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East Germany THIRD REICH
Consolidation of Power
Hitler proceeded to transform the Weimar Republic into a
totalitarian dictatorship. The National Socialist "revolution"
was accomplished in gradual steps by using legal and semilegal
methods as well as terror and persuasion. The NSDAP endeavored
initially to establish National Socialist hegemony within the
state. In this process, the old conservative-nationalist elite,
while partially preserved, was subordinated to Nazi control. The
state bureaucratic apparatus and the army, however, were
retained, and the country's economic and social structure
remained largely unchanged.
Because the government did not have a parliamentary majority,
Hindenburg called for the dissolution of the Reichstag and set
March 5 as the date for new elections. A week before election
day, the Reichstag building was destroyed by fire. The Nazis, who
presumably had set fire to the building themselves, blamed the
fire on the communists, and on February 28 the president,
invoking Article 48 of the constitution, signed a decree that
enabled the Nazis to quash the political opposition. Authorized
by the decree, the SA arrested socialist and liberal leaders as
well as a large number of communists. State governments lacking a
National Socialist majority were dissolved and subordinated to
control by the central government. In March Hitler presented the
Enabling Act to the Reichstag. The Reichstag, purged and
intimidated, passed the act by a vote of 441 to 84, thereby
according Hitler's cabinet dictatorial powers for a period of 4
years.
Hitler used the Enabling Act to implement
Gleichschaltung (forced political coordination), the
policy of subordinating all independent institutions and
organizations to Nazi control. The state bureaucracy and the
judiciary were purged of "non-Aryans," and all members were
obliged to swear an oath of personal loyalty to the führer. The
Secret State Police (Geheime Staatspolizei--Gestapo) was created,
and the People's Tribunal was established to deal with cases of
treason. State governments were dismissed and replaced by Reich
governors directly responsible to Hitler. Trade unions were
dissolved, political parties other than NSDAP were disbanded, and
the NSDAP was purged of its social-revolutionary wing. In July
Germany was legally declared a National Socialist one-party
state.
After Hindenburg's death in August 1934, Hitler promulgated a
law that combined the offices of the president and the
chancellor. The law violated the Enabling Act, but it was
subsequently sanctioned by national plebiscite. Thus, in the
pseudolegal fashion characteristic of Nazi tactics, Hitler
established himself as German führer. The army swore an oath of
allegiance pledging unconditional obedience to him, and Heinrich
Himmler's Guard Detachment (Schutzstaffel--SS) replaced the SA as
Hitler's private army. Nazi leadership was drawn from the lowermiddle class and, according to some estimates, came from nonPrussian regions such as Bavaria.
Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda, consolidated the
National Socialist power and elite structure. Goebbels formulated
the concept of "total propaganda" and established the Reich
Cultural Chamber. The chamber extended Gleichschaltung to
include the educational system, the media, and all cultural
institutions. Germanic customs were revived, the worship of
Germanic gods was encouraged, and ambiguous and exaggerated
vocabulary was introduced into the language to promote Nazi
ideology. Hitler's Mein Kampf and other racist-imperialist
literature were also widely distributed. In its propaganda
campaign, the NSDAP focused primarily on "gathering in" the
German youth.
Data as of July 1987
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