[ Wind rushing softly ] ♪♪ -In late 1933, Chancellor Adolf Hitler is one step away from total power.

Only Germany's elderly president, Paul von Hindenburg, stands in his way, the one man with the power to sack a chancellor.

So it's vital for Hitler to keep him onside.

♪♪ -Believe it or not, Hitler can be charming, and he exercised this charm on Hindenburg and I think to probably quite good effect.

♪♪ Von Hindenburg is -- perhaps against his better judgment... becomes a little impressed by Hitler.

♪♪ -This is the story of how Hitler went from chancellor to all-powerful dictator.

♪♪ To piece together how it happened, historians and experts have examined this period, each from a different individual perspective.

-You cajole.

You influence.

You manipulate.

-They'll take us inside the minds of those that fought fascism... -They realized that these people are after your heads.

They want to annihilate you from existence altogether.

-...and the Nazis themselves.

-Himmler genuinely believed that he would create a racially pure Germany where the Aryan race would reign supreme.

♪♪ -The moments when history hung in the balance... [ Lighter clicks ] ...and the world's worst atrocities could have been prevented.

[ Indistinct shouting ] -Mass murder was no problem.

[ Gunshots ] But it was important to be socially acceptable.

♪♪ -Do people care about the truth?

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Crackling ] [ Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Adolf Hitler will go on to oversee the murder of millions of people.

♪♪ But in 1933, he is the outwardly respectable chancellor of Germany, the equivalent of prime minister.

♪♪ But just under a year into the job, he's finding being in government a difficult balancing act.

♪♪ He has two very different audiences to please -- the aristocratic elite... the president, the generals... and his vice chancellor.

They're uneasy about the Nazis, seeing them as thuggish and worrying they could destabilize the whole system.

♪♪ On the other hand, Hitler has his base -- the stormtroopers, the paramilitary wing of the Nazis, over two million angry young men.

They're waiting for Hitler to deliver the Nazi revolution he promised.

♪♪ None more so than the leader of the stormtroopers.

♪♪ [ Lighter clicks ] ♪♪ -For Rohm, the aim was a revolution in Germany, to change the political system.

♪♪ Ernst Rohm was a trained officer.

He was military and ruthless.

♪♪ Rohm is an adventurer.

♪♪ He is not really a politician.

♪♪ Hitler owes Rohm a lot, and he knows that.

Rohm is one of his oldest comrades.

♪♪ ♪♪ Hitler promised Rohm that they would get rid of the old elites, that they would get rid of the rich and they would change the whole system.

Hitler couldn't hold his promises.

♪♪ -Unleashing violence against their left-wing enemies.

Rohm's stormtroopers have been useful to Hitler, but now they could become a threat.

[ People screaming ] Their violent attacks are upsetting the public.

As chancellor, Hitler wants things to appear calm.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Rohm's actions posed a problem for Hitler because Hitler needed to persuade the elites.

You need to persuade the conservative establishment.

You need to persuade Hindenburg.

But he was to be trusted that he was a solid bourgeois statesman.

Hitler got increasingly concerned about Rohm's discontent, as it were, and about his whole kind of persona as a rough, soldierly, violent type.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -But Hitler needs to placate Rohm.

And in a move that risks upsetting the aristocratic elites, he brings the revolutionary Rohm into the political fold, giving him a job in the cabinet.

♪♪ He's minister without portfolio.

♪♪ But Rohm isn't satisfied.

He feels he and his millions of stormtroopers were promised more.

-Rohm doesn't want to command auxiliaries.

He wanted an army.

He saw himself as a commander, the commander of the new Nazi army.

♪♪ These are promises Hitler made before he became chancellor.

In his view, Hitler... betrays his friends.

♪♪ -So, running out of patience, Rohm makes a wild and bold move.

He goes behind Hitler's back and tries to take control of the army from the aristocratic generals, men who report directly to the army's supreme commander, President Hindenburg.

♪♪ -I suspect Hindenburg is pretty horrified at this.

The armed forces are the servants of that state and of its people... on an apolitical basis.

And there is no room for political maneuvering by the armed forces of any state.

