Weimar Republic: Encyclopedia II - Weimar Republic - Hitler's chancellorship and the death of the Weimar Republic 1933

Weimar Republic - Hitler's chancellorship and the death of the Weimar Republic 1933

Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor on the morning of January 30, 1933 in what some observers later described as a brief and indifferent ceremony. By early February, a mere week after Hitler's assumption of the chancellorship, the government had begun to clamp down on the opposition. Meetings of the left-wing parties were banned, and even some of the moderate parties found their members threatened and assaulted. Measures with an appearance of legality suppressed the Communist Party in mid-February and included the plainly illegal arrests of Reichstag deputies.

Weimar Republic - Reichstag Fire

The Reichstag Fire on February 27 was blamed by Hitler's government on the Communists, and Hitler used the emergency to obtain President von Hindenburg's assent to the Reichstag Fire Decree the following day. The decree invoked Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution and suspended a number of constitutional protections of civil liberties, allowing the Nazi government to take swift and harsh action against political meetings.

The Government induced the President by means of the agent provocateur Reichstag Fire of 27 February and other anti-Communist maneuvers, to issue martial emergency . With this extraordinary ruse Hitler was at a stroke able to break the log-jam of forces arrayed against him by simple physical arrest, and some murder, of the entire KPD Communist Party.

Weimar Republic - Reichstag election of March 5

Hitler and the Nazis exploited the German state's broadcasting and aviation facilities in a massive attempt to sway the electorate, but this election — the last democratic election to take place until the end of the Third Reich twelve years later — yielded a scant majority of 16 seats for the coalition. At the Reichstag elections, which took place 5 March, the NSDAP obtained seventeen million votes. The Communist, Socialist and Catholic Centre votes stood firm .

Hitler addressed disparate interest groups, stressing the necessity for a definitive solution to the perpetual instability of the Weimar Republic. He now blamed Germany's problems on the Communists, even threatening their lives on March 3. Former Chancellor Heinrich Bruning proclaimed that his Centre Party would resist any constitutional change and appealed to the President for an investigation of the Reichstag Fire. Hitler's successful plan was to induce what remained of the now Communist depleted Reichstag to grant him, and the Government, the authority to issue decrees with the force of law .The hitherto Presidential Dictatorship hereby was to give itself a new legal form.

On 15 March the first cabinet meeting was attended by the two coalition parties, representing a minority in the Reichstag: The Nazis and the DNVP led by Alfred Hugenberg (196 + 52 seats). According to the Nuremburg Trials this Cabinet meeting's first order of business was how to at last achieve the complete counter-revolution by means of the constitutionally allowed Enabling Act , requiring two-thirds parliamentary majority . This Act would, and did, bring Hitler and the NSDAP unfettered dictatorial powers .

Weimar Republic - Hitler cabinet meeting in mid-March

At the meeting of the new cabinet on March 15, Hitler introduced the Enabling Act, which would have authorized the cabinet to enact legislation without the approval of the Reichstag. Meanwhile, the only remaining question for the Nazis was whether the Catholic Centre Party (Zentrum) would support the Enabling Act in the Reichstag, thereby providing the two-thirds majority required to ratify a law that amended the constitution. Hitler expressed his confidence to win over the Centre's votes. Hitler is recorded at the Nuremberg Trials as being sure of eventual Centre Party Germany capitulation and thus rejecting of the DNVP's suggestions to "balance" the majority through further arrests, this time of socialists . Hitler however assured his coalition partners that arrests would resume after the elections, and in fact some 26 SDP Socialists were physically removed . After meeting with Centre leader Monsignor Ludwig Kaas and other Centre Trade Union leaders daily ,and denying them a substantial participation in the government, negotiation succeeded in respect of guarantees towards Catholic civil-servants and eduction issues. Kaas himself negotiated a letter of constitutional guarantee in theory accepted by the Centre Party as final condition for assent to the Enabling Act, which guarantee was not finally given, before the Centre indeed assented through Kaas towards the two-thirds majority.

Monsignor Ludwig Kaas, the party's chairman since 1928, had strong connection to the Vatican Secretary of State, later Pope Pius XII At the last internal Centre meeting prior to the debate on the Enabling Act, Kaas expressed no preference or suggestion on the vote, but as a way of mollifying opposition by Centre members to the granting of further powers to Hitler, Kaas somehow arranged for a letter of constitutional guarantee from Hitler himself prior to his voting the centre en blocin favor of the Enabling Act.

Kaas is remembered in connection with this vote he handed, and in this connection to the Vatican for whom he thereafte set in train and drafted the Holy See's very long desired Reichskonkordat with Germany . Ludwig Kaas is named along with von Papen as being one of the two most important political figures within this achievement of Dictatorship by Adolf Hitler. (K.vKlemperer-German Resistance Against Hitler, OUP 1992)

The Socialist leader Otto Wels is remembered as the sole brave opposing voice to the 23 March Enabling Act that marks the end of the Weimar republic and of democracy in modern Germany .

