The purge of the SA was legalised on 3 July with a one-paragraph decree: the "Law Regarding Measures of State Self-Defence", a step that historian Robin Cross contends was done by Hitler to cover his own tracks. The Law declared, "The measures taken on 30 June, 1 and 2 July to suppress treasonous assaults are legal as acts of self-defence by the State." At the time no public reference was made to the alleged SA rebellion, but only generalised references to misconduct, perversion and some sort of plot. In a nationally broadcast speech to the Reichstag on 13 July, Hitler justified the purge as a defence against treason. Before the events of the Night of the Long Knives concluded, not only was Röhm dead, but more than 200 additional people had been killed, including Nazi official Gregor Strasser, former chancellor General Kurt von Schleicher, and Franz von Papen's secretary, Edgar Jung. Most of those murdered had little to no affiliation with Röhm but were killed for political reasons.