Hitler: Consolidation of Power

You may have read Hitler: Rise to Power in the previous essay now for his consolidation... (a note though.. this article is long)

Consolidation of power is to remove opposition, gain mass support and to emerge as dictator. Hitler had been invited to power by a group of right-wing politicians on January 30, 1933since they thought that they could control Hitler if he was invited to power. Thus, Hitler was allowed to consolidate his personal and regime’s power through legal means.The Reichstag Fire incident occurred on February 27, 1933. It had been caused by the setting of fire on the Reichstag by an ex-communist and Hitler made use of this to put the blame on the communist to discredit them. He persuaded Hindenburg to rule by decree and declare a state of emergency on February 28. His aim was to crush opponents by suspending their civil rights, such as rights to a fair trial and free press. Mass arrests of his opponents were made and they were imprisoned without trial. This eliminated further potential opposition from Communists. During the March 5, 1933 elections, the Nazis used violence and propaganda – press and media – to propagate Nazi ideas. Senior police officers were replaced with reliable Nazis, and 50,000 auxiliary policemen were called up, from the SS and SA, to show no mercy to political opponents. Meetings of all parties except.... Nazis and nationalists were wrecked and speakers beaten up, while the police did nothing. However, the results were disappointing as they did not get 2/3 majority, even though that was their best results. This served as a signal that Nazis did not reign supreme, thus acting as a catalyst to the Enabling Law. The Enabling Law of March 23, 1933, would allow Hitler to make laws and enter treaties without consulting the Reichstag for 4 years. He could ignore the constitution and enter foreign agreements. This signified that he would be a dictator, having the monopoly of legal power to make decisions, ignoring the President and rule single-handedly. The MPs had to enter the Kroll Opera House, surrounded by SS outside and SA inside, with the SS chanting “We want the bill, or fire and murder”. Only the Social Democrats voted against the bill as Hitler had made vague promises to the Catholic Centre Party on thing he would do for them. As a result, the bill was passed by 441 votes to 91. With this new power, Hitler banned other parties, declared the Nazi party the only legal party of the state, consolidated power in Berlin between January – February 1934, ended autonomy of local governments and officials, abolished local governments and abolished the upper and lower house of parliament. Democracy was now dead and Germany was ruled by a one-party state. On the Night of the Long Knives on June 30, 1934, Ernest Rohm, key SA officers and several hundred other men, as well as critics, were assassinated by Hitler’s other private army, the SS. Rohm wanted to merge the SA with the army and be given the post of General. He also antagonized the army by calling them “stiff-neck” Conservatives. The army had been a potential threat to Hitler, and these assassination attempts won the support of the army for his decisive actions. The SA was reduced in importance and no longer became a major force. President Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934. This enabled Hitler to merge the offices of chancellor and president to prevent potential opposition from the presidential post. He arranged a plebiscite in August 1934 to confirm his new position as Fuhrer and chancellor. The army also took an oath of allegiance to him and he became the commander-in-chief of armed forces. Thus, Hitler emerged as the infallible Nazi dictator by monopolizing key power positions in Germany. Hitler followed a policy of forcible co-ordination, known as Gleichschaltung, which turned Germany into a totalitarian state. The government controlled the lives of the people through a huge police force and the State Secret Police, the Gestapo. The state parliament lost all power as the Nazi Special Commissioner took over their functions. State, provincial and municipal elections were banned. Trade unions were abolished, their funds confiscated and leaders arrested. The trade unions were replaced by the German Labourfront to which all workers had to belong. The government dealt with all grievances and strikes were banned. The law courts were not impartial. ‘Enemies of the state’ rarely received a fair trial, and concentration camps introduced by Hitler in 1933 were full of ‘political prisoners’ – communists, Social Democrats, Catholic priests, Protestant pastors and Jews. Education was also closely controlled. Indoctrination, rewriting of textbooks, distortion of history, and close monitoring of teachers taught children of Nazi opinions and theories. History was distorted to fit in Hitler’s view that great things could only be achieved by force. Human biology was dominated by the Nazi race theory. Children between 14 to 18 years old were require to join the Hitler Youth and League of German Maidens, which taught boys to be rugged soldiers and girls be caring mothers and are encouraged to have more sons. Children were even encouraged to betray their parents to the Gestapo. These served to create a subservient, political culture to get support for the Nazi regime. Propaganda was used to mould public opinion and to obtain mass support. The Minister of