12 Flashcards
What was the Stahlhelm (Steel Helmets)?
a paramilitary organisation of
restoration of the monarchy and the revival of bermany as a military power, which took its name trom the steel helmets issued to berman soldiers in the First World War, founded in 1918 by Franz Seldte, it grew rapidly and had 500,000 members by 1930, making it the largest paramilitary organisation in Germany.
Who was Franz Seldte?
Franz Seldte (1882-1947) was the leader of the paramilitary Stahlhelm.
He was a conservative German nationalist who had been hostile to the Weimar Republic but retained his independence from the Nazis.
In April 1933, however, he joined the Nazi Party and his Stahlhelm organisation was incorporated into the SA.
Organisation of The Hitler cabinet
On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor by President Hindenburg. Later that day, Hitler held his first cabinet meeting. It was a cabinet in which the Nazi Party held only three posts out of a total of twelve ministers, reinforcing Papen’s view that no fundamental political change would occur by including the Nazis. Franz Papen held the position of Vice-Chancellor and was also the Minister-President of Prussia, Germany’s largest state. He also had won the right to be present whenever Hitler met with President Hindenburg. The real decisions in cabinet would be taken by the non- Nazi majority, many of whom belonged, like Papen himself, to the old aristocratic elite. Papen believed that Hitler would not be able to dominate his own cabinet; still less would he be able to become the dictator he aspired to be. Hitler, on the other hand, was determined to establish a Nazi dictatorship as soon as possible.
By the end of March 1933, he was well on the way to achieving this.
Key chronology Jan-March 1933
January-March 1933
1 February
Hitler dissolved the Reichstag and called new elections
27 February
Reichstag building was set on fire
28 February
Decree for the Protection of the People and the State
5 March
Reichstag elections - Nazis won 288 seats (43.9 per cent of the vote], still short of overall majority
6-7 March
8 March
13 March
24 March
Nazis began taking over state governments
First permanent concentration camp was established
Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda was established
Enabling Act passed
Composition of the Hitler cabinet
Apart from Hitler (Chancellor) and Papen (Vice-Chancellor), the cabinet contained:
•two Nazi Party ministers: Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick and Minister without portfolio
Hermann Goering (who was also Minister of the Interior in Prussia). Since the Minister of the Interior controlled the police, Nazi ministers occupied key positions in the government
the aristocratic army officer General
Blomberg was Defence Minister Alfred Hugenberg, the media tycoon and leader of the DNVP, was Minister for Economics Freiherr von Neurath, an
aristocratic, conservative, professional diplomat with wide experience of foreign affairs, was made Foreign Minister at Hindenburg’s insistence
Franz Seldte, the leader of the paramilitary Stahlhelm, as
Minister of Labour.
Who were Frick, Blomberg and Neurath?
Wilhelm Frick (1877-1946) was interior minister from 1933 to 1943. He had studied law before working for the Munich police 1904-24. He joined the Nazi Party and was elected to the Reichstag in 1924. He was tried and executed by the Allies after the war.
General Blomberg (1878-1946) had been the army commander in East Prussia before becoming Defence Minister in Hitler’s first cabinet.
Described as weak, Blomberg was persuaded by Hitler’s promise of an aggressive foreign policy and rearmament to steer the army towards increasingly enthusiastic support for the regime. In 1938, however, Hitler removed Blomberg from the government.
Freiherr von Neurath (1873- 1956) was a German aristocratic diplomat.
In the 1920s, he had served as German ambassador in Rome and then London, before becoming Foreign Minister in Papen’s government in 1932.
He continued in this post under Hitler until 1938. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937, but was dismissed from the Foreign Ministry in 1938 after opposing Hitler’s aggressive plans for German expansion.
Torchlight procession
Later, in the evening of 30 January, Hitler stood on the balcony of the Reich Chancellery to review a torchlight procession by around 100,000 Nazi members winding its way through the streets of the capital Berlin. Organised by Hitler’s propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, this demonstration was designed to show that Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor was not going to be a normal change of government, one of the many that had been seen in the 14 years since the German Republic had been established. It was a spectacular demonstration of Hitler’s personal triumph and of the victory of the Nazi movement. Hitler and his Nazi Party were making it clear that their accession to power would mark a historic break with the past and the start of their ‘National Revolution’.
