Who was this Nazi?
His name was Ernst Roehm, and his assassination ordered by Adolph Hitler happened 70 years ago today. June 30, 1934 was the day that Hitler consolidated his power and began his takeover of Germany. Roehm agreed with Hitler on most things, but disagreed on a few. He wanted the same thing that Hitler wanted - Germany ruling the world, and believed the Aryan race to be supreme. It was the lack of complete belief in everything Hitler believed in that killed him. You were either with your leader, or against him.
You were either patriot or traitor.
“The Last Day of June, 1934,” as Al Stewart’s song says, woke a few of the “sleeping Europeans” to Hitler’s danger.
As we go through the last day of June, 2004, that song keeps rolling through my head along with the whispered question are we Americans this century’s “sleeping Europeans?”
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