Initially the Army's leaders feared that their leading role as the defenders of Germany would be challenged by the unruly SA, the Nazi party's political militia. When Hitler suppressed the SA in the Night of the Long Knives, the army stood aside and effectually acquiesced in the extrajudicial murders involved, including those of army officers. While the General Staff welcomed Hitler's expansion of the army, they were opposed to many of his wilder schemes and continually urged caution. When several of Hitler's early moves such as the Occupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss with Austria and the occupation of the Sudetenland succeeded despite advice from the General Staff that these might bring about a premature war with France and Britain, Hitler was further convinced that his intuition was superior to the General Staff's intellectual analysis.