
The Night of the Long Knives
The History and Legacy of Adolf Hitler's Notorious Purge of the SA
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $6.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Dan Gallagher
About this listen
Germany's Nazi Party was remarkably implacable in the hostility it showed to the outside world, staunchly opposing both Communism and liberal democracy from the moment of its inception to that of its violent dissolution. The Nazis likewise showed steely, unwavering resolve in their lethal hatred of the Jews, the Slavs, and many others whom they labeled as "untermenschen," subhumans unworthy of rights, cultural standing, or life itself. They pursued their dark vision of "Aryan" superiority with a terrifying clarity and zeal, and they were willing to incur the enmity of the entire world in the process.At the same time, despite this fanatic dedication to their overall vision, the Nazis had their own share of factional strife, and perhaps not surprisingly, the internecine struggle often led to violence, executions, and assassinations, byproducts of a totalitarian environment in which power appeared in its most undisguised and aggressive form. The firing squad, the bomb, the torture chamber, the extermination camp, the crematorium, and the noose of piano wire took the place of debate and persuasion in Hitler's Germany.Like other totalitarian regimes, the leader of the Nazis kept an iron grip on power in part by making sure nobody else could attain too much of it, leading to purges of high-ranking officials in the Nazi party. Of these purges, the most notorious was the Night of the Long Knives, a purge in the summer of 1934 that came about when Hitler ordered the surprise executions of several dozen leaders of the SA. This fanatically National Socialist paramilitary organization had been a key instrument in overthrowing democratic government in Germany.
©2012 Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River EditorsListeners also enjoyed...
-
Heinrich Himmler
- The SS, Gestapo, His Life and Career
- By: Roger Manvell, Heinrich Fraenkel
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Authors Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, notable biographers of the World War II German leaders Joseph Goebbels and Herman Goring, delve into the life of one of the most sinister, clever, and successful of all the Nazi leaders: Heinrich Himmler. As the head of the feared SS, Himler supervised the extermination of millions. Here is the story of how a seemingly ordinary boy grew into an obsessive and superstitious man who ventured into herbalism, astrology, and homeopathic medicine before finally turning to the “science” of racial purity and the belief in the superiority of the Aryan people.
-
-
A new and insightful look at a Monster
- By Doc Pearce on 07-26-13
By: Roger Manvell, and others
-
The Rise of Nazi Germany: The History of the Events that Brought Adolf Hitler to Power
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Dan Gallagher
- Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the close of World War I, Hitler was an impoverished young artist who scrapped by through selling souvenir paintings, but within a few years, his powerful oratory brought him to the forefront of the Nazi party in Munich and helped make the party much more popular. A smattering of followers in the hundreds quickly became a party of thousands. At the head of it all was a man whose fiery orations denounced Jews, communists, and other "traitors" for bringing upon the German nation the Treaty of Versailles, which had led to hyperinflation and a wrecked economy.
-
-
Well researched weakly presented
- By D. Rairigh on 03-06-17
-
Marshal Josip Broz Tito: The Life and Legacy of Yugoslavia's First President
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Colin Fluxman
- Length: 1 hr and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The World War II era produced many leaders of titanic determination, men whose strengths and weaknesses left an extraordinary imprint on historical affairs. Josip Broz Tito, better known to history as Marshal Tito, was undoubtedly one of these figures. Originally a machinist, Tito leveraged his success in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) and a number of extraordinary strokes of luck into dictatorial rule over Yugoslavia for a span of 35 years. World War II proved the watershed that enabled him to secure control of the country.
-
-
Very short but says a lot
- By NebSoilDoc on 03-28-18
-
The Partition of Ireland and the Troubles: The History of Northern Ireland from the Irish Civil War to the Good Friday Agreement
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Colin Fluxman
- Length: 1 hr and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Partition of Ireland and the Troubles: The History of Northern Ireland from the Irish Civil War to the Good Friday Agreement analyzes the tumultuous events that marked the creation of Northern Ireland, and the conflicts fueled by the partition. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Northern Ireland like never before.
-
-
The Partition and the Troubles, slightly biased
- By J. Dalton on 05-19-19
-
The Coming of the Third Reich
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 21 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is no story in 20th-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time.
-
-
Compelling and depressing
- By Tad Davis on 06-30-10
By: Richard J. Evans
-
Joseph Stalin: The Dictator of the USSR
- Best Biography
- By: The History Hour
- Narrated by: Alexander G.
- Length: 1 hr and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Initially presiding over an oligarchic one-party regime that governed by plurality, Joseph Stalin became the de facto dictator of the Soviet Union. Stalin raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction via robberies, kidnappings, and protection rackets. To eradicate those regarded as "enemies of the working class", Stalin instituted the "Great Purge" in which more than a million were imprisoned and at least 700,000 were executed from 1934 to 1939.
