IB History Reichstag Fire Enabling Act Night of the Long Knives Hitler Oath and Popular Support Notes

From Chancellor to Fuhrer: How Hitler Legalised Dictatorship in Eighteen Months

The Reichstag Fire and the Decree of February 28, 1933

1. On the evening of February 27, 1933, the Reichstag (German parliament building) was set on fire. A young Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe was caught at the scene and immediately arrested. Hitler declared the fire a communist plot and used it as the pretext for emergency measures. The following day, February 28, President Hindenburg signed the Reichstag Fire Decree (technically the "Decree for the Protection of the People and State"), which suspended all civil liberties guaranteed by the Weimar Constitution: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, privacy of communications, and due process protections.
   1. Whether the fire was actually a communist conspiracy, an act by van der Lubbe alone, or a provocation staged by the Nazis themselves remains debated by historians. What is certain is that the Nazis exploited it with extraordinary speed. Within hours of the fire, SA units were arresting Communist Party officials across Germany. Communist newspapers were banned. The KPD, which had won 17% of the vote in the 1932 elections, was effectively decapitated as a political force overnight. When new elections were held on March 5, 1933, the NSDAP won 44% and its coalition 52% of the vote, conducted under conditions of SA intimidation and one-party media control.

The Enabling Act and the Destruction of Democratic Institutions

1. With the KPD eliminated and the SPD under pressure, Hitler needed the votes of the Centre Party to achieve the two-thirds parliamentary majority required to pass an enabling law (which would require amending the Weimar Constitution). He gave verbal assurances about respecting the Catholic Church. The Enabling Act passed on March 23, 1933, with only the Social Democrats voting against. The law gave Hitler the power to make laws by decree for four years without Reichstag approval. The Weimar Constitution was effectively suspended.
   1. Between March and July 1933, the other political parties were banned or dissolved themselves under pressure. The SPD was banned in June. The Centre Party dissolved itself in July. By July 14, 1933, Germany was a single-party state. Trade unions had been dissolved in May and their offices taken over by the German Labour Front (DAF). The press was coordinated under the Ministry of Propaganda. State governments were brought under central control through the Gleichschaltung (coordination) process.

The Night of the Long Knives: Securing the Army's Loyalty

1. By the summer of 1934, Hitler faced a challenge from within his own movement. Ernst Rohm, the SA's chief of staff, wanted the SA (which numbered around 3 million by 1934) to absorb the German army and create a "people's army" under his command. The regular army officers, who were essential to Hitler's rearmament plans, were appalled. They made clear to Hitler that they would not support him if the SA remained a threat to their institution.
   1. On June 30 and July 1-2, 1934, Hitler ordered the SS (Schutzstaffel, under Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich) to murder the SA leadership. Ernst Rohm was killed in his cell. Approximately 85-200 people were murdered in total, including some who had nothing to do with the SA but were settling old scores (such as former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher). The killings were presented as the suppression of a treason plot. Hindenburg sent a congratulatory telegram to Hitler.
   2. Two months later, on August 2, 1934, President Hindenburg died. Hitler immediately combined the offices of President and Chancellor into the new title of Fuhrer (Leader) of Germany. On the same day, the German army swore a personal loyalty oath not to the German state or constitution but to Adolf Hitler by name. This oath bound the military to Hitler personally and was cited by officers throughout the war as the reason they continued to obey his orders.

How the Coalition Actually Passed the Enabling Act

1. Hitler's cabinet was numerically dominated by conservatives, not Nazis: he became chancellor on 30 January 1933 at the head of a coalition where conservative ministers outnumbered Nazi ones, though the Nazis controlled the Interior Ministry in both the Reich and Prussia, giving them decisive influence over policing from the very start.
2. The Nazis never won a majority on their own: the German National People's Party's support was what gave the governing coalition its majority, while Communist deputies were separately excluded from the Reichstag through arrests and the cancellation of their mandates, clearing the path to the two-thirds vote the Enabling Act required.
3. Otto Wels gave the republic's final act of parliamentary defiance: as leader of the Social Democrats, he defended liberty and constitutional principle in the last opposition speech the Reichstag would hear for twelve years, before his party cast the only votes against the Enabling Act.
4. The Reichstag Fire Decree outlived the crisis that produced it: issued on 28 February 1933 under Article 48, it remained in force throughout the entire Third Reich, supplying a continuing legal basis for arrests and repression long after the immediate emergency had passed.

Coordinating the State: Gleichschaltung in Practice

1. Reich governors dismantled German federalism from within: state parliaments were first reconstituted to reflect national election results, then Reich governors were installed with authority over the individual German states, steadily weakening regional government.
2. The trade unions were destroyed by a trick: on 2 May 1933, the day after workers had been encouraged to join official May Day celebrations, SA and police units occupied union offices, arrested union leaders, and seized union assets, clearing the way for the new German Labour Front to replace free collective bargaining entirely.
3. Civil service legislation targeted political and racial opponents together: new laws removed both political opponents and many Jewish employees from public positions, months before the more famous Nuremberg Laws of 1935.

Terror Became Infrastructure, Not Just Emergency Measures

1. Dachau opened in March 1933, within weeks of Hitler's appointment: it began as an early concentration camp for political prisoners, and the SS under Heinrich Himmler gradually developed it into the model for a much larger, more centralised camp system.
2. The July 1933 Concordat with the Vatican protected the Church on paper only: Nazi violations of its terms in the years that followed showed how little legal guarantees were worth without an independent power capable of enforcing them.
3. The regime expanded through cooperation as much as coercion: business leaders accepted the destruction of independent unions in exchange for promised order, conservative politicians expected to retain influence through the presidency and bureaucracy, and many officials coordinated themselves in advance simply to secure their careers.

Securing the Army, and a Plebiscite That Wasn't Unanimous

1. A law passed after the killings declared them legal: the regime retroactively defined the Night of the Long Knives as acts of state self-defence against treason, and the SA survived as an organisation but lost all political independence, becoming permanently subordinate to the regime.
2. Even a rigged plebiscite could not manufacture unanimity: the vote of 19 August 1934 officially approved Hitler's merger of the presidency and chancellorship, but millions of Germans still voted against it or submitted invalid ballots despite the complete absence of a free campaign.

Paper 3 preparation