The Main Effects Of The Reichstag Fire

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.

Hans Mommsen’s book, From Weimar to Auschwitz, presented an interesting look at Hitler within the Nazi Party. The overriding themes in the chapter “Hitler’s Position in the Nazi System” were the stubbornness and charisma of Hitler and the chaos within the Nazi Party. The weak leadership of Hitler along with the inability to concentrate power to one position helped lead the Third Reich to be a very frenzied and unorganized government.

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

At the end of WWI, Germany was directly blamed for causing the great conflict. Many Germans could not accept this blame, and believed designed by the Jewish people as part of a greater conspiracy. Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. The Nazi rise to power ended the Weimar Republic, the German democracy that was established after World War I. The Nazi state, also called The Third Reich, quickly became a regime in which citizens had no guaranteed basic rights. Hitler’s first objective was to eliminate political opposition. The assault against the Jews began with a boycott of Jewish businesses. A week later the Nazis dismissed Jews from civil service, and by the end of the month the participation of Jews in German schools was restricted. In May 1933, thousands of Nazi students and professors stormed university libraries and bookstores in cities throughout Germany to

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.

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 Reichstag fire provided the perfect opportunity for Hitler to demonise his political rivals, instill fear into the public and use this fear to push forward an act that would give him the power to bypass the Reichstag entirely.

This also occurred in Germany before Adolf Hitler was in power. He used the Reichstag fire to eliminate his political opponents so that the German public had less to choose from. Once in power,

He placed curfews, making the Jews wear the sign of David on their clothing, forcing them out of schools and other public places. Not only did Nazism effect the Jewish people, it took away from Germany anything that was produced or published from other societies. On May 10, 1933, a group of university students who had been meeting with their professors to decide which books they wanted to get rid of, took these books, formed a pile, and burned them. They wanted to eliminate foreign influence into their culture, thus keeping Germany “pure”. This prompted others to do the same. There were more than 25,000 “Un-German books burned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHzM1gXaiVo Joseph Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister stated “and the future German man will not just be a man of books, but also a man of character. And it is to this end, we want to educate you.” The book burnings of 1933 caused censorship and Nazi propaganda.

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

In the following investigation, the following question will be addressed: In what ways did economic and political issues in Germany between 1922 and 1932 contribute to Hitler's rise to power? The scope of my research will fall between the years of 1922-1932, the start of Hitler’s attempt to run for office. A variety of primary and secondary sources will be used to answer the question. The bitterness caused upon the change of government systems in Germany will be analyzed, along with his childhood that all primarily drove Hitler to run for power. Then, the harsh effects World War I had on Germany along with the Great Depression that followed as a result will also be looked at. Finally, a conclusion will be reached.

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.

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

The 27th of February 1933 The Reichstag burnt down.This event can be considered as one of the most important events that led Hitler to power.Many Historians argue about how crucial was the Reichstag Fire for the future of Germany,

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