Hitler greets the Berchtesgadener Storm Troopers who fought the good fight, 1932.
“For more than a year the Reich government and various state governments had been coming into possession of documents which showed that a number of high Nazi leaders, especially in the S.A., now 400,000 strong, had been fully mobilized and had thrown a cordon around Berlin. Though Captain Rohm, the S.A. chief, assured General von Schleicher that the measure was merely ‘precautionary,’ the Prussian police had seized documents at Nazi headquarters in Berlin which made it pretty clear that the S.A. meant to carry out a coup d’etat on the following evening should Hitler be elected President—such was Rohm’s hurry. Goebbels in a diary notation on the night of March 11 had confirmed that something was afoot. ‘Talked over instructions with the S.A. and S.S. commanders.
Deep uneasiness is rife everywhere. The word Putsch haunts the air.’”