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The Prussian cadet school at Lichterfelde, about 1900. The SS took the buildings over in 1933; on 30 June 1934 the leaders of the Berlin SA were brought here and shot.Unknown author, 1900. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

The purge · 1934

Hitler told the Reichstag that 77 people had died. Historians have named 90.

Between 30 June and 2 July 1934 the SS, the SD and the Gestapo murdered the leaders of the SA and men Hitler counted as rivals, in Berlin, Munich and Silesia. Then he gave the Reichstag his own count, and called himself the nation’s supreme judge.

77
dead, by Hitler’s own count to the Reichstag, 13 July
90
identified by name since; one count gives 89 or 90
~100
killed in all, on the best estimate
1,100+
taken into “protective custody”

0130 June – 2 July 1934

In Berlin the killers came from the Gestapo and the SS, and found their victims at home and at their desks

The purge was carried out by the police, the Gestapo and the SS, with logistical support from the Reichswehr. Berlin was one of its three centres. The map follows it from the Gestapo’s headquarters to the places where its victims died.

Berlin, 1934

A map of Berlin's boundary and waters. Red squares mark the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße and the SS barracks in the old cadet school at Lichterfelde. Blue circles mark where victims were killed or lived: Wilhelmstraße 79/80, Spichernstraße 15 and Neubabelsberg, just outside the city. Arrows at the edges point to Oranienburg, to Munich and Dachau, and to Silesia.
Gestapo and SS sitesWhere victims were killed or lived
A long open-air exhibition trench beside a stretch of cellar walls, with a grey office block behind.
The site today: the Topographie des Terrors.Arild Vågen, 2013. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

30 June · Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8

The Gestapo’s headquarters

The Gestapo had kept its own prison in the cellar here since the summer of 1933. On 30 June it arrested Gregor Strasser, who had given up all his party offices, in Berlin; SS men shot him.

A black-and-white photograph of a large domed building with towers behind a lawn and young trees.
The Prussian cadet school, about 1900.Unknown author, 1900. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Lichterfelde

The SS barracks in the old cadet school

The SS had taken over the cadet school in 1933. Karl Ernst, head of the Berlin SA, and his circle were brought here and murdered. The site has housed the Bundesarchiv since 1995.

A bronze plaque with raised capital letters giving Erich Klausener's name, dates and fate.
Klausener’s plaque at his home, Keithstraße 8.OTFW, Berlin, 2008. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

30 June · Wilhelmstraße 79/80

Erich Klausener, shot at his desk

Klausener had led Catholic Action in Berlin since 1928, and the regime had moved him to the minor Reich Transport Ministry, at Wilhelmstraße 79/80. The SS shot him in his office.

A man sitting on a sandy bank with a girl and a boy.
Herbert von Bose with two of his children, 1933.Walter Bochow (1889–1946), 1933. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Von Papen’s staff

The Vice-Chancellor’s closest colleagues

Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen survived; his closest colleagues, Herbert von Bose and Edgar Jung, were murdered. Jung was shot near Oranienburg, on 30 June or 1 July.

Portrait photograph of a balding man in a light suit and patterned tie.
Kurt von Schleicher, 1932.Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-B0527-0001-020 / Unknown / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

30 June · Neubabelsberg

Kurt von Schleicher and his wife

Kurt von Schleicher had been Chancellor until January 1933. He was shot in his villa in Neubabelsberg, together with his wife Elisabeth, just outside Berlin.

A steel plaque with black lettering naming Generalmajor a.D. Ferdinand von Bredow and his murder.
The plaque at Spichernstraße 15.OTFW, Berlin, 2009. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Spichernstraße 15

Ferdinand von Bredow

The retired major-general lived here from 1930 to 1934. His plaque says the SS murdered him on the night of 30 June to 1 July 1934, “on the orders of Hitler and Göring”.

A black-and-white photograph looking up at a prison watchtower with windows against a cloudy sky.
Stadelheim prison, Munich.Dagmar Hollmann, 2013. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Munich, Dachau, Silesia

Beyond Berlin

The other centres were Munich and Silesia. Ernst Röhm, chief of staff of the SA, was shot in Stadelheim prison, Munich, on 1 July. Gustav von Kahr, Bavaria’s state commissioner in 1923, was taken to Dachau on 30 June and shot.

