The Night of the Long Knives , sometimes called Operation Hummingbird or, in Germany, the Röhm-Putsch, was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany between June 30 and July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders. Leading figures of the left-wing Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party, along with its namesake, Gregor Strasser, were murdered, as were prominent conservative anti-Nazis . Many of those killed were leaders of the Sturmabteilung , the paramilitary brownshirts. Adolf Hitler moved against the SA and its leader, Ernst Röhm, because... Hitler saw the independence of the SA and the penchant of its members for street violence as a direct threat to his newly gained political power. He also wanted to conciliate leaders of the Reichswehr, the official German military who feared and despised the SA—in particular Röhm's ambition to absorb the Reichswehr into the SA under Röhm's leadership.
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June 30, 1934 - July 2, 1934
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