They were just a load of bully boys, and were by no means an army which could, for example, attack France and prevail.

I mean, it's unthinkable.

That was the job of the army proper.

♪♪ -So Hitler can't afford to upset the generals and the president.

But with Rohm, it's more than politics.

It's personal.

♪♪ -Rohm opened gates for Hitler.

Rohm was the one who had influence.

Hitler is a frequent visitor to the Rohm family -- Rohm's mother and his sister Eleonore.

So they became friends.

♪♪ And therefore Rohm is someone who supports Hitler not only politically, but at the same time personally.

-And when Hitler's niece and rumored lover killed herself, it was Rohm he wanted with him at the graveside.

♪♪ Hitler is stuck between the president and his friend.

♪♪ When it comes to dealing with Rohm, Hermann Goering has no such qualms.

♪♪ -For Goering, the problem with Rohm, I think, is that Rohm has ambitions to be a... second perhaps to Hitler.

You know, that's what Goering wants to be.

Is it possible perhaps that Rohm is thinking of launching some kind of revolution, even putting Hitler to one side?

Now, for Goering, that would be unthinkable.

You've got to find a way of persuading Hitler that this is the point at which he's got to break that friendship with Rohm.

He's got to recognize that Rohm is not just a companion, but he's a threat.

So one thing Goering has got to do is to show Hitler evidence that Rohm is not loyal.

♪♪ -So Goering orders his secret surveillance organization, the Research Bureau, to go after Rohm... ♪♪ ♪♪ ...building a file of everything Rohm says or does.

[ Static ] ♪♪ And Hitler publicly forces Rohm to back down from his demands for the stormtroopers to take over Germany's army.

♪♪ ♪♪ He summons Rohm and the army leaders to a meeting where he makes it clear that the army, and not the stormtroopers, are Germany's military force.

♪♪ It's a devastating blow for Rohm.

He's even forced to shake hands with the defense minister, General Blomberg.

♪♪ -Shaking hands with Blomberg meant nothing to Rohm.

♪♪ He saw the Nazi party, the Nazi militia... now in the driver's seat.

♪♪ -Afterwards, Rohm makes a series of thinly veiled threats.

♪♪ -Rohm very openly criticized Hitler for his decision to go with an army.

Therefore he was kind of a dangerous person because Rohm didn't let go.

He doesn't accept it.

♪♪ And he was a danger to this whole notion of Hitler as unfailable fuhrer.

♪♪ -Goering now makes a shrewd move in his plot against Rohm.

♪♪ He enlists the help of his rival, Heinrich Himmler.

♪♪ Over the past year, Himmler has taken over police forces across Germany, but the biggest and most powerful remains outside his control.

In April, Goering gives Himmler the thing he wants most -- his Gestapo.

In exchange, Goering plans to harness Himmler's terror network to bring down Rohm.

-Himmler's pleased.

He's now inspector of the Gestapo, so he's almost there and on his way to taking over control of all German police forces.

One character trait about Himmler that is the most important one is his absolute careerism and his ruthlessness, his ambition, his drive to make it to the top.

Here is someone who prioritizes rational procedures over emotions, over human feelings.

♪♪ -As head of the stormtroopers, Rohm is Himmler's superior, a man he'd once hero-worshipped.

♪♪ But Himmler now dreams of destroying the stormtroopers and making his own SS Germany's only paramilitary force.

♪♪ -Himmler in public had to display some loyalty to Ernst Rohm.

♪♪ Behind the scenes, Himmler had no qualms about getting rid of Rohm.

♪♪ Himmler is collecting evidence against Rohm, putting Rohm into a really bad light in terms of Rohm's private life, in terms of Rohm's political activities.

Himmler makes sure that it reaches Hitler's desk.

♪♪ Himmler hopes very much that Hitler will finally act and eliminate Rohm.

-Rohm has an Achilles' heel that Goering and Himmler are keen to exploit.

[ Big-band music plays ] He's openly gay at a time when it's illegal.

He frequented Berlin's famous gay club, the Eldorado, sipping cocktails with men dressed in drag.

♪♪ -Rohm lived a different life than all others.

He was a homosexual, and he lived this kind of life more and more openly.

