| Date | Type | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1934-04-21 |
On this day in 1934 the famous picture of the Loch Ness Monster was first published on the cover of news papers after Dr Robert Kenneth Wilson claimed the image was genuine. Dr Wilson requested not to be affiliated with the photo when it went to print leading to its nickname as the ‘surgeon’s photo’. This image was later proven to be a hoax.
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| 1934-06-30 | In 1934 “Night of the long knives” (Hitler ordered the assassination of high-ranking Nazi Officers). When German President Paul Von Hindenburg died on the 2nd of August 1934, Chancellor Adolf Hitler took steps to dissolve democracy and become the supreme leader of Germany. Hitler’s next move was to ensure that no one within his own government had the power to overthrow him in a coup. Hitler’s friends and high-ranking officers within the Nazi party had helped him come to power but many of them were also powerful in their own right. Ernst Rohm was leader of the Sturm Abteilung (Storm Troopers). A 3 million man force of Nazi police, much larger than the German army, who had aided Hitler’s rise to power by suppressing any political opposition. Hermann Goering accompanied Hitler on the "Beer Hall Putsch" which was an early unsuccessful attempt to take control of the German government by force. Goering formed the Gestapo (the Nazi’s secret police) on the 26th of April 1933. Still, Goring gave command of the Gestapo to Heinrich Himmler on the 20th of April 1934 before taking control of the Luftwaffe (Germany’s mighty air force) in 1935. Goring would later be promoted above all other Nazi officers to Reichsmarschall making him the second only to Hitler and by 1941 Goering would be declared Hitler’s successor. Heinrich Himmler was the leader of the Schutzstaffel or SS. They were originally the security forces for the Nazi Party but grew, particularly under Himmler’s leadership, to become a force of over a million officers. The SS was at the forefront of human rights atrocities performed by Nazi Germany including the running of the Death Camps. Joseph Goebbels was a high-ranking politician and head of propaganda for the Nazi Party. He was very anti-Semitic and played a large role in creating the Nazi’s “Final Solution” (the genocide of the Jewish people). Hitler created a policy of pitting these potential rivals against one another in his favour, creating mistrust and hatred among them. As head of the Storm Troopers, Ernst Rohm was a force to be reckoned with and so both Goering and Himmler wished to discredit him. They concocted plans for a coup led by Rohm and built mistrust in him with Hitler. Hitler also questioned the power that Rohm had and it didn’t take much persuasion for Hitler to take action against the man who had aided him to power. Hitler ordered all the high-ranking officers of the Sturm Abteilung to meet at the Hanselbauer Hotel on the night of the 30th of June 1934. A death list was compiled with contributions from both Goering and Himmler. On the night of the meeting, Hitler himself arrested Ernst Rohm while his men rounded up several more stormtroopers. Hitler believed he had averted a coup and named the event “the Night of the Long Knives” (from a German song). Hitler claimed that 13 men were shot while trying to resist arrest, 61 were arrested and executed and 3 committed suicide (including Rohm). In truth, other sources put the number of dead to above 400. Rohm didn’t commit suicide. He was set to be pardoned by Hitler but Himmler and Goering changed his mind. Instead, two officers visited Rohm in prison and placing a revolver on the table they ordered him to kill himself once they left the cell. Rohm refused and when they returned they found Rohm standing defiantly in the middle of his cell. The two officers then executed Rohm, riddling his body with bullets. |
