The German Question, Part One Hundred Fifteen

Hitler Rules Germany, Part One/A
"Consolidation of Power"

As I have done so frequently throughout this series, I like to remind readers that the information provided here is very basic, and for those interested in further information and in greater detail, there are many, many books and articles available concerning these events. If you haven't been to your local library lately, make a point to pay a visit, knowledge is awaiting you.

About a month after Hitler became chancellor, and with a new Reichstag (parliament) election coming, a major fire broke out in the Reichstag building in Berlin. The source of the fire has always been controversial, with a number of historians favoring the notion that the Nazis (usually at Hermann Göring's direction) started the fire themselves to provide a reason for them to crack down on communists and other political opponents. The police found a Dutch communist named van der Lubbe inside the building that night. He had some mental problems, including a love of fire, and reportedly he had a prior record of arson. He confessed to setting the fire and not long thereafter he was executed (beheaded). There are various theories about this whole matter, including one that the Nazis got van der Lubbe to set the fire, and another that the Nazis set the main fire, but that to their good fortune, van der Lubbe was also setting fires in the building that same night, and that this provided them with cover. To be quite honest, no one really knows, but the consequences were the same, no matter how the fire started. 

The Nazis screamed communist plot to overthrow the government, and Hitler got President von Hindenburg to issue a decree revoking civil liberties. Many German communists, including their delegates to the Reichstag, were arrested in the aftermath of the fire.* When Hitler became chancellor, the Nazis and their right wing allies remained a plurality in the Reichstag, where they needed the more traditional conservatives to help pass legislation. With the communist delegates under arrest, the Nazis and their allies became a majority. Within a week of the fire, elections for the Reichstag produced the largest vote yet for the Nazis, but still not a direct majority, with the Nazis getting about 44% (combined with their allies in the Reichstag, they had a majority). But Hitler needed more than a majority for what he had in mind.

The next step in Nazi consolidation of power was to pass a law, usually called "The Enabling Act," by English-speaking historians (German, "Ermächtigungsgesetz," which is perhaps better translated as "Empowerment Act"),** which gave power to Hitler and the cabinet to issue laws and make changes to the constitution WITHOUT the vote of the Reichstag. Because of its extraordinary nature, the law required a two-thirds favorable vote by the Reichstag (with two-thirds of all delegates required to be present) to become law (and von Hindenburg's signature).*** The communist delegates had all been locked up as part of the aftermath of the Reichstag fire; thus removing an entire block of "no" votes. The Social Democrats were adamantly opposed, so Hitler needed the votes of the German Center Party, the Catholic-based party, to pass the bill.**** He made many promises to the Center Party about respecting Catholic religious practices and Catholic schools, and in the end, while not totally sold on Hitler or his promises, the German Center Party, hoping to stabilize Germany, voted for the bill, giving it the required two-thirds majority needed to alter the constitution. It should be noted, Nazi Storm Troopers were ominously evident inside and outside the Reichstag during the whole proceeding. While much respected, Field Marshal von Hindenburg still remained President of Germany, and thus an obstacle to all of Hitler's plans, but Hitler now had tremendous power in Germany. He would act against his own party to increase that power shortly.

* I would think Hindenburg and others from the upper classes hardly needed to have their arms twisted to support the arrest of many German communists, but their arrest and the harassment of German Jews started a very troubling trend for the direction Hitler and the Nazis would take the country, with opponents to the regime putting themselves in great peril. You don't have to like communists, but with the upper classes supporting their wholesale arrest, the Nazis began to silence all opposition.

** The "mächt" part of "Ermächtigungsgesetz" is closely related to English "might"=power; as in, "They fought with all of their might."

*** While President von Hindenburg issued many decrees without Reichstag approval, the Reichstag still did have constitutional power to pass laws, if majorities could be scraped together to pass them. So the German constitution of the Weimar Republic still remained in effect in certain respects at that time, but its days were really numbered.

**** The leader of the Center Party was a Catholic priest, Ludwig Kaas.

WORD HISTORY:
Fire-This word goes back to Indo European "paewr/pehwr," with the actual meaning "fire." The Indo European "p" sound became "f" in its Germanic offspring, and Old Germanic had "fuir," which then gave Old English "fyr." Later this became, "fir," and then "fier," with the spelling "fire" not really taking complete hold until the late 1500s or early 1600s, and English still has "fiery," as a remnant of the earlier spelling. Its various forms are spread throughout the other Germanic languages: German has "Feuer" (originally in Old High German: "fiur"), Low German has "Füür," Frisian has "fjoer," Dutch has "vuur," Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish all have "fyr," and Icelandic has "fúr." The verb, as in "to fire a gun," originally meant "to set fire to," developed from the noun back in the 1100s or 1200s. The later notion of "discharging a firearm" also led to the more modern, "fire an employee" (terminate an employee).