IMT01-T181
VolumeVolume I — Page 181
In any consideration of the crushing of opposition, the massacre of 30 June 1934 must not be forgotten. It has become known as the "Röhm Purge" or "the blood bath", and revealed the methods which Hitler and his immediate associates, including the Defendant Göring, were ready to employ to strike down all opposition and consolidate their power. On that day Röhm, the Chief of Staff of the SA since 1931, was murdered by Hitler's orders, and the "Old Guard" of the SA was massacred without trial and without warning. The opportunity was taken to murder a large number of people who at one time or another had opposed Hitler.
The ostensible ground for the murder of Röhm was that he was plotting to overthrow Hitler, and the Defendant Göring gave evidence that knowledge of such a plot had come to his ears. Whether this was so or not it is not necessary to determine.
On 3 July the Cabinet approved Hitler's action and described it as "legitimate self-defense by the State."
Shortly afterwards Hindenburg died, and Hitler became both Reich President and Chancellor. At the Nazi-dominated plebiscite, which followed, 38 million Germans expressed their approval, and with the Reichswehr taking the oath of allegiance to the Führer, full power was now in Hitler's hands.
Germany had accepted the dictatorship with all its methods of terror, and its cynical and open denial of the rule of law.
Apart from the policy of crushing the potential opponents of their regime, the Nazi Government took active steps to increase its power over the German population. In the field of education, everything was done to ensure that the youth of Germany was brought up in the atmosphere of National Socialism and accepted National Socialist teachings. As early as 7 April 1933 the law reorganizing the civil service had made it possible for the Nazi Government to remove all "subversive and unreliable teachers"; and this was followed by numerous other measures to make sure that the schools were staffed by teachers who could be trusted to teach their pupils the full meaning of the National Socialist creed. Apart from the influence of National Socialist teaching in the schools, the Hitler Youth Organization was also relied upon by the Nazi Leaders for obtaining fanatical support from the younger generation. The Defendant Von Schirach, who had been Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP since 1931, was appointed Youth Leader of the German Reich in June 1933. Soon all the youth organizations had been either dissolved or absorbed by the Hitler Youth, with the exception of the "Catholic Youth. The Hitler Youth was organized on
