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June 30, 1934

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Headlines from June 30, 1934

Notable Births

Harry Blackstone Jr.

1934Harry Blackstone Jr., American magician and author (died 1997)[†]

Harry Bouton Blackstone Jr. was an American stage magician, author, and television performer. He is estimated to have pulled 80,000 rabbits from his sleeves and hats.

Notable Deaths

Karl Ernst

1934Karl Ernst, German soldier and SA commander (born 1904)[†]

Karl Ernst was an SA-Gruppenführer who, from March 1933, was the SA commander in Berlin. Prior to joining the Nazi Party, he had been a hotel bellhop and a bouncer at gay nightclubs. He was one of the chief participants in the extrajudicial execution of Albrecht Höhler. Ernst was himself extrajudicially executed in the Night of the Long Knives.

Erich Klausener

1934Erich Klausener, German soldier and politician (born 1885)[†]

Erich Klausener was a German Catholic politician and Catholic martyr in the "Night of the Long Knives", a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders.

Gustav Ritter von Kahr

1934Gustav Ritter von Kahr, German lawyer and politician, Minister-President of Bavaria (born 1862)[†]

Gustav Ritter von Kahr was a German jurist and right-wing politician. During his career he was district president of Upper Bavaria, Bavarian minister president and, from September 1923 to February 1924, Bavarian state commissioner general with dictatorial powers. In that role he openly opposed the government of the Weimar Republic in several instances, including by ceasing to enforce the Law for the Protection of the Republic. He was also making plans with General Otto von Lossow and Bavarian police commander Hans von Seisser to topple the Reich government in Berlin. In November 1923, before they could act, Adolf Hitler instigated the Beer Hall Putsch. The three turned against Hitler and helped stop the attempted coup. After being forced to resign as state commissioner general in 1924, Kahr served as president of the Bavarian Administrative Court until 1930. Because of his actions during the Beer Hall Putsch, he was murdered during the Nazi purge known as the Night of the Long Knives in June 1934.

Gregor Strasser

1934Gregor Strasser, German lieutenant, politician, and early leader of the Nazi Party (born 1892)[†]

Gregor Strasser was a German politician and early leader of the Nazi Party. Along with his younger brother Otto, he was a leading member of the party's left-wing faction, which brought them into conflict with the dominant faction led by Adolf Hitler, resulting in his murder in 1934. The brothers' strand of the Nazi ideology is known as Strasserism.

Kurt von Schleicher

1934Kurt von Schleicher, German general and politician, 23rd Chancellor of Germany (born 1882)[†]

Kurt Ferdinand Friedrich Hermann von Schleicher was a German military officer and the penultimate chancellor of Germany during the Weimar Republic. A rival for power with Adolf Hitler, Schleicher was assassinated by Hitler's Schutzstaffel during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934.

Historical Events

Night of the Long Knives

1934The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place.[†]

The Night of the Long Knives, also called the Röhm purge or Operation Hummingbird, was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate his power and alleviate the German military's concerns about the role of Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazis' paramilitary organization, known colloquially as "Brownshirts". Nazi propaganda presented the murders as a preventive measure against an alleged imminent coup by the SA under Röhm—the so-called Röhm Putsch.