Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id587671622
“Night of the Long Knives,” Adolf Hitler’s 1934 purge of the SA, a Nazi paramilitary organization also known as the Brownshirts that Hitler feared was becoming too powerful and too difficult to control.
id587671638
Prigozhin was similar in many ways to Ernst Röhm, the head of the SA. An early and avid supporter during Putin’s rise to power in St. Petersburg, Prigozhin grew so close to him that he became known as Putin’s “chef.” Röhm, meanwhile, was one of Hitler’s earliest lieutenants and took part in the Nazi’s failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923, a decade before Hitler gained power.
✏️ For every “legitimate” dictator, there is a 2nd in command head of paramilitary group that’s initially strongly dedicated to the leader. 🔗 View Highlight
id587671740
As Putin consolidated his power in Russia, Prigozhin gained wealth and influence, and his Wagner Group became a key component in Putin’s national security apparatus, increasing Russia’s military reach in the Middle East and Africa. Röhm’s SA also became a fearsome force, one that used brutal tactics against Hitler’s political enemies as Hitler rose to power.
id587671773
Röhm ascended as well, yet he also became more radicalized, which led him to become increasingly frustrated with Hitler. He began calling for a drastic transformation of German society and its economy, which angered the German industrialists Hitler wanted to appease. Röhm also sought to take control of the German army by merging it with the SA, thus threatening the status of the German officer corps.
✏️ With time and power, the 2nd in command becomes radicalized and demands more power, more control, and more radical actions. Usually he’s frustrated with the complacent approaches of the leader. 🔗 View Highlight
id587671862
Hitler finally moved against Röhm and the SA in June 1934, when the SA’s leaders were together at a hotel in Bavaria. SS troops loyal to Hitler arrested and executed the SA leaders, while Röhm was arrested and later shot in his jail cell.
✏️ The end of this arc is the leader dismantling the group and killing the radical 2nd. 🔗 View Highlight
id587671989
eventually, Prigozhin, like Röhm, became radicalized, launching a series of public diatribes against the Russian military’s handling of the war. He soon found himself at odds with the Russian general staff, and that eventually led him to become a very public critic of the entire Putin regime. After months of vituperative criticism, he finally broke into open rebellion in June, when he led his Wagner forces from Ukraine back into Russia. Seizing control of Rostov-on-Don, a key military hub that served as the forward headquarters for Russian military operations in Ukraine, Prigozhin and his forces marched north toward the Russian capital, encountering little resistance.