I could probably take this to a good eight page piece, but I'll construct in forty basic lines.
Adolph Hitler takes 'true' power in the early part of 1933. By the end of that year....the Brownshirts have an active membership of 3-million German men. These are more or less...the thugs of the Nazi Party.
Ernst Rohm has had control or authority over the Brownshirts for almost nine years. He is the 'face' of the group.
Rohm basically wants his Brownshirts to be the new face of the German Army (limited at that point to 100,000 men by German law). The military, and a fair number of the industrialists....see this now as a threat.
Adding to the discontent...the SS guys (already in existence)....were mostly recruited out of the middle-class establishment. That's something that the Brownshirts could not claim (they were pure working-class guys).
There is general belief that Hitler had grown to distrust, and perhaps fear the Brownshirts (and Rohm).
On 30 June 1934, the 'Night of the Long Knives' occurred. Over the next day or two.....two-hundred members of the leadership of the Brownshirts were arrested. Most were executed shortly after being arrested. Rohm even came to this end.
The Brownshirts? Over the next year....more than half of them were dismissed. As far as the Nazis were concerned.....you couldn't allow them to continue to exist.
Would the Nazis and Hitler had reached this level of success without the Brownshirts? I have my doubts. These were mostly all working-class guys....a lot of former vets from WW I, and their encouragement was developed around the Nazi Party was going to reach full-level socialism....with everyone getting their 'fair share'. If you were going to list out ten reasons for the demise....you could say on down the line that the Nazis could never have delivered what the Brownshirts wanted. Perfect socialism wasn't possible or achievable.
These guys were never smart enough to figure out the path ahead.....the consequences....or the type of fraudulent promises being made.
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