The Establishment of Hitler's Dictatorship and Its Legality Essay

Power is a double-edged sword. It has the capacity to do positive things and be a good force, but often turns into a slippery slope. Powerlessness is similar in fashion as it serves a purpose to elevate the notion of power, acting as a sort of byproduct of power, but is often a forced position that puts the “participant” at the bottom of the totem pole.

Members were taking the law into their own hands and this gave the impression of a revolution from below. The Enabling Law was the constitutional foundation stone of the Third Reich. In purely legal terms the Weimar Constitution was not dissolved in 1945, and the Enabling Law provided a legal basis for the dictatorship which evolved from 1933. Gleichschaltung could never allow the existence of other political parties. Nazism openly rejected democracy and any concessions to alternative opinions. Instead, it aspired to establish authoritarian rule within a one party state. The regions had a very strong tradition in Germany. This contradicted Nazi ideas to create a fully unified country. Nazi activists had already exploited the climate of February-March 1933 to intimidate opponents and to infiltrate federal governments. A law of March 1933 dissolved regional parliaments and reformed them with acceptable majorities, allowing the Nazis to dominate regional state governments. In January 1934, regional parliaments were abolished. The governments of all the states were subordinated.

On the other hand, if this were to have existed in a dictatorship, one would merely get used to how something went because that was how life would be from now on if there was a dictator present. With all the mess and distress already present, the body of laws present in a democracy is much slower to be established, while it usually took much less time with a dictator. Rather than one person having to agree on a law or come up with one, a democracy requires the whole body instead to ratify or accept it. This is due to the fact that your own personal needs must be given up in a dictatorship, while they are respected and valued on the other hand in a democracy. Therefore, seeing from all these changes, the alteration in government that the German government faced must have produced overwhelming challenges for Germany as a whole. They must completely abandon the norm for them and accustom themselves once again to a new way of life. Not only will these bring upon conflicts within the human population, but in all aspects including political, social, and economic qualities. In specificity to all these problems, it was many problems that accumulated and grew through time that presented a chance for Hitler to rise to power. Adolf Hitler was not only a strong and powerful leader that could have rose to power completely on his own, yet many of the inhabitants in Germany was tired of everything and needed a changed

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 was assisted during this time by a group called Nazis. They were his main supporters and they approved of every decision he made. The Nazis made it their goal to help Adolf Hitler as much as they could. “On March 23, the Nazis proposed new legislation known as the Enabling Bill, a sweeping measure empowering the new government to enact laws without the approval of the Reichstag” (Rice, Earle). This new bill would enable Hitler to do anything that he wanted without his decisions being denied or facing consequences for them. “The Enabling Law granted Hitler absolute powers for a period of four years” (Rice, Earle). Hitler took this opportunity and used it to his

What or even who was accountable for Hitler’s rise to power? Many believe that there was only one contributing factor for his rise to power. Some state that Hitler could not have risen to power in any other than Germany, implying that he was nothing more than a product of German culture. From others perspective they believe that Hitler made himself dictator by means of his political genius. And yet still theirs others that profess it was the weak democratic government of the Weimar Republic or Germany’s social and economic scene in the 1930’s that made the people restless and prepared for a dictator to come to power. Hitler 's rise to power cannot be attributed to one event, but a mixture of factors including events happening outside Germany, the strengths of the Nazi party, and the weaknesses of other parties within Germany. Hitler used these factors to his advantage and in 1933 he legitimately gained power to become chancellor. One reason for his rise to power being the political and economic chaos of the 1920’s and the 1930’s joined forces with German culture that enabled Hitler to rise to power. Both play an comparable part. Hand in hand, both reasons fit together like pieces of a puzzle, to create a unique situation for Hitler’s rise.

This allowed a single person, in this case Hitler, the chancellor, complete control over a country in crisis. These measures may seem quite harsh but the idea of the Enabling Act is quite a common one, having been used in Germany for five years and being used at the same time in the USA. The Enabling act allowed Hitler to pass laws without them having to go through parliament, thus decreasing the time taken to actually do something. One of the first things Hitler did was to ban all other political parties. This eliminated all political opposition and allowed him to have complete control by removing any objectors to the Nazi régime.

