Karl Ernst was an SA

Sturmabteilung

The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...

 Gruppenführer

Gruppenführer

Gruppenführer was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party, first created in 1925 as a senior rank of the SA.-SS rank:...

 who, in early 1933, was the SA leader in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. Before joining the NSDAP he had been a hotel bell-boy and a bouncer at a gay nightclub.

It has been suggested that it was he who, with a small party of stormtroopers, passed through a passage from the Palace of the President of the Reichstag, and set the Reichstag building on fire

Reichstag fire

The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany....

 on the night of February 27, 1933. There is evidence indirectly to substantiate this: Gisevius at Nuremberg implicated Goebbels in planning the fire, Rudolph Diels stated that Göring knew how the fire was to be started, and General Franz Halder

Franz Halder

Franz Halder was a German General and the head of the Army General Staff from 1938 until September, 1942, when he was dismissed after frequent disagreements with Adolf Hitler.-Early life:...

 stated that he had heard Göring claim responsibility for the fire.

On June 30, 1934, Ernst had just married, and was in Bremen on his way to Madeira

Madeira

Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...

 to honeymoon

Honeymoon

-History:One early reference to a honeymoon is in Deuteronomy 24:5 “When a man is newly wed, he need not go out on a military expedition, nor shall any public duty be imposed on him...

 with his new wife. SA Leader Ernst Röhm

Ernst Röhm

Ernst Julius Röhm, was a German officer in the Bavarian Army and later an early Nazi leader. He was a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung , the Nazi Party militia, and later was its commander...

 had repeatedly called for a "second revolution" that would introduce a Nazi version of socialism

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

 into the Reich and banish the old Conservative forces of business and government. Fearing the socialistic tendencies of the SA, Conservative elements in the Reichswehr and Kriegsmarine pressed for an elimination of SA power. Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 undertook a purge of the SA — an event known to history as the Night of the Long Knives

Night of the Long Knives

The Night of the Long Knives , sometimes called "Operation Hummingbird " or in Germany the "Röhm-Putsch," was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany between June 30 and July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders...

.

Ernst was arrested in Bremerhaven

Bremerhaven

Bremerhaven is a city at the seaport of the free city-state of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms an enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the River Weser on its eastern bank, opposite the town of Nordenham...

 together with his wife and his friend Martin Kirschbaum as he was about to get aboard a cruiser in order to travel to Madeira where he planned on spending his honeymoon. Later on he was handed over to an SS-commando led by Kurt Gildisch

Kurt Gildisch

Kurt Gildisch became the third commander of Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard on 11 April 1933. He was a trained teacher, who had failed to find a classroom job and ended up in the Prussian police force...

flown back to Berlin and taken to the barracks of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, where he was shot by a firing squad in the early evening of June 30. According to the official death list drawn up for internal-administrative use by the Gestapo he was one of fourteen people shot on the grounds of the Leibstandarte.