Establishing the Dictatorship

Eighteen months to total power

The cabinet sworn in on 30 January 1933 had eleven members and three of them were Nazis: Hitler as Chancellor, Wilhelm Frick at the Interior and Hermann Goering as a minister without portfolio who also ran the Prussian police. Vice-Chancellor von Papen told a friend that within two months they would have pushed Hitler so far into a corner that he would squeak. President Hindenburg could dismiss the Chancellor at will, the army answered to the President, and the Nazis held 196 seats in a Reichstag of 584. On paper it was a coalition of conservatives with a noisy junior partner. Within eighteen months the paper had been torn up. A fire on 27 February produced a decree that suspended every civil right in the constitution; an election on 5 March produced a majority only with the Nationalists and only after the communist deputies had been locked up; an Act on 23 March gave the cabinet the power to make law; the unions were dissolved on 2 May, the Social Democrats banned on 22 June and every party but one outlawed on 14 July. When the leaders of his own storm troopers became a threat to his deal with the army, Hitler had them shot over the weekend of 30 June 1934. When Hindenburg died on 2 August, the offices of President and Chancellor were merged into one and the army swore an oath to Adolf Hitler by name. AQA asks for this as a process: which step made which possible, and where the law and the truncheon worked together. This module gives you the steps with their dates and numbers, the two kinds of method in the same events, and the interpretation, describe and judgement shapes the Paper 1 period study uses.

Five terms with their dates

Each definition carries the date and the figure that make it usable as evidence, because a definition alone earns nothing in an explain question.

The takeover in order

Put these six steps in the order they happened.

• The Reichstag building burns and civil rights are suspended by decree
• The Nazis win 43.9 per cent in a general election held under the decree
• The Reichstag votes to let the cabinet make law on its own
• Trade union offices are raided the day after May Day and the unions dissolved
• A law bans the formation of any party other than the NSDAP
• The SS shoots the leadership of the SA

Why did it work so fast?

A Chancellor who could not command a majority in January 1933 was the sole lawful ruler by August 1934. Which explanation best accounts for the speed?

• Each step supplied the means for the next: the fire decree of February let the police lock up the communist deputies, which is what made a two-thirds vote possible in March; the Enabling Act made every later ban a matter of a cabinet signature rather than a vote; the dissolution of unions and parties between May and July removed anyone who could organise against the next step; and the purge of June 1934 secured the army, whose oath in August turned the presidency into the Fuhrer. Terror and law fed each other, with SA violence in the streets and Hindenburg signatures on the decrees.
• The Nazis had won a majority in a free election, so no one could object.
• The army seized power for Hitler in a coup.
• Hitler followed a plan written years earlier.

Law and terror in the same events

The grade-9 habit: never sort the events into a legal list and a violent list. Show the two methods inside each event, because that is how the dictatorship was actually built.

Question 1: how do the interpretations differ?

Two interpretations of how the dictatorship was established, written for this module. Interpretation A: The Nazi seizure of power was a legal revolution. Every step from the fire decree to the merging of the presidency had a signature from Hindenburg or a vote in the Reichstag behind it, and Hitler took care that it should. The regime rested on the consent of conservatives who believed they were using him. Interpretation B: The dictatorship was built by terror wearing the mask of law. The votes were cast with storm troopers in the chamber and the opposition in the cells, and the camps were open before the Enabling Act was passed. Ordinary Germans obeyed because they had seen what happened to those who did not. AQA Question 1 asks how they differ about the way power was taken. Tap the TWO statements from Interpretation B that show the difference.

• The dictatorship was built by terror wearing the mask of law.
• Every step had a signature from Hindenburg or a vote in the Reichstag behind it.
• The votes were cast with storm troopers in the chamber and the opposition in the cells.
• The regime rested on the consent of conservatives who believed they were using him.
• The Nazi seizure of power was a legal revolution.

The fire and the Act

Select the THREE statements that are accurate about the Reichstag Fire and the Enabling Act.

• The decree Hindenburg signed the morning after the fire suspended the constitutional rights of speech, press and assembly and allowed detention without trial, and the police used it to arrest the communist leadership before the election of 5 March.
• Even with the Nationalists, the Nazis held 340 seats of 647 after the March election, so the two-thirds majority the Act needed depended on excluding the communist deputies and on the Centre Party voting in favour.
• Only the 94 Social Democrat deputies present voted against the Act, and their leader Otto Wels told Hitler that freedom and life could be taken from them but not honour.
• The courts proved in 1933 that Goering had ordered the fire.
• The Enabling Act passed unanimously.
• The election of 5 March 1933 was held under normal Weimar conditions.

Question 2: why do the interpretations differ?

AQA Question 2 asks why the two interpretations differ, for 4 marks, and the answer is about the authors and their questions, not about which one is right. Interpretation A is answering the question of how a modern state with a written constitution could hand itself to a dictator, and so it follows the paper trail: the Article 48 decree, the recorded vote of 444 to 94, the law of 1 August 1934. Its evidence is what the regime chose to write down, which is why it sees legality everywhere. Interpretation B is answering the question of why nobody stopped it, and so it follows the people rather than the documents: the 4,000 arrested in the first week, the deputies missing from the vote, the 27,000 in camps by the end of 1933, the 85 or more shot in a weekend. Its evidence is what the regime did to individuals, which is why it sees terror everywhere. Both are using real evidence and each has chosen a different part of it. This meant that the difference comes from their focus, the constitution against the victims, and from the question each set out to answer. A top-level answer names the focus of each, gives one piece of evidence each has selected, and says that the selection explains the difference. Writing that one author is biased scores nothing.

