Hitler's 1934 Massacre
At dawn on 30 June 1934 - one year after the Nazis came to power - a line of Mercedes quietly drew up outside a prim lakeside hotel in Bavaria. Adolf Hitler had arrived to see the leader of his foue million brownshirts. Silently he made for the first floor corridor where Ernst Roehm and other stormtroop leaders were sleeping, pushed open the unlocked door of room 31 and ordered his old com rade arrested for treason. In the hours that followed, hundreds of Hitler's closest supporters were executed. Many uncomprehendingly, shouted Heil Hitler ! as they died.
Sir Hugh Greene watched the brutal events of Operation Humming Bird' unfold in Berlin. In
Night of the Humming Bird -with eve-witness accounts from survivors of the purge - he traces the true moment of birth of Hitler's terror state.
Film editor PETER ORTON Producer
CHRISTOPHER OLGIATI