He met with male prostitutes.

In the view of his comrades, he was not normal.

♪♪ -Since the Nazis came to power, they've strictly enforced the socially conservative laws, meaning Rohm could face imprisonment for his sexuality.

♪♪ Defying his colleagues, Rohm has joined an organization campaigning for gay rights.

♪♪ -The Nazis wanted to transform society.

Everything should be clean, Aryan.

No prostitutes.

No smoking women.

And Rohm dismissed this.

♪♪ In a letter, he said, "I know it's a criminal act in Germany, but then I'm a criminal, and they have to take me like this."

♪♪ Rohm obviously felt very secure because he was such a close friend to Hitler.

♪♪ -For years, Rohm's sexuality has been an open secret.

Hitler even defended Rohm when the press tried to expose him.

♪♪ -Hitler wasn't particularly bothered by Rohm's homosexuality.

He sort of forgave him because of his services to the movement and his obvious loyalty to Hitler.

Hitler didn't really want to know about people's private lives, I think.

Hitler had a certain kind of loyalty to old comrades, which he certainly felt towards Rohm.

-But now Hitler sees that Rohm's sexuality could be a way to bring him down.

Meanwhile, Rohm is making his own moves.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ In early 1934, Rohm stages stormtrooper maneuvers across Germany.

Stormtrooper membership is growing fast, and Rohm now commands around 4 million men.

He publicly calls for revolution.

♪♪ ♪♪ Unable to bring Rohm to heel, Hitler's ability to pass himself off as a respectable statesman is under threat.

♪♪ The elites that surround President Hindenburg are getting nervous.

The aristocratic vice chancellor, Franz von Papen, helped Hitler get into power.

♪♪ Now he's dealing with the consequences.

-Papen has been uneasy... because of -- The general lawlessness is now becoming the talking point of the civilized world.

These stormtroopers are intimidating diplomats, people who are going to report back to their own country.

It is a troubling thing for him to see that this will essentially end up by damaging Germany's reputation in the outside world.

♪♪ -Then news comes through that the president is on his last legs and won't live much longer.

♪♪ Hitler wants President Hindenburg to name him successor before he dies so he can take complete control of Germany.

♪♪ If the ruling class wants to stop that from happening, it's now or never, and the next move comes from an unlikely player.

♪♪ Inside the vice chancellor's office is Papen's speechwriter, Edgar Jung, a right-wing intellectual who is secretly plotting Hitler's downfall.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Jung belongs to the educated upper bourgeoisie, and he grows up steeped in their values.

He sees himself as belonging to the class that should be ruling.

He sees himself as a potential minister of the interior, if not a chancellor of a future Germany.

So when the Nazis first come in, Jung is absolutely delighted.

He sees them as a very convenient vehicle for change.

♪♪ They are a very strong leadership.

They are bringing a new authoritarian sense of direction to Germany.

♪♪ 1933-34 is a very bad year for Germany.

[ Indistinct shouting ] There is still huge amounts of violence with the stormtroopers on the streets.

♪♪ There isn't the immediate economic miracle they had hoped for.

The honeymoon period for the Nazis is over.

I think Jung feels a real sense of responsibility and guilt for enabling someone like this to then entrench themselves at the leadership at the very highest levels of his country's politics.

♪♪ -Deep within Papen's vice chancellery, Jung and others have formed a resistance cell.

♪♪ -He's working with people who have got connections and intelligence.

They are trying to warn people before they get arrested.

They're trying to get people out of the country when possible.

They're trying to get people out of prison when they have been arrested.

Politically, they're maneuvering inside the Reichstag.

So they're doing really quite important and very dangerous political work.

-Jung had even made a plan to assassinate Hitler... but abandoned it in case it damaged his own political ambitions.

♪♪ Instead, Jung plans to get Hitler removed from power.

He'll write a high-profile speech for Papen that will expose the violent truth about Rohm, the stormtroopers, and Nazi rule.

The speech should be enough to force Hindenburg to get rid of Hitler, but it all hinges on getting Papen to deliver it.

