Removing other opposition

• Trade Unions were a powerful potential source of opposition, with close links to the Socialist Party and the power to undermine the government by calling their workers out on strike.
• Hitler used his new Enabling Act powers to ban trade unions and make strikes illegal. Trade Union officials were arrested and sent to concentration camps and a new Nazi organization, the German Labour Front (DAF) was set up to replace the unions.
• Political parties were Hitler’s next target. In May 1933, Nazi stormtroopers closed down the newspapers and confiscated the funds of the Socialist and Communist parties.
• On 14 July 1933, the Law against the establishment of Parties made all political parties other than the Nazis illegal.
• Finally, Hitler wanted to prevent local government interfering in his control of Germany, so in January 1934 Hitler abolished the Lander (local parliaments) and replaced them with Gauleiters to run the local regions of Germany.