On
this date, January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany.
I will post information about the Nazi seizure of power from Wikipedia.
Hitler at the window
of the Chancellery on Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin while receiving the ovations of
the people on the evening of the day. (January 30, 1933)
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The
Nazi seizure of power (German: Machtergreifung) refers to
the acquisition by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German
Workers' Party (Nazi Party) of the chancellorship of Germany, and of several
other high-ranking cabinet posts, on 30 January 1933, following the appointment
of Hitler as chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg, then aged 84. It also
refers to the period of consolidation of Nazi power through intimidation and
violence, culminating in the establishment of the Nazi Party as the only legal
political party in Germany in July 1933.
Prelude
The
Nazis had learned from the failed Beer
Hall Putsch of 9 November 1923, whereafter Hitler's lawyer and adviser Hans Frank
developed a Legalitätsstrategie ("legality strategy") for the
"National Revolution" to formally and avowedly observe the law on the
way to government takeover. After the huge success of the Nazi Party in the 1930 elections, the government of
Chancellor Heinrich Brüning (Centre Party) tried to keep the state and
constitution alive through a minority government supported by the Social Democrats, ruling by Article 48 emergency decrees. He
pushed through a law proscribing the Nazi SA and SS paramilitary
organizations, which had to be revoked in 1932 after pressure from right-wing
forces around President Hindenburg and Defense Minister Kurt von Schleicher.
From
an economic perspective, Brüning caused increased mass unemployment
through his rigid austerity program of public budget balancing. On 1 June
1932 President Hindenburg, urged by Schleicher, appointed as chancellor his
right-wing confidant Franz von Papen, who strove for collaboration with
the Nazis in order to use their popularity with the masses for himself. A
coalition between the Centre Party, the national conservative German National People's Party
(DNVP), and the Nazis only failed because of Hitler's demand for
chancellorship. Since Papen had courted the Nazis, he did not forbid the NSDAP
as a seditious party, though the Boxheimer Dokumente written by Werner
Best and leaked to the Hesse State Police in 1931 revealed plans for
another putsch by the Nazis and could have given rise to stern measures.
Instead Papen and Hindenburg instigated a coup against the Prussian state government, the Preußenschlag
deposing the democratic state government under Minister-President Otto Braun,
who was succeeded by Papen as a Reichskommissar.
In
the German federal election of July 1932,
the Nazi Party gained the largest number of seats in the Reichstag. After all of Papen's
attempts to reach a coalition government had failed, federal
elections were again held in November 1932, with the
Nazis facing some losses but without any chance for Papen to reach a majority.
He finally resigned, and though twenty representatives of industry, finance,
and agriculture had signed the Industrielleneingabe, a petition requesting
that Hindenburg make Hitler chancellor, on 2 December the president appointed
Minister Schleicher. The new chancellor tried to gain the support of an
anti-democratic Third Position alliance of DNVP and Nazis led by Gregor
Strasser, along with national conservative pressure groups like Der Stahlhelm, referring to
the joint efforts during the referendum of 1929 or the Harzburg
Front of 1931. However these plans failed, and behind his back on 4 January
1933, Hitler met Papen, who agreed to join a Hitler
Cabinet as vice-chancellor. Along with State
Secretary Otto Meissner and Hindenburg's son Oskar, Papen could finally persuade the
reluctant president to appoint Hitler. Papen and DNVP chairman Alfred
Hugenberg trusted Hindenburg, who was able to depose the chancellor if
necessary, and they were reassured by the fact that only two ministers in
Hitler's cabinet, Hermann Göring and Wilhelm Frick, were Nazi Party members.
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