-
-
good
- By Justin E. Huynh on 10-28-19
By: The History Hour
-
Heinrich Himmler
- The SS, Gestapo, His Life and Career
- By: Roger Manvell, Heinrich Fraenkel
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Authors Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, notable biographers of the World War II German leaders Joseph Goebbels and Herman Goring, delve into the life of one of the most sinister, clever, and successful of all the Nazi leaders: Heinrich Himmler. As the head of the feared SS, Himler supervised the extermination of millions. Here is the story of how a seemingly ordinary boy grew into an obsessive and superstitious man who ventured into herbalism, astrology, and homeopathic medicine before finally turning to the “science” of racial purity and the belief in the superiority of the Aryan people.
-
-
A new and insightful look at a Monster
- By Doc Pearce on 07-26-13
By: Roger Manvell, and others
-
The Rise of Nazi Germany: The History of the Events that Brought Adolf Hitler to Power
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Dan Gallagher
- Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the close of World War I, Hitler was an impoverished young artist who scrapped by through selling souvenir paintings, but within a few years, his powerful oratory brought him to the forefront of the Nazi party in Munich and helped make the party much more popular. A smattering of followers in the hundreds quickly became a party of thousands. At the head of it all was a man whose fiery orations denounced Jews, communists, and other "traitors" for bringing upon the German nation the Treaty of Versailles, which had led to hyperinflation and a wrecked economy.
-
-
Well researched weakly presented
- By D. Rairigh on 03-06-17
-
Marshal Josip Broz Tito: The Life and Legacy of Yugoslavia's First President
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Colin Fluxman
- Length: 1 hr and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The World War II era produced many leaders of titanic determination, men whose strengths and weaknesses left an extraordinary imprint on historical affairs. Josip Broz Tito, better known to history as Marshal Tito, was undoubtedly one of these figures. Originally a machinist, Tito leveraged his success in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) and a number of extraordinary strokes of luck into dictatorial rule over Yugoslavia for a span of 35 years. World War II proved the watershed that enabled him to secure control of the country.
-
-
Very short but says a lot
- By NebSoilDoc on 03-28-18
-
The Partition of Ireland and the Troubles: The History of Northern Ireland from the Irish Civil War to the Good Friday Agreement
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Colin Fluxman
- Length: 1 hr and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Partition of Ireland and the Troubles: The History of Northern Ireland from the Irish Civil War to the Good Friday Agreement analyzes the tumultuous events that marked the creation of Northern Ireland, and the conflicts fueled by the partition. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Northern Ireland like never before.
-
-
The Partition and the Troubles, slightly biased
- By J. Dalton on 05-19-19
-
The Coming of the Third Reich
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 21 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is no story in 20th-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time.
-
-
Compelling and depressing
- By Tad Davis on 06-30-10
By: Richard J. Evans
-
Joseph Stalin: The Dictator of the USSR
- Best Biography
- By: The History Hour
- Narrated by: Alexander G.
- Length: 1 hr and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Initially presiding over an oligarchic one-party regime that governed by plurality, Joseph Stalin became the de facto dictator of the Soviet Union. Stalin raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction via robberies, kidnappings, and protection rackets. To eradicate those regarded as "enemies of the working class", Stalin instituted the "Great Purge" in which more than a million were imprisoned and at least 700,000 were executed from 1934 to 1939.
-
-
good
- By Justin E. Huynh on 10-28-19
By: The History Hour
-
Hitler
- A Biography
- By: Ian Kershaw
- Narrated by: Alan Robertson
- Length: 46 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. From his illegitimate birth in a small Austrian village to his fiery death in a bunker under the Reich chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler left a murky trail, strewn with contradictory tales and overgrown with self-created myths. One truth prevails: the sheer scale of the evils that he unleashed on the world has made him a demonic figure without equal in the 20th century.
-
-
An Excellent Read
- By Rodney on 09-19-13
By: Ian Kershaw
-
Stalin, Volume I
- Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
- By: Stephen Kotkin
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 38 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume One of Stalin begins and ends in January 1928 as Stalin boards a train bound for Siberia, about to embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He is now the ruler of the largest country in the world, but a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. In Siberia, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted.
-
-
Excellent Book But First Time Listener Beware
- By Nostromo on 03-23-15
By: Stephen Kotkin
-
The Third Reich in Power
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 31 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The definitive account of Germany's malign transformation under Hitler's total rule and the implacable march to war. This magnificent second volume of Richard J. Evans's three-volume history of Nazi Germany was hailed by Benjamin Schwartz of The Atlantic Monthly as "the definitive English-language account... gripping and precise." It chronicles the incredible story of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule.
