Ernst Julius Gunther Rohm, 1887 - 1934. German military officer and an early member of the Nazi Party. A close friend of Adolf Hitler and a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung, he was executed during the Night of the Long Knives, aka Operation Hummingbird or Rohm Putsch, a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from June 30 to July 2, 1934, when the Nazis carried out a series of political extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate Adolf Hitler's absolute hold on power in Germany. From These Tremendous Years, published 1938.