Messersmith G.S., Vienna. To William Phillips, Washington.
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University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press
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Does not wish to trespass on field of Ambassador [William E.] Dodd but can throw some sidelights on recent purge of Nazi Party in Germany because of intimate knowledge of men involved; does not believe there was plot against government as official communiqués assert; weight of evidence is that it was coup by Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels to save Party and their own situation by eliminating dissenting elements; hundreds dead in two-day purge, including General [Kurt] von Schleischer as warning to Reichswehr, [Ernst] Roehm, [Karl] Ernst, and [Edmund] Heines to keep the S.A. in order, [Erich] Klausner, leading Catholic, to intimidate the church, and Gregor Strasser as warning to intellectuals and middle classes; arrest of [Franz] von Papen and murder of his associates was a warning to [Alf] Hugenberg and the industrialists; impossible to imagine these divergent characters in one plot; with not even a pretense of court martial or trial, the deaths were murders, not executions; shows extent to which Hitler and associates will go to gain ends.