
from protective custody on the14th of
809.04 -> July 1934 and then lived in Berlin, dying in 1982.
813.9 -> At Hitler’s request, the German parliament
declared the killings legal after the fact, based
819.12 -> on a false accusation that Röhm and his commanders
had planned to overthrow the government.
823.86 -> In his speech to the Reichstag on the
13th of July justifying his actions,
828.36 -> Hitler alleged that both Schleicher and Röhm
were traitors working in the pay of France.
832.74 -> This purge demonstrated the Nazi regime’s
willingness to go outside of the law to
837.6 -> commit murder as an act of state for
the perceived survival of the nation.
842.04 -> On the 1st of August 1934, one day
before President Hindenburg's death,
847.02 -> Hitler’s cabinet passed the "Law Concerning
the Highest State Office of the Reich," which
851.88 -> stipulated that upon Hindenburg's death, the
office of the president – head of state - would
856.62 -> be abolished and its powers merged with chancellor
- head of government - under the title of Führer.
862.2 -> On the second of August 1934, two
hours after Hindenburg's death,
867.18 -> Hitler proclaimed himself the Führer
of Germany and claimed absolute power.
873.3 -> There were no tears shed for Karl Ernst.
882.48 -> thanks for watching the World History
Channel be sure to like And subscribe
886.26 -> and take the Bell notification
icon so you don't miss our next
889.5 -> episodes we thank you and we'll
see you next time on the channel
