12 - Establishment of the Nazi dictatorship, January-March 1933

Question 1

The Hitler cabinet

Answer 1

• On 30 January 1933 Hitler was appointed Chancellor.
• Nazi party only held 3 posts out of 12 ministers.
• Reinforced Papen’s view that no fundamental political change would occur by including the Nazis.
• Franz Papen held the position of Vice-Chancellor.
• Majority of the non-Nazi cabinet belonged to the old aristocratic elite.
• Papen believed that Hitler would not be able to dominate his own cabinet.
• Hitler was determined to establish a Nazi dictatorship.

Question 2

Torchlight procession

Answer 2

• In the evening of 30 January a torchlight procession by around 100,000 Nazi members led its way through Berlin.
• Propaganda organised by Goebbels.
• Designed to show that Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor was not going to be a normal change.

Question 3

Hermann Goering

Answer 3

• 1933 he was appointed Chancellor and Interior Minister of Prussia.
• Also became Reich Aviation Minister in 1933 and was responsible for the rebuilding of the Luftwaffe.
• He established the Gestapo and the first concentration camps.
• After the failure of the Luftwaffe to defeat the RAF, his influence declined and he was expelled from the party in 1945.

Question 4

Violence of Nazi Stormtroopers (SA)

Answer 4

• Played a key role in Hitler’s rise to power.
• Membership of around 500,000 in January 1933 and grew to around 3 million a year later.
• Result of the Nazis being in power was that the activities of the SA gained legal authority.
• Orders were issued to the regular police forces forbidding them from interfering with SA activities.

Question 5

Nazi ‘legal revolution’ and the ‘revolution from below’

Answer 5

• SA unleashed a reign of terror against socialist and communist opponents.
• 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.
• Thousands of communists, socialists and trade unionist were rounded up and imprisoned in makeshift concentration camps.
• By July 1933, 26,789 political prisoners had been arrested by the SA, or taken into ‘protective custody’ and imprisoned in some 70 camps.

Question 6

The Reichstag fire

Answer 6

• 27th February 1933
• A young Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was arrested and charged with causing the fire.
• Suspicions that the Nazis set him up in order to justify introducing repressive measures.
• Nazis claimed it was part of a communist plot to start a revolution and was used to justify the immediate suspension of civil liberties.

Question 7

The Decree for the Protection of the People and the State

Answer 7

• Hitler was able to persuade Hindenburg to sign a decree giving him ‘emergency’ powers.
• Suspended important civil and political rights that had been guaranteed under the Constitution.
• The police were given increased powers to arrest, and detain without charge, those deemed to be a threat to state security.
• In practice, these powers were used to arrest communists and socialists, to ban their newspapers, and to disrupt their organisations.

Question 8

SA campaign of violence

Answer 8

• The decree was designed primarily yo legalise a full-scale assault on the communists.
• SA launched a ferocious campaign of violence across Germany.
• The police arrested 10,000 communists in two weeks, including most of the leaders.
• KPD party membership was treated by the courts as an act of treason and many communists were given long sentences.

Question 9

March 1933 election

Answer 9

• Conducted against the 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.
• Virtually impossible for the left to organise election meetings and their posters were removed as soon as they were put up.
• Nazi propaganda machine flooded the country with posters, leaflets, radio broadcasts, election rallies and parades.

Question 10

March 1933 election results

Answer 10

KPD - 12.3%
SPD - 18.25%
State Party - 0.85%
Centre Party - 11.25%
DVP - 1.1%
DNVP - 8.0%
NSDAP (Nazis) - 43.9%
- Nearly 64% of voters had supported non-Nazi parties.
- The Nazi vote had increased since the previous election but not as much as Hitler hoped and expected.

Question 11

The Enabling Act

Answer 11

• 24 March 1933
• Law that would allow him to make laws without the approval of the Reichstag and without reference to the President, for a period of 4 years.
• Required two thirds majority of the Reichstag in order to be legally enforceable.
• Communist deputies unable to take their seats and DNVP willing to collaborate with the Nazis so Centre Party held the key.
• Hitler won its support by reassuring that he would not use his powers without first consulting Hindenburg.
• Only the SPD deputies voted against the bill.
• Final piece in the legal framework that legitimised the Nazi dictatorship.

Question 12

Gleichschaltung

Answer 12

Meant ‘forcing into line’ and was the process through which the Nazis attempted to control or ‘coordinate’ all aspects of German society.

Question 13

Remaining threat of the army

Answer 13

• The army retained some independence from the Nazi Party.
• Even with his legal powers to rule by decree, Hitler recognised that the army was the only force that could remove him from power.
• Aristocratic officers who controlled the army were worried by the Nazi talk of a ‘national revolution’.
• Hitler reassured them, despite the SA want for a Second Revolution, Hitler would not undermine the army’s role as the most important institution.
• In return, the army leaders gave Hitler a free hand in establishing a dictatorship.