Outside Germany, the news of these state-sanctioned murders was greeted with horrified disbelief. Clearly Hitler’s regime lacked any commitment to the basic norms of legality. And within weeks of the Night of the Long Knives this impression was confirmed by another outrageous demonstration of Nazi violence.3 Since early 1934, Hitler’s followers in Austria had been carrying out a campaign of terrorism against the authoritarian government of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. On 25 July, with the encouragement of the German party, the Austrian Nazis launched a coup.
