In the summer of 1934, Hitler, who liquidated German democracy in record time, found himself caught between two opposing forces: On the one hand, the revolutionary fringe of his party, the NSDAP (National Socialist Party of German Workers), embodied by his friend Ernst Röhm, the head of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the paramilitary formation of the Nazi party; on the other, conservative circles, revolted by the excesses of this faction that threatened the Reichswehr, the regular army. On the morning of 30 June, at Bad Wiessee, Hitler arrested his former brother-in-arms - shot dead the next day in his cell - and triggered a wave of assassinations throughout the country.