In the room, 1933 to 1934

Four decisions across the eighteen months. Choose what was actually done at each, and notice how each choice depended on the one before.

• 27 February 1933. You are Hitler, called to the burning Reichstag late in the evening. A Dutch communist has been found inside. The election is in six days and you have no majority. What do you do?
• March 1933. You are the leader of the Centre Party. The Enabling Act needs two-thirds; without your 73 deputies it fails. Hitler has promised to respect the Catholic Church and to keep the President and the Reichstag in being. SA men line the corridors. What do you do?
• June 1934. You are Hitler. Rohm wants the SA merged with the army as a peoples militia; the generals will not serve under him and the President, who is dying, has said he will declare martial law if the disorder continues. What do you do?
• 1 August 1934. You are Hitler. Hindenburg will die within the day. The constitution says a new President must be elected. What do you do?

From cause to consequence

Because the decree of 28 February let the police hold people without trial, the _____ deputies were in custody when the Reichstag met on 23 March, and the two-thirds vote could be reached. Because the Enabling Act let the cabinet make law, the unions could be dissolved on 2 May and every other party outlawed by the law of _____ July without a single further vote. Because the SA had grown to around _____ million men and its leader wanted it to swallow the army, the generals demanded its leadership be removed. Because the purge of 30 June satisfied the generals, the army swore its oath to Hitler by name on 2 _____, the day Hindenburg died. And because the offices of President and Chancellor were merged, there was no one left with the power to _____ him.

The vote that ended the Reichstag

The Enabling Act was passed on 23 March 1933 by 444 votes to 94, with the 81 communist deputies excluded from the chamber. How many deputies cast a vote?

Question 4: describe two problems, marked

AQA Question 4 asks: Describe two problems Hitler faced in establishing his dictatorship in 1933 to 1934. It is marked for 4, two marks per problem, with a mark for identifying and a mark for supporting detail. Which answer scores all four?

• One problem was that the Nazis had no majority: even after the election of March 1933 they held 288 seats of 647, so a two-thirds vote for the Enabling Act was possible only by keeping the 81 communist deputies out and winning over the Centre Party with promises to the Church. A second problem was the SA: Rohm led around 3 million men who wanted a second revolution and to absorb the 100,000-strong army, and the generals, whom Hitler needed for rearmament and for the succession to Hindenburg, would not tolerate it, which was settled by the purge of 30 June 1934.
• Hitler had a problem with the SA because they were too violent, and he sorted it out.
• Problems included the communists, the socialists, the unions, the SA, the army, the President and the Church.
• The main problem was that Germany was losing the war.

Question 6: the 12-mark judgement, marked

Question 6: "The Night of the Long Knives was the most important step in establishing the Nazi dictatorship." How far do you agree? Explain your answer. The purge of 30 June 1934 was important because it removed the last force inside the Nazi movement that could challenge Hitler and bought him the army. Rohm commanded around 3 million storm troopers and wanted them merged with the 100,000-man army under his own command, which the generals refused, and Hindenburg had threatened martial law if the street disorder went on. By having the SS shoot Rohm and at least 85 others, Hitler proved to the generals that he would choose them, and this meant that when the President died five weeks later the army swore its oath to him personally on 2 August rather than backing a rival. Without the purge there is no oath and no unchallenged Fuhrer. However, the purge only worked because earlier steps had already removed every check outside the movement. The fire decree of 28 February 1933 had put the communists in the cells, which allowed the Enabling Act to pass on 23 March by 444 to 94, and the Act allowed the unions to be dissolved on 2 May and every other party to be outlawed by 14 July without another vote. By June 1934 there was no opposition party, no free press and no court that would question a killing that a law of 3 July declared lawful. The Enabling Act was therefore the more important step, because it was the legal source of every later action, including the law that merged the presidency, while the purge settled a quarrel inside a state that was already a dictatorship. I largely disagree: the purge completed the dictatorship, but the Enabling Act established it. What earned the marks: the case for the statement made properly with figures and a link phrase; a counter-case built on the sequence, which shows the purge depended on what came before; and a judgement that ranks the two on a stated criterion, the source of power against its completion, rather than saying both were important. That structure, with the dates and figures, is what reaches the top level of the 12-mark question, and the writing task next asks you to do it for a different step.

Question 6: your turn

"The Reichstag Fire was the most important reason Hitler was able to establish a dictatorship by 1934." How far do you agree with this statement? Explain your answer.

• Make the case for the fire: what the decree of 28 February allowed, with the numbers arrested and the vote it made possible
• Set at least one other step against it, such as the Enabling Act, the purge or the death of Hindenburg, with its date and what it enabled

Question 3: which interpretation is more convincing?

AQA Question 3 asks which of the two interpretations from Question 1 is more convincing about how the dictatorship was established, for 8 marks. Interpretation A called it a legal revolution resting on the consent of conservatives; Interpretation B called it terror wearing the mask of law. Which answer reaches the top level?

• Interpretation A is convincing as far as the paperwork goes, because the fire decree was a lawful Article 48 measure signed by Hindenburg, the Enabling Act passed by the required two-thirds, and Hindenburg thanked Hitler for the purge; conservatives such as von Papen did believe they were using him. But it is less convincing than B on how those documents were obtained, because the two-thirds majority existed only with 81 communist deputies in custody under the decree and the SA in the chamber, Dachau was open on 22 March before the Act was passed, and the purge was made legal only after at least 85 people had been shot. B is more convincing because it explains the votes that A relies on, whereas A cannot explain why nobody used the legal channels to resist.
• Interpretation A is more convincing because everything Hitler did was legal.
• Interpretation B is more convincing because the Nazis were violent.
• Neither is convincing because historians always disagree.