Papen himself was only spared because of the diplomatic embarrassment involved in liquidating an active member of the German government. Others were less fortunate. General Schleicher, the former Chancellor of the Republic and head of the Reichswehr, was murdered along with his wife. Gregor Strasser, the architect of the Nazi party’s work creation policy, who had been expelled from the party in December 1932 after intriguing with Schleicher, was killed in Berlin. The confirmed victims of the Night of the Long Knives numbered 85.
