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Ernst Röhm Quotes

Ernst Julius Günther Röhm was a German military officer and an early member of the Nazi Party. As one of the members of its predecessor, the German Workers' Party, he was a close friend and early ally of Adolf Hitler and a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung , the Nazi Party's militia, and later was its commander. By 1934, the German Army feared the SA's influence and Hitler had come to see Röhm as a potential rival, so he was executed during the Night of the Long Knives. Wikipedia  

✵ 28. November 1887 – 1. July 1934
Ernst Röhm photo
Ernst Röhm: 12 quotes5 likes

Famous Ernst Röhm Quotes

“Adolf is a swine. He will give us all away. He only associates with reactionaries now. His old friends aren't good enough for him. Getting matey with the East Prussian generals. They're his cronies now. Adolf is turning into a gentleman. He's got himself a tail-coat now. Adolf knows exactly what I want. I've told him often enough. Not a second edition of the old imperial army. Are we revolutionaries or aren't we? Allons, enfants de la patrie! If we are, then something new must arise out of our élan, like the mass armies of the French Revolution. If we're not, then we'll go to the dogs. We've got to produce something new, don't you see? A new discipline. A new principle of organization. The generals are a lot of old fogeys. They never had a new idea.”

Ernst Röhm

To Hermann Rauschning about Adolf Hitler in May, 1933. Quoted in "Hitler: Study of a Revolutionary?" - Page 82 to Page 83 - by Martyn Housden - History - 2000

“Since I am an immature and wicked man, war and unrest appeal to me more than good bourgeois order. Brutality is respected, the people need wholesome fear. They want to fear someone. They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive.”

Ernst Röhm

Cited in "The Nazis: A Warning from History", Disc 1, 10:48. Also quoted in "The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership" - Page 139 by Joachim C. Fest - History - 1999

“I expect that on the 1st of August, the SA will be once more ready for duty. If the enemies of the SA are hoping that the SA will not return from leave, we are ready to let them enjoy the hope for a short time. The SA is, and remains, Germany's destiny.”

Ernst Röhm

SA summer furlough decree, published in Völkischer Beobachter (10 June 1934)

“If I am to be killed, let Adolf do it himself!”

Ernst Röhm

The day Röhm was killed. Quoted in "Famous Last Words" - Page 68 - by Laura Ward, Robert Allen - 2004

“All revolutions devour their own children.”

Ernst Röhm

Remark in prison to Hans Frank (30 June 1934) paraphrasing Pierre Vergniaud; quoted in The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership (1999) by Joachim C. Fest

“I am still today a soldier and only a soldier. (Ich bin noch heute Soldat und nur Soldat)”

Ernst Röhm

Quoted in "Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf: Die Geschichte der SS" - by Heinz Höhne - 1967 - Page 26

Ernst Röhm Quotes

“Many things are between us and the Communists, but we respect the sincerity of their conviction and their willingness to bring sacrifices for their own cause, and this unites us with them.”

Ernst Röhm

Die Geschichte eines Hochverräters (The Story of a High Traitor – Rohm’s autobiography), Munich, Verlag Frz. Eher Nachf. GmbH, 1933, Volksausgabe, p. 273

“Hitler can't walk over me as he might have done a year ago; I've seen to that. Don't forget that I have three million men, with every key position in the hands of my own people, Hitler knows that I have friends in the Reichswehr, you know! If Hitler is reasonable I shall settle the matter quietly; if he isn't I must be prepared to use force - not for my sake but for the sake of our revolution.”

Ernst Röhm

To Kurt Ludecke in January, 1934. Quoted in "History's Greatest Conspiracies" - by H. Paul Jeffers - History - 2004

“He (Hitler) is thinking about the peasant girls. When they stand in the fields and bend down at their work so that you can see their behinds, that's what he likes, especially when they've got big round ones. That's Hitler's sex life. What a man.”

Ernst Röhm

While Hitler, who was present, stared at him with compressed lips. Quoted in "Getting Hitler Into Heaven" - Page 44 - by John Graven Hughes, Heinz Linge - 1987

“Last words after being shot by Michael Lippert. Quoted in "Himmler's Secret War: The Covert Peace Negotiations of Heinrich Himmler" - Page 39 - by Martin Allen - Biography & Autobiography - 2005”

Ernst Röhm

Mein Führer, mein Führer!

“Röhm deceived himself when he thought that his closeness to Hitler would allow him to survive while other German homosexual men were being persecuted. Röhm was not murdered because he was homosexual, but the fact that he was so gave his enemies a means of turning Hitler against him and securing his destruction.”

Ernst Röhm

Robert Aldrich, "Who's who in Gay and Lesbian History from Antiquity to World War II", London and New York, Routledge, 2001, p. 377.

“Ernst Roehm was a thug. He was a brutish and zealous believer in National Socialism. If anything, he was more radical than Hitler. He believed in the elimination of anyone connected with the old order, businessmen, office holders of any kind. He became the leader of the SA, the Storm Troopers, whose terror tactics had helped make Hitler the leader of Germany.”

Ernst Röhm

Vance Stewart, "Three Against One," 2002

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