-
-
Great book, annoying narrator
- By Maria on 08-14-10
By: Richard J. Evans
-
The Third Reich at War
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 35 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Evans interweaves a broad narrative of the war’s progress with viscerally affecting personal testimony from a wide range of people - from generals to front-line soldiers, from Hitler Youth activists to middle-class housewives. The Third Reich at War lays bare the dynamics of a nation more deeply immersed in war than any society before or since. Fresh insights into the conflict’s great events are here, from the invasion of Poland to the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler’s suicide in the bunker.
-
-
Masterful
- By Karen on 09-03-10
By: Richard J. Evans
-
The Third Reich
- A History of Nazi Germany
- By: Thomas Childers
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 26 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, Thomas Childers shows how the young Hitler became passionately political and anti-Semitic as he lived on the margins of society. Fueled by outrage at the punitive terms imposed on Germany by the Versailles Treaty, he found his voice and drew a loyal following.
-
-
Superb and important history
- By Tad Davis on 10-18-20
By: Thomas Childers
-
A Savage War of Peace
- Algeria 1954-1962
- By: Alistair Horne
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 29 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It caused the fall of six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict, and as many European settlers were driven into exile. From the perspective of half a century, it looks less like the last colonial war than the first postmodern one.
-
-
Excellent history of France's Viet Nam
- By David on 04-10-16
By: Alistair Horne
-
The Gestapo
- A History of Horror
- By: Jacques Delarue, Mervyn Savill - translator
- Narrated by: Eric Brooks
- Length: 19 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 1933 to 1945, the Gestapo was Nazi Germany's chief instrument of counter-espionage, political suppression, and terror. Jacques Delarue, a saboteur arrested by the Nazis in occupied France, chronicles how the land of Beethoven elevated sadism to a fine art. The Gestapo: A History of Horror draws upon Delarue's interviews with ex-Gestapo agents to deliver a multi-layered history of the force whose work included killing student resisters, establishing Aryan eugenic unions, and implementing the Final Solution.
-
-
Once read never fogotten!!
- By Peter M. O'Handley on 04-27-13
By: Jacques Delarue, and others
-
Hitler
- By: Joachim C. Fest, Richard Winstton - translator, Clara Winstton - translator
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 41 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This masterful biography by one of Germany’s best known journalists was the leading nonfiction best seller in Germany. Fest shows Hitler as the receptacle of the dreads and resentments of a shaken social order, gifted with an uncanny instinct for all that was hollow behind the appearance of power, at home and abroad. Though a warped human being, he was neither clown nor puppet, as many liked to think; Hitler appears here as an enormously astute politician, impressing and hypnotizing Germans and foreigners alike with the scope of his projects and the theatricality of their presentation. Fest uncovers in Hitler a constantly destructive personality....
-
-
Should be part of high school education
- By Rex Riethmeier on 12-25-18
By: Joachim C. Fest, and others
-
Stalin
- New Biography of a Dictator
- By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Nora Seligman Favorov - translator
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This essential biography, by the author most deeply familiar with the vast archives of the Soviet era, offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin, the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in the dictator's life while assembling many hundreds of previously unknown letters, memos, reports, and diaries into a comprehensive, compelling narrative of a life that altered the course of world history.
-
-
Loved it, but wouldn't want to live it
- By Neil on 01-12-20
By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, and others
-
Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler
- The Age of Social Catastrophe
- By: Robert Gellately
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 26 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, acclaimed historian Robert Gellately focuses on the dominant powers of the time, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, but also analyzes the catastrophe of those years in an effort to uncover its political and ideological nature.
-
-
Incredible research as important now as then
- By Jason on 12-30-21
By: Robert Gellately
-
Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris
- By: Ian Kershaw
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 28 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the character of the bizarre misfit in his thirty-year ascent from a Viennese shelter for the indigent to uncontested rule over the German nation that had tried and rejected democracy in the crippling aftermath of World War I.
-
-
The heart of evil
- By Mike From Mesa on 01-20-14
By: Ian Kershaw
-
Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin: Two Predator Leaders. The Biography Collection
- The Greatest People, Book 1
- By: The History Hour
- Narrated by: Jerry Beebe, Alexander G.
- Length: 3 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discover the lives and poltical history of German politician and demagogue Adolf Hitler - leader of the Nazi Party, chancellor of Germany, and führer of Nazi Germany - and Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union.
-
-
Best informative.
- By Phyllis S Lopez on 10-25-19
By: The History Hour
Nazi history. Rohm was once a close friend and confidant of Hitler but the two became estranged as Hitler gined more and more power. This book explains the rift between the two men.World history as we know it took a bloody turn on that decisive day.
This is a short book approximately 90 minutes long but well worth the listen.
Short listen .... Good book
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great story - not great narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The start of terror
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Horrendous Narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
DISAPPOINTING
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.