♪♪ -Jung realizes that this is a good moment, both because we have public discontent, we have the threat of violence turning into something more, perhaps a political putsch.

♪♪ -And we have Hindenburg's deteriorating health.

It's the time to act.

And conveniently, at this moment, Papen gets an invitation from the University of Marburg to give a speech, which is perfect.

♪♪ Jung is an intellectual, and he's a communicator, and he puts pen to paper, and what he drafts is basically his alternative manifesto, or at least his alternative path for Germany.

♪♪ -Jung doesn't trust Papen to deliver the speech, but he has some insurance policies.

He distributes advanced copies to the press... and gets Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry to agree to a live radio broadcast so that Hindenburg can listen from his estate.

And Jung doesn't give Papen the speech until he is on his way to Marburg.

-Papen is traveling towards Marburg in Hessen in Central Germany to give a speech to some 600 people.

Papen, as a leading representative, the vice chancellor, is a representative of the government sent out essentially to do -- call it what you will -- marketing or PR for the government.

And he reads the speech, the words that are being put into his mouth, and he is alarmed.

He says that this speech could cost him his head.

But the speech has already been sent out, and therefore some members of the press already have the speech.

He can't go back on it.

So he reluctantly agrees to deliver the speech.

♪♪ [ Static ] -Jung is listening at the radio, incredibly anxious what's going to happen.

[ Papen speaking German ] -And Papen begins to deliver the speech.

[ Papen speaking German ] -And he gives it pretty much as given.

Because he gets on a roll, he responds to his audience.

This is revolutionary stuff.

[ Papen speaking German ] -It is a very dramatic speech, as well.

He uses this incredibly strong language, so he talks about it being time to silence the fanatics and make room for the work of serious men to do the serious work.

[ Crowd cheering ] [ Papen speaking German ] [ Cheers and applause ] -There's thunderous applause in the hall, and Papen adores being adored, and so he gets on a real roll, and he delivers the whole thing word for word.

[ Papen speaking German ] -Jung can hardly believe it.

He's banging his hand repeatedly on the table, saying, "He bought it!

He bought it!"

So he's absolutely delighted.

♪♪ Some of the stormtroopers quite pointedly walk out of the room, but essentially it's a huge success.

♪♪ Papen seems to be delighted.

There's a wonderful photograph of him walking down the steps of the hall afterwards, and he really looks like the cat that's got the cream.

♪♪ -He was the object of the adulation of the crowd, and that sort of thing probably goes to his head a little bit.

♪♪ -The Marburg speech sends shockwaves across Germany, and the public rally in support of Papen, who sees an opportunity to become president himself.

To topple Hitler, all Papen needs to do now is seize the momentum and get to Hindenburg.

♪♪ But when the Nazis order news of the speech to be banned, Papen's ego is bruised, and he decides to first visit Hitler.

-Papen is furious and goes to complain to Hitler, threatening to resign as vice chancellor of the Reich.

-It was a big problem for him.

There's danger that von Papen would go to see Hindenburg and get his blessing to become his successor.

-So this is not the moment Hitler wants to see a rebellion within his own cabinet.

-Danger was that the army would link up with von Papen and the conservatives because they saw very much eye-to-eye.

The senior generals are themselves political conservatives.

They weren't Nazis at this stage.

And the danger was there'd be some kind of conservative coup.

♪♪ -Hitler convinces Papen to delay his visit to see Hindenburg, suggesting they make the trip together instead.

-He manages to run rings around Papen because Papen suddenly loses that ability to see the urgency of the situation, that he needs to get to East Prussia to talk to Hindenburg.

If he moved at precisely that moment, he might be able to do something.

But as it is, he loses that chance and fails to seize the moment, which might have been actually instrumental in bringing Hitler down.

♪♪ -Hitler has played Papen cleverly.

Going behind his back, Hitler arranges to meet with the president at his country estate.

-Hitler himself hotfooted up to Neudeck in East Prussia to go and see Hindenburg and find out what sort of state his health's in and whether he's likely to fall off the perch quickly or whether they need to do something about it fast.

-Hindenburg and his generals issue an ultimatum to Hitler -- to bring the revolutionary troublemakers under control or face martial law and the transfer of power to the army.

