Adolf Hitler Versus Ernst Röhm

Two old Nazi comrades who became deadly enemies

Everyone knows the name of Adolf Hitler, but that of Ernst Röhm is far less familiar. However, had things worked out differently, the reverse might well have been the case.

Ernst Röhm was born in Munich (Bavaria) in 1887 (making him two years older than Hitler). Coming from an aristocratic and military background he joined the German army in 1906 and was seriously wounded by shrapnel shortly after World War I broke out. His facial injuries could only be repaired to the extent allowed by the standards of plastic surgery at that time, with the result that he remained severely scarred for the rest of his life. He returned to the front and was wounded on two further occasions, eventually being invalided to an office job.

Adolf Hitler, whose origins were more middle-class, was also a soldier during World War I, and, like Ernst Röhm, he suffered injuries at the western front, although his were not as serious as Röhm’s.

The outcome of the war horrified both men, who regarded the settlement imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, in Hitler’s words, as “the greatest villainy of the century”. They both saw a need to fight on and not let the German military spirit die. Hitler remained a member of the Reichswehr (the much reduced German…