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The Nazis
hoped in the March 5, 1933, elections to obtain an absolute majority
that would allow them to rule without hindrances. However, because
they came away with only 44 percent of the votes, they sought
another way to establish a dictatorship: They sponsored the Enabling
Act, a bill that would give Hitler’s government dictatorial powers
for four years. To make sure the law passed, the Nazis imprisoned
Communists and took actions to soften up public opinion, especially
among conservative parties. Several days before the elections, the
Nazis held a meticulously staged ceremony in Potsdam. Hitler was
depicted that day as a conservative national leader and not as the
head of a radical party. He promised that the law would, in no way,
be detrimental to the Reichstag, the presidency, and the municipal
government. The moment it passed, however, the democratic
constitution was abrogated and Nazi Party rule faced no further
obstacles. On March 23, 1933, Hitler pushed the Enabling Act through
the Reichstag and thus equipped his government with dictatorial
powers, first for four years and afterwards indefinitely. The regime
invoked the new law to rescind the democratic freedoms of the Weimar
Republic and to dissolve political parties and organizations. Thus,
in a pseudo-legal process, Hitler consolidated his
dictatorship-which, contrary to his promises, was in no way
provisional. The disempowerment of the Reichstag is an example of
the way the Nazis usurped and emasculated Germany’s governing
institutions, but refrained from destroying them in order to portray
the dictatorship as a soundly functioning state. When the Enabling
Act passed, the Nazi newspaper Voelkische Beobachter proclaimed it a
"historic day." The parliamentary regime succumbed to the
new Germany. For four years, Hitler could do anything he pleased-by
negation, to destroy the corrosive forces of Marxism; and by
affirmation, to establish a new German-racial society. The great
enterprise was underway. "The day of the Third Reich has
come!" |