Weimar Republic - Enabling Act negotiations

On March 20 negotiation began between Hitler and Frick on one side and the Catholic Center Party (Zentrum) leaders — Kaas, Stegerwald and Hackelsburger — on the other. The aim was to settle on conditions under which Center would vote in favor of the Enabling Act. Because of the Nazis' narrow majority in the Reichstag, Center's support was necessary to receive the required two-thirds majority vote. On March 22, the negotiations concluded; Hitler promised to continue the existence of the German states, agreed not to use the new grant of power to change the constitution, and promised to retain Zentrum members in the civil service. Hitler also pledged to protect the Catholic confessional schools and to respect the concordats signed between the Holy See and Bavaria (1924), Prussia (1929) and Baden (1931). Hitler also agreed to mention these promises in his speech to the Reichstag before the vote on the Enabling Act.

Kaas is remembered in connection with this vote he handed, and in his close connection to the Vatican for whom he immediately set in train the Holy See's very long desired Reichskonkordat with Germany . Ludwig Kaas is named along with von Papen as being one of the two most important political figures within this achievement of Dictatorship by Adolf Hitler. (K von Klemperer,German Resistance Aaginst Hitler OUP,1992)

Weimar Republic - Ceremonial opening of the Reichstag in Potsdam on March 21

The ceremonial opening of the Reichstag on March 21 was held at the Garrison Church in Potsdam, a shrine of Prussianism, in the presence of many Junker landowners and representatives of the imperial military caste. This impressive and often emotional spectacle — orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels — aimed to link Hitler's government with Germany's imperial past and portray National Socialism as a guarantor of the nation's future. The ceremony helped convince the "old guard" Prussian military elite of Hitler's homage to their long tradition and, in turn, produced the relatively convincing view that Hitler's government had the support of Germany's traditional protector — the Army. Such support would announce to the population a return to conservatism to curb the problems affecting the Weimar Republic, and that stability might be at hand. In a politically adroit move, Hitler bowed in respectful humility before President and Field Marshal von Hindenburg.

Weimar Republic - Passage of the Enabling Act by the Reichstag on March 23

The Reichstag convened on March 23, 1933, and in the midday opening, Hitler made a historic speech, appearing outwardly calm and conciliatory. It is most noticeable for its abrupt reversal of the Nazi Party's hardline stance against Christianity and particularly Catholicism. Hitler presented an appealing prospect of respect towards Christianity by paying tribute to the Christian faiths as "essential elements for safeguarding the soul of the German people". He promised to respect their rights and declared his government's "ambition is a peaceful accord between Church and State" and that he hoped "to improve our friendly relations with the Holy See." This speech aimed especially at the future recognition by the named Holy See and therefore to the votes of the Centre Party addressing many concerns Kaas had voiced during the previous talks. Kaas is considered to have had a hand therefore in the drafting of the speech ( German Resistance Against Hitler, Klemens von Klemperer, OUP, 1992 ) Kaas is also reported as voicing the Holy see's desire for Hitler as bulwark against atheistic Russian nihilism previously as early as May 1932 (Edgar Ansel Mowrer, Triumph and Turmoil,1968 p.209)

In the debate prior to the vote on the Enabling Act, Hitler orchestrated the full political menace of his paramilitary forces like the storm troopers in the streets to intimidate reluctant Reichstag deputies into approving the Enabling Act. The Communists' 81 seats had been empty since the Reichstag Fire Decree and other lesser known procedural measures, thus excluding their anticipated "No" votes from the balloting. Otto Wels, the leader of the Social Democrats, whose seats were similarly depleted from 120 to below 100 , was the only speaker to defend democracy and in a futile but brave effort to deny Hitler the two-thirds majority, he made a speech critical of the abandonment of democracy to dictatorship. At this Hitler could no longer restrain his wrath. (Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer 1959).

In his retort to Wels, Hitler abandoned earlier pretence at calm statesmanship and delivered a characteristic screaming diatribe, promising to exterminate all Communists in Germany and threatening Wels' Social Democrats as well. Meanwhile Hitler's promised written guarantee to Monsignor Kaas was being typed up, it was asserted to Kaas, and thereby Kaas was persuaded to silently deliver the Centre bloc's votes for the Enabling Act anyway.

Weimar Republic - Aftermath

The passing of the Enabling Act gave Hitler and his government sweeping powers to legislate without the Reichstag's approval, and to make foreign policy decisions and deviate from the constitution where they saw fit. Hitler would use these powers to remove all opposition to the dictatorship he wished to create. The decrees issueed by Hitler's cabinet within succeeding weeks rapidly stripped Germans of their rights, removed all non-Nazi members of the Civil Service, and banned all other political parties and unions, ushering in the Third Reich.

The NSDAP movement had rapidly passed the power of the majority Nationalist Ministers to control . Unchecked by the police the S.A indulged in acts of terrorism throughout Germany. Communists, Social democrats ,and the Centre were everywhere ousted from public life. The violent persecution of Jews began, and by the summer 1933 the NSDAP felt itself so invincible it could do away with all the other parties and the Trade Unions. The Nationalist Party was among those suppressed. The NSDAP ruled alone in Germany . The Reichswehr had however remained completely un-touched by all these occurrences. It was still the same State within a State that it had been in the Weimar Republic. Similarly ,the private property of great capitalists and landowners was untouched, while the administrative and judicial machinery was only very slightly tampered with. {Arthur Rosenburg, A History of The German Republic, 1936)

See also Third Reich.

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