Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

THE BLOOD PURGE 763count, 'presented a disgraceful picture. Heines lay in bed with ahomosexual boy. The disgusting scene which took place during thearrest of Heines and his friend defies description.' Hitler ordered MajorBuch 'ruthlessly to exterminate this pestilential tumor.' Heines and hiscompanion were dragged out and shot in a car by Maurice and Weber:they were the first dead.They were literally buried in mud. A storm of public defamationdescended upon these dead men, which described their unnaturaltendencies with the most loathsome details; Goebbels's propagandamade it almost their principal crime that they had defiled the Fuhrer'spure movement with their dirty practices — which only four daysearlier Hess had termed 'little weaknesses.' Hitler hastily went back toMunich ordering Rohm's staff guard to precede him. This guard hadappeared shortly after the arrest of their leader and did not make anyattempt to free him — another sign that at least the troops were notprepared for a rebellion against Hitler. On his way back, Hitlerintercepted car after car full of S.A. leaders on their way to theconference at Wiessee; he ordered some of them to follow him andsignified to others that they were arrested — and no attempt to resistwas reported. Followed by a long file of dismayed prisoners andfrightened henchmen Hitler returned to Munich.As Hess later suggested, these arrests were fairly arbitrary, madechiefly on the basis of feeling — and Hitler's feeling seems frequentlyto have been based on a suspicion that the person concerned hadhomosexual tendencies. This suspicion, Hess admitted, was not alwaysjustified and some of the arrests were the result of 'tragicentanglements,' that is to say, the victims were innocent. In the speechwhich Hitler made before the non-arrested party leaders at noon on June30, he chiefly accused Rohm and his men for their loose or depravedconduct and declared that for this alone they deserved to die. To Lutze,whom he had appointed Rohm's successor, he sent an order comprisingtwelve points, which dealt almost exclusively with parties, drinkingbouts, automobile trips, squandering and unnatural lewdness indulged inby Rohm and his gang — and stressed the necessity of putting an end toall that.For the space of ten years he had known and tolerated these