Friday links

June 30, 1934 was the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler's purge of those standing in his way.

22 Real Places That Inspired Disney Animated Movies.

That time the FBI tested for Bigfoot.

June 28 is the anniversary of both the event that started and the treaty that ended World War One.

Bathing Machines Of The 19th Century.

The Real Story of the Green Book, the Guide That Changed How Black People Traveled in America - “It was much harder to navigate in the North and the West because you didn’t have the signs.” 

Medieval medical schools.

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include is the anniversary of the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, some really huge spiders, Chinese scientist-recommended pick up lines (personal favorite - "Your smile is a naughty goblin"), and the history of adhesives.

1957 Disney PSA - Our Friend the Atom

I occasionally run into things that I want to make my grandkids watch in their spare time, so I thought I'd start posting them.

Book by Heinz Haber, who narrates the PSA

Check out this 1957 lecture/cartoon from Disney entitled Our Friend the Atom (accompanying book) on the history of the discovery of atoms (back to Aristotle), putting atomic energy to use (structure of power plants), and the potential benefits of radioactive isotopes (the way radioactive isotopes are depicted as a sparkling, magic dust sprinkled as plant fertilizer and in animal feed is rather disturbing). I realize that the physics is outdated, but it's a fascinating introduction to the subject. 

There was absolutely no sense, in 1957, of any potential downsides (other than the bombs which would "make friends of our enemies"); the idea of problems such as Chernobyl (wiki, excellent recent book and HBO miniseries) were not even considered. 

Here's the whole thing (just over 50 minutes):

If you'd like smaller chunks, you can watch it split into 5 parts of approx 10 minutes each. Here's the first - the others will be listed along to left.

Related: 1954 film: How a Clean, Tidy Home Can Help You Survive the Atomic Bomb.

June 30, 1934: the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler's purge of those standing in his way

Herr Adolf Hitler, the German Chancellor, has saved his country. Swiftly and with exorable severity, he has delivered Germany from men who had become a danger to the unity of the German people and to the order of the state. With lightening rapidity he has caused them to be removed from high office, to be arrested, and put to death.

The names of the men who have been shot by his orders are already known. Hitler's love of Germany has triumphed over private friendships and fidelity to comrades who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the fight for Germany's future.

~Daily Mail, July 2nd 1934.

Hitler posing with SA members in the late 1920s. 

Hermann Göring stands bedecked 

with medals beneath Hitler.

The Night of the Long Knives (wiki) (sometimes called Operation Hummingbird or, in Germany, the Röhm-Putsch), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from June 30 to July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders.

When Hitler rose to power in early 1933, he owed much of his success to the muscle of his Nazi Storm Troopers (wiki), the SA (Sturmabteilung), a violent, ruthless army headed by Ernst Röhm, Hitler’s long-time friend and devotee. Röhm and his Storm Troopers brought Germany into submission by gaining control of the streets gangster-style and violently eliminating any of Hitler’s political enemies.

By the summer of 1934, the SA's numbers had swollen to 2 million men. The SA had given the Nazis an iron fist with which to disrupt other political parties' meetings before Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, and was also used to enforce law afterwards: essentially, they were the enforcers of the Nazi Party.

Hitler and Rohm, 1933

However, a threatening, revolutionary force such as the SA was no longer useful now that Hitler was firmly in power. Hitler wanted to “go legit” and win over the regular army generals, the leaders of industry, as well as the German people. Most everyone in Germany disliked the SA, who were seen as the arrogant, bullying, murderous thugs that they were, and Hitler knew he needed to curtail their power to increase and solidify his own.

Hitler knew that the army hierarchy held him in disdain as he was 'only ' a corporal in their eyes, and the regular army hierarchy also saw the SA as a threat to their authority. The SA outnumbered the army by 1934 and Röhm had openly spoken about taking over the regular army by absorbing it into the SA. Such talk alarmed the army's leaders, and in April of that year, Hitler and the head of the German army, Werner von Blomberg, signed a secret agreement in which Hitler promised Blomberg’s army absolute control of the military (with precedence over the SA); and von Blomberg pledged the army’s backing when Germany’s 86-year-old president Paul von Hindenburg inevitably shuffled off the mortal coil and Hitler claimed the presidency.

Ernst Röhm

Röhm had made powerful enemies in the Nazi party, among them Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Goering, who were part of the SS (Shutzstaffel), an organization that acted as Hitler’s personal body guards. They began putting the bug in Hitler’s ear that Röhm was planning a coup, and even gathered false evidence to back up their bogus claim - there is no actual evidence that Röhm was ever planning anything against Hitler.

When Hitler met with German President Paul von Hindenburg on June 21, 1934, the old man was in very poor health and was confined to a wheelchair, but his mind was sharp as ever. He brusquely informed Hitler and Defense Minister Blomberg that the SA must be brought to heel ASAP, or he would declare martial law in Germany and let the army run the show, which would pretty much mean the end of the Nazi party.

On the evening of June 30, 1934, which became known as the Night of the Long Knives (wiki), Hitler made his move. In the village of Bad Wiesse, the SS raided a hotel where Röhm and his buddies were hanging out for the weekend. Members of the SA were dragged from their beds and executed on the spot.

Just before Wiessee, Hitler suddenly breaks his silence: "Kempka", he says, "drive carefully when we come to the Hotel Hanselbauer. You must drive up without making any noise. If you see a SA guard in front of the hotel, don't wait for them to report to me; drive on and stop at the hotel entrance." Then after a moment of deathly silence: "Röhm wants to carry out a coup." An icy shiver ran down my back. I could have believed anything, but not a coup by Röhm.

