of the victims’ names.
With his accumulated enemies thus largely neutralized,
Göring recommended that the killings should stop. He would
later suggest that he had to plead with Hitler all that Sunday:
Finally I hurried around to the Führer and begged
him to put an end to the shootings, as there was a
danger of the thing getting out of hand. The execu-
tions then halted, even though this meant that two of
the Führer’s worst enemies [Werner] von
Alvensleben and [Dr. Leon Count] von Moulin-
Eckart [Röhm’s adjutant] escaped with their lives.A remorseful Hitler, bilious after the bloodletting, ordered
compensation paid for the “mistakes” and pensions for all next-
of-kin. As for Göring, his gargantuan appetite was unaffected.
On Monday evening he organized a celebratory crab feast and
invited his fellow “managers” Blomberg, Himmler, Körner, and
Milch to crack claws with him. A telegram came from the aged
president, Hindenburg, congratulating him on his “energetic
and victorious action,” while a more chastened letter arrived
from Franz von Papen, still believing himself under house ar-
rest. Göring had quite forgotten him, and telephoned effusive
apologies. “So sorry,” he said. “Big misunderstanding. I only
meant you to be given a guard for Saturday evening, until you
were out of danger.” (In Bucharest nine years later Papen would
chance upon the Gestapo man assigned to assassinate him in
“Göring prevented it,” the man grumbled.)
By that odd inversion of public ethics that characterized
the decade, the National Socialist regime emerged from the
Night of Long Knives with its domestic popularity enhanced.
Göring and Himmler would henceforth collaborate with a verve
born of prudence and mutual respect.