-Hindenburg is pointing to the stormtroopers and saying, "Enough is enough."

Hitler, now seeing that he is slightly pinched on both sides, both by the rebellious nature of Papen... and the fact that the president, who can dismiss him, is looking angrily at him, about the stormtroopers -- Hitler then decides to act.

♪♪ And now Jung has created the crisis, and the man that capitalizes on the crisis is not Papen, is not Jung.

It's Hitler.

And suddenly he realizes that there is more to this man, that there is a real potential problem here.

-Papen has missed a historic opportunity to stop Hitler.

Realizing his life may now be in danger, Jung starts planning to flee the country.

-Jung should have realized immediately that his plan is unraveling and that potentially he himself is personally in danger.

♪♪ -British intelligence has uncovered that he is likely to be arrested, and he is warned by a British journalist and a member of the Reichstag that his arrest is likely to be imminent.

Eventually, he concedes that perhaps it is safer for him probably to get to Switzerland at this point.

♪♪ -Hitler needs to now decide how to deal with the two impending threats to his power -- Rohm and the stormtroopers... and the aristocratic right that could still yet persuade Hindenburg to get rid of him.

♪♪ Ready for this moment, Himmler and the SS have been busy inventing evidence... planting the seed of an idea that Rohm and the elites have in fact joined forces to launch a coup against Hitler.

♪♪ -Himmler is working tirelessly in June 1934 because Himmler knows that this is a now-or-never moment for himself, for the SS, to win the upper hand against the stormtroopers and to retaliate against members of the conservative elite who have expressed criticism of the Nazis -- people like Jung, people like Papen.

-Himmler created this dossier about Rohm's alleged putsch plans against Hitler.

Rohm is planning a putsch aided by the former German chancellor von Schleicher, one of the arch enemies of Hitler.

Himmler really manages to construct this image of a conspiracy, of a coalition between the conservative right and the stormtroopers.

There was no such coalition.

All of these charges are completely trumped up.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Meanwhile, Himmler's Gestapo agents burst into Jung's apartment just as his bags are packed for Switzerland.

♪♪ -When they arrest him, they do a thorough search of his apartment, and they discover papers negotiating the fee he would get for writing that speech from Papen, so that is their evidence.

It is now clear that he is the author of the Marburg speech.

He goes to the bathroom, and he actually scribbles "Gestapo" on the bathroom cabinet, to warn his friends what has happened.

-With Jung in custody, Papen finally understands what's at stake and just who he's dealing with.

-Papen hears that Edgar Jung has been arrested and flies to Berlin and demands an audience with Hitler.

Hitler refuses to see him.

At this point, Papen sees the urgency of visiting Hindenburg and arranges to meet him in Neudeck in East Prussia.

-This is a critical moment.

Hindenburg's health has taken a turn for the worse.

If Papen is to stop Hitler, he must get to Hindenburg immediately.

♪♪ But news of Papen's meeting reaches Himmler, who is readying the SS to strike against the aristocracy and the stormtroopers.

-Himmler summons SS leaders, and he tells them that the stormtroopers are planning a putsch.

Robust action must be taken swiftly, ruthlessly, and decisively.

So Himmler and the SS are beginning to prepare lists of stormtroopers who are to be arrested, who are to be executed.

♪♪ -But even as the time to act draws near, Hitler seems to remain loyal to Rohm.

And Rohm promises to lie low.

He takes leave at the Bavarian lakeside resort of Tegernsee.

[ Violin playing, indistinct conversations ] ♪♪ Opposition inside and outside the Nazi party must now be annihilated, but Goering and Himmler still need word from Hitler before they can move against their enemies.

♪♪ -On the 28th of June, Hitler and Goering go to the wedding of the local gauleiter.

It's a normal ceremony for Hitler to attend.

-The conspirators have devised a plan to psychologically prepare Hitler to take action.

♪♪ -In the middle of the wedding... there's a moment of drama.

♪♪ Himmler arrives, and this is the point at which they came to tell Hitler about the dangers that he's facing.

♪♪ -Himmler comes in with the news that Papen... Is about to see President von Hindenburg on his estate in East Prussia.