During World War I, Hitler connected to serve in the German armed force. Notwithstanding craftsmanship, Hitler demonstrated an early enthusiasm for German patriotism, dismissing the power of Austria-Hungary. Hitler later indicated these years as the time when he initially developed his hostile to Semitism. On November 8, 1923, Hitler and the SA (Sturmabteilung) raged an open meeting of 3,000 individuals at a huge lager lobby in Munich. During his achievement, Hitler took full control over the administrative and official branches of government, Hitler and his political partners set out on a deliberate concealment of the staying political restriction. On July 14, 1933, Hitler's Nazi Party was announced the main lawful political gathering in Germany. Hindenburg reluctantly consented to designate Hitler as chancellor with a specific end goal to advance political offset. Hitler likewise designed the entry of the Enabling Act, which gave his office full administrative forces for a time of four years and permitted deviations from the constitution. Germany withdrew from the League of Nations, and Hitler reported a huge extension of Germany's military. The Great Depression in Germany gave a political chance to Hitler. As head of state, Hitler got to be incomparable administrator of the military. Somewhere around 1939 and 1945, Nazis and their

Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933, that same year the ‘Enabling Act’ was passed and Germany transformed from a Democracy into a Dictatorship. Hitler had three main plans in his vision of Germany. Firstly he was to rebuild Germany’s economy, secondly he was to make Germany a powerful nation again and thirdly he was to create a ‘pure German’ society by getting rid of racial minority groups, especially Jews. When the Nazi party came to power in 1933, Germany was changed forever. These three main aims dramatically impacted the German people in many ways; they lost their right to freedom of speech, were forced to live as Hitler ordered and they were forced to agree with

As Chancellor of Germany, one of Hitler’s first decisions was to get the Enabling Act passed; this had a huge impact on the people of Germany. “Shortly after the bill became law, Joseph Goebbels wrote that Hitler now had full power to push Germany forward. He made no mention of the Cabinet. In fact, there was no Cabinet input in the sense that a modern Cabinet would expect to function.” (“History Learning Site”). The Enabling Act made Hitler the de facto dictator of Germany. However, Hitler did not to have the intention

Act was passed on March twenty third. Hitler’s dictatorial efforts were approved and was now

1933: Enabling act was passed by Hitler on March 23rd. This gave him ultimate power to make any laws without consent of anyone not even the government: Reichstag. The Nazi party lost the parliamentary election so he had the cabinet help set up the Enabling Act plan. President von Hindenburg agreed to give Hitler this power for only about four years because of Germany's current desperate state. Germany needed a strong leader that could make good decisions fast. Civil liberties such as habeas corpus were suspended by Hitler. He also used his power raid communist offices and arresting

And effectively allow him to establish a dictatorship. The Nationalists were prepared to support him in this, but even then Hitler wouldn’t have the two thirds of the votes needed. After he got his enabling act, the Reichstag had in effect voted itself out of existence. It had voted to introduce a Nazi dictatorship. Now that Hitler had dictorial powers, he proceeded to extend his control further.

As a result of the Wall Street Crash unemployment in Germany grew exponentially. Many workers had lost their jobs and therefore lots turned to communism, but this frightened wealthy businessmen and so they financed Hitler's campaigns. Furthermore, many middle-class people, alarmed by the obvious failure of the Weimar Government, decided

Issued on March 24th, 1933, and officially named the “Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich”, the Enabling Act essentially meant the end of democracy in Germany, establishing the legal dictatorship of Hitler, by giving him “the power to make laws without the approval of either the Reichstag or the President” . But why would the Reichstag vote for a dictator, and in effect, vote themselves out of existence? In order to ensure that the Reichstag voted in favor of the Enabling Act, Hitler used the method of intimidation and terror to coerce them – when the members of the Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House to vote, “the [armed] SA and SS men lined up at the exits” 4 menacingly.