02Counting the dead

Hitler gave a number himself: 77. Historians have named more

On 13 July 1934, in a speech broadcast from the Reichstag, Hitler listed the dead by category. Some, he said, had “resisted arrest”; others had taken their own lives. Historians have since identified 90 people by name, and think that about 100 were killed in all. Among them were 50 senior SA leaders, and political rivals with nothing to do with the SA.

„zum obersten Gerichtsherrn des deutschen Volks“Hitler declared himself “the supreme judge of the German people” in the same speech

Each dot is one person

Shot, in Hitler’s list“Resisted arrest” or “suicide”, in his wordsNamed by historians

Hitler’s categories, as his speech was printed: 19 senior SA leaders, shot; 31 SA leaders and members, shot; 3 SS leaders, shot “as accomplices”; 13 “resisted arrest”; 3 “suicide”; 5 party members outside the SA, shot; 3 SS men, shot for mistreating prisoners (Der Landbote, 16 July 1934). The Historisches Lexikon Bayerns counts 89 or 90 named; USHMM and the Topographie des Terrors give 90. Higher totals circulate online, but no institution or historian checked for this story gives one, so none is drawn. A further 1,100 and more people were taken into custody.

0330 June – 2 August 1934

Within five weeks the killings were law, the SS was free of the SA, and the army had sworn an oath to Hitler

On 3 July 1934 a law of one sentence declared the measures of the three days “lawful as emergency defence of the state”. President Hindenburg signed a telegram thanking Hitler. Hitler spoke to the Reichstag in the Kroll Opera; on 20 July 1934 he made the SS independent of the SA. When Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, the Reichswehr was sworn to Hitler in person the same day.

One line per day

The printed text of the law: a heading, one article and the signatures of Hitler, Frick and Gürtner.
The law of 3 July 1934, as printed in the Reichsgesetzblatt: one sentence that declared the killings lawful.Reichsgesetzblatt I 1934, S. 529. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
A black-and-white photograph of a long theatre building behind bare trees and an empty road.
The Kroll Opera, where the Reichstag sat after the fire of 1933. Hitler gave his speech on the purge here on 13 July 1934.Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-U0613-504 / Unknown author / CC BY-SA 3.0 de
A group of men in dark coats on the steps of a columned building, soldiers saluting on either side.
Paul von Hindenburg (centre) leaving the Reichstag in 1925. He died on 2 August 1934.Agence Rol, 1925. Via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).
Prisoners in plain clothes eating at long tables in a hall.
Prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp in 1933. Gustav von Kahr was taken there from his Munich flat on 30 June 1934 and shot.Bundesarchiv, Bild 152-01-14 / Friedrich Franz Bauer / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

04Afterwards

The “Röhm affairs” fed a new wave of arrests. The killers came to court only after the war

At the Columbia-Haus, the Gestapo prison and concentration camp in Tempelhof, in 1935, after the intensified raids in connection with the “Röhm affairs” and harsher punishment under paragraph 175, many homosexual men were brought in, at times half of all the prisoners.

Two rust-coloured steel forms shaped like a house and a row of cells on a pavement corner, with a long airport building behind.
Georg Seibert's memorial to the Columbia-Haus concentration camp, Columbiadamm, put up in 1994, with the Tempelhof airport building behind. Photographed 2008.Beek100, 2008. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

The camp was dissolved in November 1936, its prisoners moved to Sachsenhausen. Georg Seibert’s memorial has stood at the corner of Columbiadamm and Golßener Straße since 1994.

After the war the killings came to court. The first such trial was against the former SS leader Kurt Gildisch. In 1957 the Landgericht München tried Michael Lippert and Josef “Sepp” Dietrich, who had commanded the SS Leibstandarte, for the murder of Röhm and other SA leaders.

Hitler told the Reichstag that 77 had died, and named himself their judge.

Historians have named 90. They think about 100 were killed.

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Berlinfographics (2026). “The Night of the Long Knives, Berlin 1934”. Berlin Experiences. https://berlinfographics.com/night-long-knives/

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{{cite web |title=The Night of the Long Knives, Berlin 1934 |url=https://berlinfographics.com/night-long-knives/ |website=Berlinfographics |publisher=Berlin Experiences |date=2026-11-09 |access-date=2026-11-09}}