This raises the alarm for Hitler.

Hitler is extremely concerned that if he doesn't act swiftly against the stormtroopers now that he knows that Papen will be seen by Hindenburg, then Hindenburg might stop supporting the Nazi regime, that Hitler might lose some of his power, that the army might be given some more power.

♪♪ -To give him a final push, Hitler is shown documents that allege Rohm and the stormtroopers are plotting against him.

-For Adolf Hitler, it's a difficult moment psychologically to confront the fact that Rohm could be guilty of plotting against Hitler, plotting against the regime.

-Having two people there prodding him, providing him with, you know, what was in fact rather spurious evidence about the possibility of a coup is, for Hitler, really necessary.

You know, he needs to have his indecision and he needs somebody to prod him, but then it needs to be his decision.

♪♪ So he's prodded and prodded and prodded, and suddenly he says, "Yes.

That's it.

I've had enough."

And what follows is -- can be described only really as Mafia politics.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Hitler travels through the night to personally arrest Rohm at his hotel.

♪♪ -Rohm doesn't expect Hitler coming practically with all members of the inner circle to arrest him.

♪♪ As far as we know, Rohm was really stunned.

He was very quiet during this time of arrest.

♪♪ Rohm just sat there, and it seems... as if Rohm still feels very confident that there's no danger for him personally.

♪♪ -Meanwhile, Goering and Himmler are poised for action in Berlin.

♪♪ -Goering and Himmler return to Berlin from Hessen, from the wedding.

They locked themselves away in the Leipziger palace.

They surround it with armed guards, you know, just in case there really is, you know, an attack from the stormtroopers.

♪♪ -Himmler in this situation is very cool.

He's very calculated.

He is patient.

He knows that he needs to wait for the order of the Fuhrer to come through.

♪♪ -At 10:00 a.m., Goering and Himmler receive the code word.

Then, throughout Germany, sealed orders are opened by SS men revealing lists of their victims.

♪♪ [ Lighter clicks ] -Goering is the kind of impresario of the drama.

And Himmler once again is the obedient secretary carrying everything out that needs to be carried out.

-Himmler is coordinating the arrests and executions in Berlin, together with Goering.

They go through lists.

They go through lists of who is to be arrested, of who is to be shot.

-The killing begins.

♪♪ [ Gunshots ] ♪♪ Former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher is murdered at home alongside his wife.

[ Gunshots ] ♪♪ Rebel Nazis who once threatened to split the party are also taken care of.

♪♪ The men in Papen's office are also on the list.

[ Gunshots ] ♪♪ -Papen is arrested and placed under house arrest.

He can't do anything to act to save the members of his own department, and various people in his entourage are essentially murdered.

He is lucky in many respects to survive with his life.

♪♪ -All we know with Jung is that he is executed.

♪♪ The place of death is left unrecorded, which is a mark of disrespect, as well, and sometime later, his family receive his ashes and his empty wallet.

That is the end of Jung.

♪♪ -It sounds very bizarre to us, but Himmler is guided by a different moral compass.

Himmler believes that it is necessary for the survival of the Nazi regime to act so ruthlessly against the people on the list of those to be arrested, of those to be executed.

For Himmler, it is an office-job routine for the at least 100 people who were murdered in the aftermath of the Night of the Long Knives.

This was the end of their lives.

♪♪ -By the evening of June the 30th, dozens have been executed.

Any possible conservative or stormtrooper rebellion has been crushed.

Still alive, though, is Hitler's friend Ernst Rohm.

♪♪ -Bizarrely, the day after the murders, Hitler hosts a big party at the Reich Chancellery, almost as if nothing had happened.

[ Indistinct conversations ] It curiously resembled the way that some murderers, you know, when they've murdered somebody, they wash their hands, they change their clothes, they want to put all that behind them, and then they can walk out into the streets as if nothing had happened.

♪♪ -This is a really incongruous scene.

Imagine that some of the bloodiest murders in the history of the Third Reich have taken place on the previous day.

Now Hitler has invited members of the Reich cabinet and their wives to a party.

♪♪ -Himmler and then Goering learn that Rohm has not been executed.