Who was Goering?
Hermann Goering (1893-1946) was a fighter pilot in the First World War.
He joined the Nazi Party in 1922 and took part in the Munich Putsch of
1923. He was elected to the Reichstag in 1928 and became the President (speaker) of the Reichstag in 1932. In 1933, he was appointed Chancellor and Interior Minister of Prussia. He also became Reich Aviation Minister in 1933 and was responsible for the rebuilding of the Luftwaffe (air force).
As Interior Minister of Prussia, he established the Gestapo and the first concentration camps. In 1936, he was placed in charge of the Four Year Plan (see Chapter 15). After the failure of the Luftwaffe to defeat the RAF in the Battle of Britain, his influence declined and he was expelled from the party in 1945. He was captured by the Allies and put on trial but committed suicide in prison.
Nazi violence against political opponents
The violence of Nazi Stormtroopers (SA) had played a key role in Hitler’s rise to power. Once he was in power in January 1933, he used state resources to consolidate his position and rapidly expanded the SA, since the Stormtroopers’ violence and terror were vital weapons in his struggle to eliminate opposition.
From a membership of around 500,000 in January 1933, the organisation grew to around 3 million strong a year later. Another result of the Nazis being in power was that the activities of the SA gained legal authority. In late February 1933, the SA and the Stahlhelm were merged and became recognised as ‘auxiliary police; orders were issued to the regular police forces forbidding them from interfering with SA activities. Frick and Goering occupied key positions in the cabinet - Frick as Minister of the Interior for the whole Reich and Goering as Minister of the Interior in Prussia - which enabled the Nazis to control the police.
“The Nazi legal revolution’ and the ‘revolution from below, in which the SA unleashed a reign of terror against socialist and communist opponents, were opposite sides of the same coin. Using their newfound powers, the SA unleashed a sustained assault on trade union and KPD offices, as well as on the homes of left-wing politicians. Gangs of Stormtroopers broke up SPD and KPD meetings.
On 5 February, a young Nazi shot dead the SPD mayor of a small town in Prussia and, later in the month, a communist was killed in clashes with the SA.
Not only were these crimes ignored by the police but, when the SPD newspaper condemned the killings, the paper was banned. The Centre Party also became a target after its newspapers criticised the Nazi regime. Centre Party newspapers were banned and Stormtroopers attacked the party’s meetings. Thousands of communists, socialists and trade unionists were rounded up and imprisoned in makeshift concentration camps set up in old factories or army barracks. The first permanent concentration camp was established on 8 March at Dachau near Munich, with accommodation for over 5000 people. This became the model for later concentration camps. By July 1933, 26,789 political prisoners had been arrested by the SA, or taken into protective custody’ to use the official Nazi terminology, and imprisoned in some 70 camps.
The Reichstag fire
On taking power, Hitler persuaded Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and call a new election in March. He believed that the Nazis could win an outright majority in this election, thereby strengthening his position. This election campaign was the occasion for an intensification of Nazi terror against their opponents. By the time the election took place on 5 March, the SPD and KPD had virtually been driven underground by the atmosphere of terror and intimidation generated by the Nazis. A key moment in the campaign was the burning down of the Reichstag building on 27 February. A young Dutch communist, Marius van der Lubbe, was arrested and charged with causing the fire. There have been suspicions ever since that the Nazis deliberately set up van der Lubbe to set fire to the Reichstag in order to justify introducing repressive measures, but no definitive evidence has ever emerged to show exactly who was responsible. Whoever that was, it was clear that the Nazi regime gained the most from the fire, as they claimed that it was part of a communist plot to start a revolution in Germany and the event was used to justify the immediate suspension of civil liberties. Terror had now become: legal means to crush opposition.
