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Taking off in the dead of night, Chancellor Hitler flew from Bonn to Munich where he arrived at 4 a. m. He accused Storm Troop leaders of treacherously plotting a coup against himself, brandished General Göring's proofs under their noses, flew into a passion and tore the Nazi insignia off their brown uniforms. S. S. troops with machine guns meanwhile bottled up the S. A. leaders in Chancellor Hitler's trap. Then leaping into a car the Chancellor dashed for queer Captain Roehm's luxurious snuggery.
According to official communiques there was no one in bed with Captain Roehm when Chancellor Hitler burst in, but in the adjoining bedroom Nazi Police Chief Edmund Heines of Breslau was nabbed with a young storm trooper between the sheets. "Certain sights were disclosed in the seizing of the rebels" read the communique "so pitiful that all feelings of compassion must end. . . . Chief of Staff Ernst Roehm's well known unhappy malady was gradually becoming unbearable, driving him into severest conflicts with his own conscience. . . . Der Führer has ordered this plague ruthlessly stamped out."
In the stamping out which followed scores of Storm Troop leaders, brownshirt potentates whose word has been law in their bailiwicks, were either shot by firing squads or were left alone in prison with a revolver which they used to commit suicide. The chancellor tried his hardest to make Col. Roehm shoot himself, twice sent him a pistol which came back with the defy, "If I am shot Hitler will have to do it himself!"
"Why should I honor a traitor by shooting him!" fumed the Dictator. After long hours of bickering delay Prisoner Roehm was shot in the back next day by a firing squad. Since Storm Troop "daggers of honor" are engraved In Steadfast Faith To Roehm they were ordered broken, and the display windows of Chancellor Hitler's personal newsorgan abruptly stopped advertising the Autobiography of Ernst Roehm.
In Berlin the pouncing of Captain Göring's Secret Police was savage in the extreme. Riot trucks bristling with rifles dashed up and down the main streets while newspapers were rigidly prevented from printing a word about what was going on. No Cabinet Minister seemed to be trusted for the offices of all were occupied by Secret Police and S. S. Storm Troops who shot an aide of Vice Chancellor von Papen as they swept in. This aide, Herr von Bose, was officially reported a suicide until it could no longer be concealed that his death was due to six bullets. With rumors crackling that the Vice Chancellor himself had been killed correspondents rushed to his home where he was said to be in "protective custody." S. S. Storm Troops guarded the house but Reichswehr soldiers, sent by President von Hindenburg to guard his favorite statesman, stood watch inside. Two days later Lieut.-Colonel von Papen offered to resign. General Göring was expected to take his post if Hitler accepted the resignation.