~Kempka, I Was Hitler's Chauffeur

Units of the SS arrested more of the leaders of the SA and other political opponents. Seventy-seven men were executed on charges of treason though historians tend to think the figure is higher. Hitler also took the opportunity to assassinate anyone that he didn’t like, or had crossed him, or looked at him the wrong way.

Röhm was arrested by Hitler himself, brought to Munich, and given a revolver to kill himself instead of being executed by someone else. Röhm refused, saying if Adolf wanted him dead so badly, he’d have to do the deed himself. Since Hitler couldn’t bring himself to kill his old friend, he sent in a minion to shoot Röhm in the stomach at point-blank range. 

The SA was brought to heel and placed under the command of the army. The Night of the Long Knives not only removed the SA leaders but also got Hitler the army's oath that he so needed.

The first the public officially knew about the event was on July 13th 1934, when Hitler told the Reichstag that met in the Kroll Opera House, Berlin, that for the duration of the arrests that he and he alone was the judge in Germany and that the SS carried out his orders. 

“If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people.” 

~Adolf Hitler, July 13, 1934

From that time on the SS became a feared force in Nazi Germany, lead by Heinrich Himmler. The efficiency with which the SS had carried out its orders greatly impressed Hitler and Himmler went on to acquire huge power within Nazi Germany.

Here's a brief Khan Academy video describing the event:

Watch the rest of Khan Academy's Rise Of Hitler and the Nazis series here.

Based on a post at the excellent Today I Found Out (their Wise Book of Whys has gone to several family members as Christmas presents), with input from here, here, and here.

Previous posts:

Nazis with cats.

Hitler’s Last Surviving Food Taster.

Nazi sex dolls, intended to protect soldiers from French prostitutes.

Further reading:

The definitive source: Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich.

Stormtroop Tactics: Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918

Things no man ever said...

Lady, please take your head out of my crotch.

Is this ball game ever going to be over?

That sounds like an awful lot of money for a power saw.

Duct tape won't fix that.

Little Debbie snacks have too many fat grams.

Her breasts are just too big.

Sometimes I just want to be held.

Let's stop and ask for directions.

That chick on Murder She Wrote gives me a woody.

Our team lost 10-1. But we tried our best, and after all, that's the important thing.

I can't stop fantasizing about Dr. Ruth!

Gosh, honey, I should have listened to you, in the first place.

I think those big, jacked-up trucks look ridiculous.

Want all my tools? I just realized I never do anything useful with them!

I'm deeply offended by young women who go bra-less.

Hell with Monday Night Football, let's watch Murphy Brown.

From The Onion: Study Reveals: Babies are Stupid

I was looking for this and it seems to have been dropped from The Onion's archives, so I'm pasting it here. If I find it on their site, I'll provide a link.

Study Reveals: Babies are Stupid

May 21st, 1997

LOS ANGELES - A surprising new study released Monday by UCLA's Institute For Child Development revealed that human babies, long thought by psychologists to be highly inquisitive and adaptable, are actually extraordinarily stupid.

The study, an 18-month battery of intelligence tests administered to over 3,500 babies, concluded categorically that babies are "so stupid, it's not even funny."

According to Institute president Molly Bentley, in an effort to determine infant survival instincts when attacked, the babies were prodded in an aggressive manner with a broken broom handle. Over 90 percent of them, when poked, failed to make even rudimentary attempts to defend themselves. The remaining 10 percent responded by vacating their bowels.

It is unlikely that the presence of the babies' fecal matter, however foul-smelling, would have a measurable defensive effect against an attacker in a real-world situation," Bentley said.

Another test, in which the infants were placed on a mound of dirt outdoors during a torrential downpour, produced similarly bleak results.

"The chicken, dog and even worm babies that we submitted to the test as a control group all had enough sense to come in from the rain or, at least, seek shelter under a leafy clump of vegetation or outcropping of rock," test supervisor Thomas Howell said. "The human babies, on the other hand, could not grasp even this incredibly basic concept, instead merely lying on the ground and making gurgling noises."

According to Howell, almost 60 percent of the infants tested in this manner eventually drowned.

Some of the babies tested were actually so stupid that they choked to death on pieces of Micronaut space toys. Others, unable to use such primitive instruments as can openers and spoons due to insufficient motor skills, simply starved to death, despite being surrounded by cabinets full of nutritious, life-giving Gerber-brand baby-food products.

Babies, the study concluded, are also too stupid to do the following: avoid getting their heads trapped in automatic car windows; use ice to alleviate the pain of burn injuries resulting from touching an open flame; master the skills required for scuba diving; and use a safety ladder to reach a window to escape from a room filled with cyanide gas.

"As a mother of four, I find these results very disheartening," Bentley told reporters. "I can honestly say that the effort I have expended trying to raise my children into intelligent beings may have been entirely wasted, a fool's dream, if you will."

Study results also prompted a strong reaction from President Clinton. "All of us, on some primitive, mammalian level, feel a great sense of pride in our offspring," Clinton said. "It is now clear, however, that these feelings are unfounded. Given the overwhelming evidence of their profound stupidity, we have no choice but to replace our existing infant population with artificially incubated simu-drones, with the eventual goal of phasing out the shamefully stupid human baby forever." - The Onion