The Decree for the Protection of the People and the State
Hitler was appointed Chancellor by Hindenburg in a way that was strictly legal, according to the constitution of the Weimar Republic. That constitution technically remained in force during the period of the Third Reich but, in the aftermath of the Reichstag fire, Hitler was able to persuade Hindenburg to sign a decree giving him ‘emergency powers. This was the Decree for the Protection of the People and the State, which suspended important civil and political rights that had been guaranteed under the Weimar Constitution. Thus the police were given increased powers to arrest, and detain without charge, those deemed to be a threat to state security. The police also gained increased powers to enter and search private premises, while the government had the power to censor publications. In practice, these powers were used to arrest communists and socialists, to ban their newspapers, and to disrupt their organisations.
The decree also gave the central government the power to take over state governments if they refused to act against the Nazis’ political opponents.
The decree was designed primarily to legalise a full-scale assault on the communists. Backed by a propaganda campaign in which the Nazis claimed that Germany was on the brink of a ‘German Bolshevik Revolution, the SA launched a ferocious campaign of violence across Germany. The police arrested 10,000 communists in two weeks, including most of the leaders.
Although the KPD was not yet officially banned, and the party was still able to put up candidates in the March election, party membership was treated by the
courts as an act of treason and many communists were given long sentences.
Civil servants, judges and the police, who were overwhelmingly conservative and nationalist in their political sympathies, were only too willing to give legal sanction to the Nazis campaign of terror.
March 1933 election
The election campaign was conducted against this backdrop of terror and intimidation. The SA controlled the streets, many of the Nazis’ opponents were locked up, the offices of the SPD and KPD had been smashed up and their funds confiscated. It was virtually impossible for the left to organise election meetings and their posters were removed as soon as they were put up. Anyone distributing leaflets for the SPD or KPD was liable to be arrested. Meanwhile, the Nazi propaganda machine flooded the country with posters, leaflets, radio broadcasts, election rallies and parades.
Even with the resources of the state at their disposal, and their opponents effectively banned from campaigning, the Nazis did not achieve the resounding success they desired in the election. The Nazi vote had increased since the previous election in November 1932, but not as much as Hitler hoped and expected. Despite the violence and intimidation, SPD and communist support had held up remarkably well, as did support for the Centre. Perhaps the most significant point about the election result was that nearly 64 per cent of voters had supported non- Nazi parties. On the other hand, the Nazis, with the support of their DNVP allies, now had a Reichstag majority.
March 1933 election seats
KPD: 12.3%
SPD: 19.25%
NSDAP: 43.9% 288 seats
Enabling Act: The Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich
The first meeting of the new Reichstag was held in the Kroll Opera House on
23 March. Hitler’s sole objective at this meeting was to secure the necessary two thirds majority for his Enabling Act, a law that would allow him to make laws without the approval of the Reichstag and without reference to the President, for a period of four years. The Enabling Act was passed by the Reichstag on 24 March 1933. Further to this, Hitler was also given the power to make treaties with foreign states without the Reichstag’s approval. Because this law was a change in the constitution, it required a two thirds majority of the Reichstag in order to be legally enforceable. With the communist deputies unable to take their seats and the DNVP willing to collaborate with the Nazis in passing the bill, the Centre Party held the key to getting the necessary two thirds majority. By offering the Centre Party the reassurance that he would not use his powers without first consulting Hindenburg, Hitler won its support. Only the SPD deputies voted against the bill and the Enabling Act duly became law. With full executive and legislative powers, Hitler could rule without needing a Reichstag majority and, after 1933, the Reichstag rarely met.
The Enabling Act was the final piece in the legal framework that legitimised the Nazi dictatorship. Hitler was now able to issue decrees without needing Hindenburg’s approval. Although the law was presented as a temporary measure for four years, in practice it was a permanent fixture of the Nazi regime. With the new law in force, the Nazis could now begin to construct the one-party, terror state that Hitler wanted.
What was the SS?
The SS was Hitler’s personal bodyguard, created in 1926. Heinrich Himmler had taken charge of the SS in 1929. Under Himmler’s leadership, and especially after the Nazis came to power in 1933, the SS grew rapidly and expanded its role. Once the Nazis came to power, its policing role was expanded and it became the main Nazi organisation involved in the identification, arrest and detention of political prisoners