He's an old companion, old fighter, and he just can't bring himself to order Rohm to be murdered.

♪♪ So that's one of those occasions where Hitler hesitates and he needs other people to prod him again into making that decision.

And for Goering and Himmler, it's really important.

The whole thing was to get rid of Rohm.

So they've got to get Hitler to make a decision that Rohm must be executed, too.

♪♪ -As with other major decisions, Hitler has waited for the crucial moment to play his hand.

♪♪ -Hitler was always prepared to use violent action.

He didn't have any hesitation about having people shot, killed, murdered, robbed, beaten up, or tortured.

It didn't really matter to him.

♪♪ In that sense, the so-called Rohm Putsch, the murder of scores of people he regarded as traitors to the cause, that wasn't particularly something that he felt was bad.

He felt by this stage he was above the law.

In a sense, he'd always felt he was above the law.

♪♪ -Hitler's decision is to offer Rohm the honorable way out.

♪♪ At Stadelheim Prison, Rohm is forced to make a terrible choice.

-For Rohm, it must have been astonishing then to see Theodor Eicke, who is the commander of the Dachau concentration camp.

♪♪ -A pistol is put into Rohm's cell, together with a copy of the Voelkischer Beobachter, the Nazi newspaper, with stories about the Rohm Putsch, about Rohm's alleged conspiracy.

[ Lighter clicks ] ♪♪ -I wouldn't see Rohm as a victim.

He himself -- and he says this very openly -- he himself would kill people, would kill his enemies.

Killing was no problem for Rohm.

♪♪ -Rohm does not want to shoot himself.

♪♪ So, after 10 minutes, the commandant of the Dachau camp, Theodor Eicke, storms into Rohm's cell and shoots him at close range.

♪♪ ♪♪ This is the end of the Night of the Long Knives.

This is the end of Rohm.

This is the end of the leader of the stormtroopers who was, until then, Hitler's closest ally, Hitler's closest supporter.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Goering finally achieves his ambition.

As a reward for his brutality, Hitler promotes him and names him as his successor.

He will go on to oversee many of the Nazis' worst atrocities.

♪♪ -Later on in Nuremberg, when Goering's on trial for war crimes, he's asked about Rohm.

"What did you think?

Why did you do it?"

And he said, you know, "Well, he was in my way."

For Goering, you know, it wasn't a question I think he would have understood.

"Did you have a guilty conscience afterwards?"

No, of course not.

♪♪ -After the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler makes the SS a fully autonomous organization.

Under Himmler's watch, it becomes one of the most feared institutions in Germany, presiding over the systematic murder of minorities, homosexuals, and Jews.

-One of the keys to understanding Himmler's personality and Himmler's career is by reflecting about the word "decency."

Himmler thought that he had always been acting decently, that him organizing the Night of the Long Knives had been decent, that him killing Jews during the Second World War had been decent.

This is abhorrent.

Himmler thought that he had done the right thing for the survival of the Germanic race.

♪♪ -By crushing the stormtroopers, Hitler wins the support of most of the German public, the army, the elites... and President Hindenburg.

♪♪ -Hindenburg was always frightened of instability, so when action is taken in this way... um, uh...

I suppose -- I don't know -- a fit of relief or something and pens a letter to Hitler saying, basically, "Well done."

♪♪ -Having won Hindenburg's approval, Hitler presents a new piece of legislation combining the offices of president and chancellor to take effect on Hindenburg's death.

♪♪ A day later, Hindenburg is on his deathbed.

When Hitler goes to pay his respects, he finds Hindenburg drifting in and out of consciousness, addressing him as "Your Majesty."

♪♪ -I'm dubious about his ability to make rational judgment as he approaches death.

It might explain some of the very difficult questions regarding his shift vis-à-vis Hitler and the Nazi Party.

♪♪ In his last rational moments, what did he think of when he thought about Germany's future?

Difficult to answer that one.

He would want to vindicate his own decisions, but he may be disturbed by what has happened since Hitler took office.

So he might have died a rather troubled man.

♪♪ ♪♪ -And so... Hitler now had nothing left to restrain him.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