Propaganda, Goebbels, controlled all communications and media. Radio, newspapers, magazines, books, theatre, films, music and art were all supervised. Writers, artists and scholars were harassed until it became impossible to express public opinion which did not fit in with the Nazi system. It was further enhanced through Hitler’s highly emotive speeches in the popular Nuremberg rallies, espousing war aims and the promises to create a strong Germany. These served to build German support for the Nazi regime. Religion was brought under state control, for fear of potential opposition. Hitler signed a Concordat with the Pope in which he promised not to interfere with German Catholics, in return for dissolving the Catholic Centre Party, to remove an opposition party. But Hitler broke the Concordat by dissolving the Catholic Youth League because it rivaled the Hitler Youth. They protested, and their schools were closed down. By 1937, Pope Pius XI issued an Encyclical (a letter to be read out in all Roman Churches in Germany) condemning the Nazi movement. They were critical of the Nazis due to empty reform promises that Hitler had made. Thousands of priests and nuns were sent to concentration camps. Protestants in Germany objected to Hitler’s government interference for attempting to organize the Protestant Church into a “Reich Church” with him as the first Reich Bishop, as well as his treatment to the Jews. Hitler had intended to make the Protestants loyal to the Nazis. 800 Pastors were sent to concentration camps, and the rest were forced to swear an oath of obedience to Hitler. Though persecutions appeared to have brought the churches under control, a quiet protest campaign continued. Hitler had an anti-Semitic policy, aiming to use over half a million of Germans as scapegoats for everything, blaming them for the humiliation at the Treaty of Versailles, the Great Depression, unemployment and communism. Germans were willing to accept the propaganda about the Jews due to the German Race Theory Hitler had propagated and that the removal of Jews gave Germans to take over the jobs the Jews had been occupying. This campaign of removing Jews from their jobs were justified in the Nuremberg Law in 1935, depriving them of their citizenship, forbade them to marry non-Jews, and ruled that a person with one Jewish grandparent must be classed as a Jew. Later the policy became more extreme. Jewish property was attacked and burnt, shops looted, synagogues destroyed, and Jews themselves herded into concentration camps. When Germany occupied Czechoslovakia, Poland and Western Russia, non-German Jews were all sent to extermination camps and murdered. By 1945, 5 out of 9 million Jews in Europe had been exterminated. The economic life of the country was closely organized. The Nazis aimed to remove unemployment and to make Germany self-sufficient by boosting exports and reducing imports. Industrialists were told what to produce, depending on what the country needed. Workers were moved around the country to places where jobs existed. Food prices and rents were controlled and foreign exchanges rates were manipulated to avoid inflation. Vast schemes of public works were introduced – slum clearance, land drainage and autobahn building. Foreign countries were forced to buy German goods either by refusing to pay cash for good bought from those countries, so that they had to accept German good instead (often armaments), or by refusing permission to foreigners with bank accounts in Germany to withdraw their cash, so that they had to spend it in Germany on German goods. Synthetic rubber and wool were manufactured and experimentation to produce petrol from coal was made in order to reduce dependence on foreign countries. Hitler also introduced a public works scheme which provided thousands of extra jobs. Unemployment was successfully eliminated by providing thousands of extra office and administrative posts in the expanding party bureaucracy. The purges of Jews and anti-Nazis from the civil service and from many other jobs connected with law, education, journalism, broadcasting, the theatre and music left large number of vacancies. Conscription was reintroduced in 1935 and rearmament was started in 1934, providing what the employed had been demanding in their marches in 1932. Care was taken to keep the support of the workers. This was important because the abolition of trade unions still rankled with many of them. The Strength through Joy Organization provide benefits such as subsidized holidays in Germany and abroad, cruises, skiing holidays, cheap theatre and concert tickets and convalescent homes. Wealthy industrialists and businessmen were delighted with the Nazis in spite of government interference with their industries. They were now safe from a communist revolution and that they were rid of trade unions which had constantly pestered them with demands for shorter working hours and increased wages. They could also buy back at low prices the shares they had sold to the state during the crisis of 1929 to 1932, and there were promises of great profits from the public work schemes, rearmament and other orders which the government placed with them. Similarly, farmers favored the Nazis as fixed prices for agricultural produce assured them of a reasonable profit. Farms were declared to be hereditary estates prevented farmers from being forced to mortgage their farm when they were heavily in debt as a result of the financial crisis.