Significance Of The Reichstag Fire

next event that controlled Hitler’s life was the Beer Hall Putsch, in November of 1923. The Nazi

Hitler’s assumption of power on the 30th of January 1933 was seemingly due to the mass popularity of the Nazi party. However it was far off achieving the 50% majority it needed to put Hitler automatically in power. As well as popularity, backstairs intrigue and the short-sightedness of those in power enabled Hitler to become Chancellor. The weaknesses of Germany’s political leadership were fundamental to Hitler’s success. In some senses the popularity of the party only provided an opening, available for exploitation.

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

There was a power struggle in Germany after the 1932 election. Many of the political parties thought they could use Hitler's popularity to their advantage. The power struggle ended in the President asking Hitler to become Chancellor in January 1933. As chancellor, Hitler encouraged fear of communism and imprisoned thousands of his political opponents. In February 1933 the Reichstag building was set on fire and Hitler cleverly blamed the Communists, who were feared by many Germans. By August 1934 Germany was a single-party state and Hitler was dictator. Hitler used his power to reverse key decisions and limitations imposed by the treaty of Versailles.

The Nazi group had a major impact on the government and influenced the decision for the next Chancellor of Germany. “...Paul von Hindenburg, had appointed Hitler Chancellor. Having won more than 37 percent of the vote in the previous year's legislative elections, Hitler's Nazi party had enough power to effectively paralyze Germany's democratic government, which had been in place since 1919,” Smith says (pg.15). This shows that Hitler's Nazi group was extremely powerful and explains how Hitler arose to power. This quote reveals that Hitler had the most power since 1919, which demonstrates how powerful Hitler will become in the future. “By the early 1930’s, Germany was in desperate shape. Its defeat in World War One and the harsh conditions imposed by the United States, Britain, and France in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles - included debilitating reparation payments to the victors - had left Germany humiliated and impoverished, with ruinous inflation eating away at its economy. The worldwide Depression that followed the 1929 U.S. stock market crash exacerbated the situation as banks

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

When fire damaged the Reichstag building in spring 1933, Hitler blamed the communists and persuaded President Hindenburg to sign dictatorial emergency decrees.

3) The ascent of National Socialism. In 1923, Hitler held a meeting of all high-ranking Nazis in a beer hall in Munich, where he revealed his plans for a coup. This failed attempt to overthrow the Weimar government would later be known as the Munich Putsch, which “gave the Nazi’s unparalleled publicity”. The use of the radio in order to spread the National socialist message played a pivotal role in the Nazi parties’ popular rise in society. Due to the ramifications that Germany faced after the First World War, the nation had unquestionably lost faith in tradition and their priorities had shifted to populist nationalism. On the eve of Hitler’s appointment, victory parades took place in dozens of German settlements. The capital saw nearly a million Berliners demonstrate their commitment to the National Socialist party who had pledged to establish “a strong-willed and strong-armed racial state” in “a very new twentieth-century Germany”. History shows that Hitler’s tremendous and irrefutably passionate presence came about at the perfect time, filling the void created by populace sentiment. Much of 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.

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

The vast Nazi rallies including symbolic acts such as the public burning of books written by Jews, Communists, liberals, and foreigners helped vocalize the party’s strength.

It is to an certain extent that Nazi consolidation of power in 1933 was due to the use of terror and violence. However the terror and violence was very limited because the Nazi's weren’t in a strong enough position to exert terror and violence alone. Nazi propaganda against the communists made most Germans fearful of Communism therefore allowing Nazis to consolidate a bit more power through means of terror. On the other hand the Nazi party’s policy of legality and the threat of communism are to a large extent the underlining most important factor in explaining how the Nazis were able to destroy political opposition and become dominant and consolidate power in 1933. Legality was a policy where Hitler’s objective was to legally consolidate

<br>The stock market crash of 1929 effected practically every nation in the world. Germany was already suffering a post-war depression and was greatly effected. Hitler used the suffering of the masses to gain political support. He gained a strong following from the

It is to a certain extent that Nazi consolidation of power in 1933 was due to the use of terror and violence. However the terror and violence was very limited because the Nazi's weren’t in a strong enough position to exert terror and violence alone. Nazi propaganda against the communists made most Germans fearful of Communism therefore allowing Nazis to consolidate a bit more power through means of terror. On the other hand the Nazi party’s policy of legality and the threat of communism are to a large extent the underlining most important factor in explaining how the Nazis were able to destroy political

Hitler gained even more power when he was named chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler used propaganda as a strong tool, and right at the center of his campaigning were anti-Semitic messages and a hatred for communism. In 1933, there was a mysterious fire at the Reichstag building, which allowed Hitler to instate the Enabling Act. This act allowed him to create laws without the