I went to that SA captain and said, “Do you have any
weapons?” “Why no, Herr Polizeichef,” the swine says.
“None except the pistol for which you gave me a
permit!” Then I found an arsenal in the cellar bigger
than the whole armament of the Prussian police force!“In a case like that,” Göring boasted, smiling broadly, “there was
only thing to do: Execute!”
And execute they did. All day long from his office at his
villa a chamber big enough to stage an Indian durbar lolling
behind a fifteen-foot table, a massive chunk of oak four inches
thick, in an outsize gold-trimmed chair upholstered in cerise
velvet, Göring presided over the liquidation of his enemies. He
kept President Hindenburg au courant all day, shouting into
the phone that there had been a plot to make Röhm defense
minister and Schleicher chancellor. Thronging through
Göring’s palatial salons, displaying unashamed relief at the de-
struction of the SA, were the monocled army generals Fritsch
and Reichenau; the air-force chief of staff, Wever; Himmler and
Körner, and Staatssekretär Milch, who had hurried over from
Staaken Airfield, where he was taking a flying lesson. Once or
twice Defense Minister Blomberg himself appeared, handsome,
upright, but unsmiling. Göring assured him that Röhm and
Schleicher were to be arrested and tried for treason.
General von Schleicher was, however, already dead. Göring
had sent his Landespolizei to deal with the general but an uni-
dentified “hit squad” of five assassins in plain clothes had beaten
the green-uniformed police to it. They had burst into the gen-
eral’s Babelsberg villa at midday and shot the general to death in
a hail of bullets seven bullet wounds were found, and five
cartridge cases. They had then slain the general’s wife as well.