What was the general international reaction to the Night of the Long Knives incident in Germany?

by v0lcano
[deleted]

There is one reaction (or series of) I can dig up for you is that of accounts of William Dodd who was at the time the US ambassador to Germany. Dodd raised complaints about Nazi treatments of Jews and US citizens. Dodd was very critical of the rise of the Nazi Party in the 1930s in contrast to his peers which saw the Nazis as moderate compared to the competing right and left wing organizations and said that the rise of the Nazis was from "the rich and the middle classes in rising in self defense." After the Night of the Long Knives incident he became increasingly pessimistic and seems to have confirmed his fears.

"This seemed to be the moment when Dodd, at last, understands the true pathological nature of this regime," Larson says. "He tried to convey his sense of horror to the State Department. And what the State Department said was, 'Look, we don't really care about this, we care about Germany's debt. Can you please start working on getting Germany to pay back its debt to American creditors? It was almost as though, back in America, they wrote this off as some weekend excursion of the Nazis — not a big deal, not something to worry about."

Here is some sources.

On the deteriorating situation in Germany (and Japan): https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/WorldWar2/warnings.htm

US State Department on Nazism: https://youtu.be/WpJjuotD534?t=26s

A book review on the pre-war years which recounts the career of Dodd. http://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/135922322/william-dodd-the-u-s-ambassador-in-hitlers-berlin

The only footage I could find of him denouncing the regime: https://youtu.be/jfRq-JeUCSM?t=8m16s

dischorus

While he wasn't a politician, the influential Director-General of the BBC, John Reith (later Baron Reith), was privately pro-fascist. This didn't become widely known until his diaries were published after his death. Of the Night of the Long Knives, he said: "I really admire the way Hitler has cleaned up what looked like an incipient revolt. I really admire the drastic actions taken, which were obviously badly needed." (Source: Paulu, Burton (1981), Television and Radio in the United Kingdom.)

While Reith didn't directly influence British policy, he might be taken as one example of the extent to which Nazism received a sympathetic hearing in the upper echelons of UK society, at least in the mid-1930s.

MrTurleWrangler

Follow up question: Was Kristallnächt (correct spelling?) met with a similar response?