Background
Lutze was born in Bevergern, Westphalia, in 1890
Lutze was born in Bevergern, Westphalia, in 1890
He later joined the German Army in 1912, and obtained officer rank.
Lutze's participation in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 was very important: he informed Hitler about Ernst Röhm's anti-régime activities. In preparation for the purge, both Heinrich Himmler and his deputy Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SS Security Service (SD), assembled dossiers of manufactured evidence to suggest that Röhm planned to overthrow Hitler. Meanwhile, Göring, Himmler, Heydrich and Lutze (at Hitler's direction) drew up lists of those who should be liquidated, starting with seven top SA officials and including many more. The names of eighty-five victims are known; however, estimates place the total number killed at up to 200 persons. After the purge Lutze succeeded Röhm as Stabschef SA, but after the Night of the Long Knives, the SA no longer had as prominent a role as it had in the early days of the party. Lutze's major tasks included overseeing a large reduction in the SA, a task welcomed by the SS and by the regular armed forces. On 30 June 1934 Hitler issued a twelve-point directive to Lutze to clean up and re-organize the SA.
At the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg in September 1934, William L. Shirer observed Hitler speaking to the SA for the first time since the purge (Hitler absolved the SA from crimes committed by Röhm). Shirer also noted Lutze speaking there (Lutze reaffirmed the SA's loyalty). Shirer described Lutze as possessing a shrill unpleasant voice, and thought the "SA boys received him coolly".
In September 1938, SA Stabschef Lutze travelled to Passau to welcome Nazis who had returned from the Reichsparteitag in Nuremberg. Lutze stayed at "Veste Oberhaus" and seized the opportunity to meet Johann Nepomuk Kühberger, who had once helped to save Hitler from drowning in the Inn river. Now, he was a priest, and played the organ at Passau cathedral. The reintroduction of military conscription in 1935 reduced the size of the SA significantly. Its most visible role after the purge was in assisting the SS in perpetrating the Kristallnacht in November 1938. In February 1939, Lutze reviewed a parade of 20,000 Blackshirts in Rome and then set off for a tour of Italy’s Libyan frontier with Tunisia.
In January 1939, the role of the SA was officially mandated as a training school for the armed forces with the establishment of the SA Wehrmannschaften (SA Military Units). Then in September 1939 with the start of World War II in Europe, the SA lost most of its remaining members to military service in the Wehrmacht (armed forces). Lutze maintained his position in the weakened SA until his death.
On 1 May 1943 he was driving a car near Potsdam with his entire family. Driving too fast on a curve caused an accident that badly injured Lutze as well as killing his older daughter Inge and badly injuring his younger daughter. Viktor Lutze died during an operation in a hospital in Potsdam the next evening. News reports stated that the accident involved another vehicle, keeping the news of reckless driving from the public. Hitler ordered Joseph Goebbels to convey his condolences to Viktor's wife Paula and son Viktor, Jr. Goebbels, in his diaries, had already described Lutze as a man of "unlimited stupidity" but at his death decided he was a decent fellow. Lutze was 52 years old.
Pictures found in Lutze's house by the Allies depict a family man who enjoyed day-trips and table tennis.