During the years of the rise of the Nazi Party, the SA had been instrumental in helping the party to gain support. Hitler and the rest of the Nazi leadership disagreed with their approach.
They understood the need to appear moderate and take over slowly by democratic means where possible, maintaining the stability and illusion of a democracy. The tension between the SA and the Nazi leadership grew. On 30 June these tensions came to a head. Over the next two days, most of the SA leadership were placed under arrest and murdered without trial. Refusing to take his own life, he was shot on 1 July by two SS guards.
Whilst the purge focused on the SA, the Nazis also used the event to eliminate other political opponents, such as the former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher. From 20 August onwards, the Reichswehr , who had previously been a separate organisation, now swore a personal allegiance to Hitler. As the SA were known for being violent and unruly, many saw this as a legitimate move by the government to ensure public order. On 13 July the Reichstag retrospectively approved a bill legalising the purge as emergency defence measures.
Gleichschaltung was the process of the Nazi Party taking control over all aspects of Germany. It is otherwise known as coordination or Nazification. The process primarily took place between This act legalised removing anyone of non-Ayran descent from the civil service.
In the judicial system specifically, this act removed any judges that were deemed non-compliant with Nazi laws or principles. This act was reinforced by the German Civil Service code of 26 January , which retired any judges or judicial official who would not intervene in cases and rule in favour of the Nazis.
With these measures in place, the Nazification of the judicial system was complete. Goebbels became responsible for controlling the national media, film, theatre, arts, and other cultural aspects. Goebbels soon radicalised each of these areas, ensuring that they advocated Nazi ideas.
Whilst Gleichschaltung aimed to reach every aspect of rule in Germany, this was not always possible. Despite this, on the whole, Gleichschaltung was largely successful.
By the end of , the Nazis had managed to infiltrate and take control of every major aspect of German government. Hitler announced that he would occupy this new role.
The Nazis consolidation of power can be grouped into three main themes: pseudo-legality, terror and intimidation and pseudo-moderation. Germany feared revolution. This essentially meant that the Nazis used the atmosphere of panic following the Reichstag Fire to put forward the Enabling Law. The Nazis immediately used the Enabling Law to remove civil rights. This meant, as well as removing other personal freedoms, that the Nazis could now imprison their political opposition for an indefinite period for any, or no, reason.
The Enabling Law allowed them to do this under the guise of legality. On the 2 May trade unions were banned. Just two months later, on 14 July the Nazis used the Enabling Act to ban all political parties except the Nazi Party.
On the 4 October , it was declared that all editors must be Aryan. Censorship was heightened, and any person publishing actively anti-Nazi material was threatened or imprisoned. By , over 1, newspapers had been closed.
Following the Enabling Law, much of this harassment and imprisonment was legal. Immediately before and after the opening of parliament, Hitler negotiated with the Center Party to get their support for the Enabling Act, which needed a two-thirds margin to pass. The legislation set aside parts of the Weimar Constitution, granting Hitler and his cabinet the right to rule by decree. Hitler personally negotiated with the leaders of the Center Party on March 20 and 22, promising that he would respect their rights and freedoms.
He gave the following assurances to entice them to vote for the Enabling Act:. Unfortunately for the Center Party, Hitler would use the power they bestowed on him to violate every one of these promises. Over the next few months, Hitler swept away all political opposition—including the Catholic Center Party—while simultaneously negotiating a concordat with the Catholic Church. Hitler claimed he only wanted to eliminate political Catholicism, not the religious functions of the Catholic Church.
In a meeting with Bishop Wilhelm Berning on April 26, and in other meetings with Catholic leaders, he insisted that his regime would not restrict organizations sponsored by the Catholic Church.
He also feigned being offended by accusations that he would attack Christianity. On the contrary, he lied, he would never think of intervening in the rights of the Church and would not touch the Catholic youth organizations nor interfere with religious education.
Two days later, Hitler wrote to Cardinal Adolf Bertram, assuring him that Catholic organizations had nothing to fear. Take a look at the beta version of dw. We're not done yet! Your opinion can help us make it better. We use cookies to improve our service for you. You can find more information in our data protection declaration. Eighty years ago, Germany's parliament passed the "Enabling Act. Only one party valiantly resisted. Dressed in the brown uniform of the Schutzstaffel SS , the chancellor of Germany made his way past the enthusiastic parliamentarians of his National Socialist party.
It was there that members of Germany's parliament found refuge in late February after the Reichstag, or parliamentary building, was set aflame under mysterious circumstances. The opera house was quickly outfitted as the new meeting chambers for Germany's parliament. Historians still debate whether the Reichstag fire was set by communists or by the Nazi party as a ploy. For opposition parties, however - chiefly the Social Democrats - the halls of the Kroll Opera were nothing less than a gauntlet.
Manning every entry and exit were members of the Sturmabteilung SA , or Storm Troopers, who, alongside the "brown shirts," insulted and intimidated opposition members. Members of the Communist Party were not represented. They had either been stripped of political authority and removed, arrested or had fled to prevent their arrest. For the remaining parliamentarians, an unhappy surprise awaited them within their temporary voting chambers.
A three-dimensional swastika dominated the physical space of the room. It was under these conditions that parliamentarians were supposed to carry out the country's most important vote since the founding of the Weimar Republic in The law in question would give Hitler's National Socialist party unchecked powers over the German state.
Just weeks earlier, Hitler's initial goal of obtaining an absolute majority of National Socialists in Germany's parliament had failed. The decisive sentence in the five-paragraph law read: "In addition to procedures prescribed by the constitution, laws of the Reich may also be enacted by the government of the Reich.
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