The Nazis used the government apparatus to terrorize the other parties. They arrested their leaders and banned their political meetings. Then, in the midst of the election campaign, on February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building burned. A Dutchman named Marinus van der Lubbe was arrested for the crime, and he swore he had acted alone. Although many suspected the Nazis were ultimately responsible for the act, the Nazis managed to blame the Communists, thus turning more votes their
The Decree Excluding Jews from German Economic Life prevented Jews from running businesses. Also, decrees excluding Jews from public places were made, with all Jewish pupils becoming ecpelled (15th Nov 1938). Also, a collective fine of 1 billion marks was levied on the Jewish community for the Paris murder, meaning 30000 Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. The Consequences of 'Anschluss' The levels of violence in Austria against the Jews were far worse than in Germany. Vienna's 180000 Jews were the targets of regular attacks.
He also banned the Social Democrat Party in June 1933, and then all other parties soon followed. There were also many other factors that made it so Hitler could establish a dictatorship. The Reichstag Fire gave him an opportunity to pass the Law for ‘The Protection of the People and the State’, which ended all the freedoms that were guaranteed by the Weimar Republic. This law gave the police total control. The police and the SA arrested all the communist leaders, their meetings were broken up and newspapers closed down.
In this way, many people were intimidated into voting for the Nazi Party. Once again, Hitler targeted the Communists more than other groups. He used the emergency decree issued by Hindenburg and banned all Communist Party meetings and
They orchestrated the majority of the Holocaust; the solution to the “Jewish question” as it was called by German forces (USHMM: SS and the Holocaust). The SS were known for their harsh, merciless brutality toward the prisoners in concentration camps and often abused them simply for their own personal enjoyment. The SS are covered extensively in the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel and other accounts of the Holocaust, and their acts can be divided into categories; including their rise to and fall from power, key figures in the establishment of the SS, and the treatment of prisoners at concentration camps. One category with major significance is the Nazis’ rise to and fall from power. The Nazis rose to governmental power through a long, thought-out series of actions that turned Hitler’s leadership into a dictatorship and started the Holocaust and World War II.
The first documentation about their intention to exterminate the Jews appears in the 1942 Wannsee conference, when Germany faced a difficult situation in the Soviet Union. This illustrates that the Nazis had decided on the complete eradication of the Jews as the war became increasingly difficult. The extreme anti-Semitism displayed by Hitler in his speeches and comments and Nazi propaganda has been used to support the belief that the Nazis had decided on extermination as soon as they gained power. However, Hitler was known to exaggerate in his speeches to the extremist audiences, with remarks such “As soon as I have power, I shall have gallows after gallows erected… Then the Jews will be hanged one after another, and they will stay hanging until they stink”. Clearly, the method mentioned is unfeasible and this had the role of causing a sensation.
This rise to power is important since the SS played a big role in the events in Germany for the duration of Nazi rule. The Night of the Long Knives, supposedly repressed a planned revolution by the SA, led by Ernst Rohm. Hitler, who had recently found status as a respected politician, was wary of these rumours undermining that status, and felt threatened by the rumours that the SA, were planning a “second
The key defendants that were removed were Trotsky, Kamenev, Buhkarin, Yagoda and Zinoviev. This was significant in allowing Stalin to establish his personal dictatorship as they removed all of Stalin’s rivals from the 1920’s thus creating fear among the USSR showing that if you did anything that Stalin disliked, your life would be in danger, particularly because these people had been in positions of power therefore people obeyed all of Stalin’s orders. This lead to the wider terror among ordinary people. They were denounces, arrested and sent to Gulags by the NKVD. It is estimated that between 1934-8, 20 million Russians were sent to these gulags.
The Nazi party now forced to think tactically and with the burning of the Reichstag building through a communist Hitler was able to blame the extremist party for the beginning of a revolution and with President Hindenburg's approval he arrested the ‘enemies of the state’. With this fortunate accident, the ‘missing’ SPD party and the agreement with Zentrum Hitler was able to get his two thirds majority to pass the Enabling Act which entitled him to pass laws without parliamentary approval. Although on the surface Hitler seemed to have a lot of control, this was not complete, due to the fact that President Hindenburg could over rule him and perhaps even terminate him as chancellor. This power, however, led to multiple sudden adjustments to Germany, after becoming a one party state by July 1933, through making the SPD party and all other competitors illegal, he continued to set loose on Germany’s very powerful and threatening trade unions. Trade unions posed a strong threat to the NSDAP due to their power in Germany, considering their support for the SPD and even KPD.
He connected with the audience by keeping them engaged. He was influential not only with his public speaking, but with propaganda. Hitler created propaganda that would influence the citizens of Germany to think that the Jews were inferior. Another way he used his influential attribute was by violence. When a fire started in the Reichstag building, Hitler used it as a way to start series of terrorist acts against politicians he considered enemies (“Hitler, Adolf”).