How significant was the Reichstag Fire for Germany?
In Germany 1933, the Nazis viewed the Reichstag building as a symbol of the Weimar Republic, which was something they loathed. On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building was set ablaze by an unknown criminal. The criminal framed for the heinous act was Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe. He was later executed for committing the crime. It was later found out that the fire was not set by the Dutch communist, but by Hitler’s henchmen. He ordered them to start the fire and frame it on a communist to strike fear to every German civilian. He also spiked even more fear by saying this was part of a communist rebellion1.
One of Hitler’s main goals was to stop his communist competition. He already had help from the Reichstag Fire striking fear into citizens lives so nothing much more was needed. Hitler still took measures anyway by killing anyone who dared to go against or challenge him. The first time this was done was on a historical night called “Knight of the Long Knives” which took place June 30, 1934, to July 2, 19542. Many today thought of this time as a historical purge for Hitler and his henchmen. On that night, most SA leaders were murdered as well as Rohm3 . By killing off one of the strongest groups in Germany, fear was struck in the public 's eye of Hitler and what he was capable of.
Another strong individual in Germany was Paul von Hindenburg, German president, who upheld the country for many years.
As a result, the Hitler and Nazis aimed to discredit its competitors and garner support for creating a German “living space”. To simplify, in 1933 the Reichstag, a parliamentary building in Berlin, was set aflame by a young communist. Strategically, it presented an opportunity to the Nazi party to attack the Communist Party by suggesting it was plotting against the German government. Symbolically, it “produced the… event portending the destruction of parliamentary government by dictatorship.” Sworn into the position of Chancellor four weeks prior, Hitler was able to convince President von Hindenburg to initiate an emergency decree that would suspend all civil liberties. Soon after, the government made mass arrests of self-proclaimed communists and communist delegates alike, allowing the Nazis to become to majority party in parliament.
Hitler, in 1934-1945, believing in the works of Charles Darwin, made concentration camps for the jews. He discriminated against the Jews, and declared The Aryan race to be superior. The killing of the Jews was both out of fear and pride for Hitler. He feared the fact that the Jews might spoil the pureness of the Aryans. He took pride in the fact that his race was superior, and so wanted to maintain his race’s superiority to keep his pride intact.
The Reichstag fire was probably the trigger which enabled Hitler to convince the Government that the communists were plotting against them. A young communist, Marinus Van Der Lubbe, was blamed for the fire and therefore the communist reputation was damaged in favor of the Nazi Party. At the March 1933 election, the Nazi party did not have sufficient numbers to form a majority, however the Nationalist Party joined the Nazi’s to form a coalition government and therefore gave Hitler control of the Reichstag. Hitler seized this opportunity and on 23rd March introduced the “Enabling Act”, which gave him complete control over Germany, however he still needed approval of the Reichstag to pass laws. The Nazis placed enormous pressure on all parties using intimidation in the Reichstag and used the “Law for the Protection of the People” to prevent communists from taking their seats in Parliament. The SS, (which was Hitler’s own private army), physically beat members of
Hitler had shown unwillingness to tolerate the Jews and once he was appointed Chancellor, he started to take elimination measures like deportation, forced emigration, and isolation to enforce his belief. He took advantage of Germany’s weakness in World War One, then used it as an opportunity to blame the Jews for Germany’s defeat. Hitler’s political party was the largest political party in Germany thus allowing them to draw very large crowds to gatherings. He had very good oratory speeches with hand gestures that easily manipulated people to adhere to his views. Hitler constantly targeted the Jews because he knew people believed in these speeches. People in Germany were already anti-semitic but Hitler made it worse by constantly consuming them in his speeches. From the way he spoke about the Jews, we could clearly see the possibility of genocide. Hitler wanted Germany to be free of any humans that anyone other than his ideal master race so he personally selected bodyguards to be part of a group called the SS. Hitler was responsible for ordering the SS to carry out the extermination of anyone who did not fit this ideal. The SS handled oppositions using force and as a result of which people were forced to give into the idea of violence. Sometimes people purposely went along with this Holocaust ideal due to the fear of getting killed. These terrors allowed the holocaust occur
In order to gain full control of the country they had to remove or eliminate their political rivals. Hitler used excuses to blame and imprison his political rivals. One good example would be when he used the Reichstag fire as an excuse to imprison many communist leaders, which stopped them from campaigning during the election so that he could win more seats and power. He also used fear and terror by creating a group known as S.S or Black
The Night of the Long Knives was extremely significant in the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship and ultimately Hitler’s power. This night of brutal murder and elimination of the Sturm Abteilung (SA) gave Hitler the support of the army, which he need for both the creation of a totalitarian state and his future foreign policy and also relieved the pressures on Hitler. However, The Night of the Long Knives was also the continuation of many other events, which could be described as equally as important, such as the Enabling Act and the Reichstag Fire.
Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party used nationalism to great effect in Germany that spured the Second World World. After WWI, many Germans blamed the new government for accepting the unfair treaty as conditions became miserable. People who could not find jobs began to drift into the Communist and National Socialist parties established by Hitler. They decided that it was the necessary solution. In 1933, Hitler came to power as dictator of Germany and preached a racist brand of fascism. He promised to end the humiliating conditions caused by the German defeat in WWI. He knew how to win people's obedience and trust, through their fears and insecurities. He almost immediately got Germany back into the factories and began secretly building up army and weapons. His real motives were to expand German territory and dominate Europe and the whole world that became the prelude to another war.
When Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, he immediately began enforcing an authoritative state. An authoritative state is a state favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom. Hitler started a world war to achieve his dream of world domination. The war left behind an estimated 72 million dead, among them 47 million civilians, of whom some six million were Jewish. Jews were the targets of the Holocaust because Hitler hated Jews and blamed them for all of the problems in the world. Throughout the years of the Holocaust, this is seen in many ways, starting from the Nazis having book burnings to get rid of un-German writings proclaiming the death of Jewish intellectualism all the way to the extremity of the mass murder of Jews. This process progressed rapidly, and it had lasting effects for the entire world.
On the night of the 27th of February, 1933, the Reichstag building in Berlin burned down in an act declared by the Nazi Party to be the inception of a widespread communist uprising. The Reichstag Fire, as it was called, can be observed as one of the most significant events in the formation of Nazi Germany through its pivotal role in the reduction of civil liberties of Germany’s citizens and the emergence of a near dictatorial regime within the Weimar Republic. The significance of the fire lies in its role as a catalyst towards effecting the power that the Nazi Party would hold throughout the 1930’s as a result of the various decrees and laws passed in response to it. There is little doubt that the
Even though Germany was left in a period of struggle and economic weakness after WW1, Adolf Hitler would take a stand by creating a party that would help refine the structure of the economy. This party, when abbreviated, was called Nazi, would also create harsh laws and unrelentless punishment. Due to the Nazi party’s quick growth, there was an immediate impact on lifestyle and politics for the people of Germany. The long term impact brought forth by the consequences or legacy of the Nazi party included a population decrease and an increase in deaths. To make both of these impacts, Hitler had to overcome many hard challenges.
Hitler cultivated his own army to destroy selective demographics, he wanted to create a world where his concept of ideal was the only one that existed. As a dictator he was able to constitute laws, anyone who chose to disobey these laws would be executed. The laws that are put into place can define success through evil acts. The Holocaust is a direct example; Hitler knew he would be able to brainwash human beings to obey his commands contributing to the success of his dehumanizing scheme.
This removal of the ability to criticize and question the Nazi regime led to one of the first acts when the Hitler was given power by Hindenburg in 1933, and that was to begin a campaign of terror against all opponents from the extreme left, namely the communist party. Which was the only party in Germany after the 1930 elections that really held any sort of power as the centre left had collapsed[10] what this lead to was the quick consolidation of power as Hitler and the Nazi party controlled the apparatuses of government that allowed them to unleash a reign of terror against their opponents, chief among them the communists. What this culminated in was the attempted burning down of the Reichstag by a communist sympathiser and the subsequent arrest of 4,000 Communists as Hitler declared to Goebbels, Goring and Rudolf Diels that: ‘There will be no more mercy now; anyone who stands in our way will be butchered’ not only that but that
All of these factors made it very difficult for the German people to be trustworthy, faithful and supportive of the regime of the Weimar Constitution. This idea is re-affirmed through German historian Friedrich Meinecke saying that “true loyalty to the Fatherland requires disloyalty to the Republic”, leading to an opening for extremist parties as well as the Republic’s doom.
Adolf Hitler came to power over Germany in January of 1933. He hated Jews and blamed them for everything bad that had ever happened to Germany. Hitler’s goal in life was to eliminate the Jewish population. With his rise to power in Germany, he would put into action his plan of elimination. This is not only why German Jews were the main target of the Holocaust, but why they were a large part of the years before, during, and after the Holocaust. Hitler’s “final solution” almost eliminated the Jewish population in Europe during World War II. At the end of the war and along with his suicide, the Jewish population would survive the horror known as the Holocaust and the Jews would eventually find their way back to their homeland of Israel
Hitler also wanted to eliminate the Jews and the spread of communism. According to Overy, “German forces entered the USSR with instructions from Hitler’s headquarters to use the most brutal methods to keep control and to murder Communist commissars and Jews in the service of the Soviet Union” (BBC.com). Hitler thought that by preventing the spread of communism and murdering Jews, Germany would have a greater advantage of