Timeline to absolution

• New elections agreed


  30th January 1933
• Enabling act


  A goal of Schleicher's which failed, needed ⅔ majority of the Reichstag to be passed
• If Schleicher's enabling act had been passed

  It would've put Hindenburg's reputation on the line
• Hitler's enabling act


  Suited Hindenburg as it wouldn't be associated with him
• If Hitler's enabling act failed

  It would've caused the destruction of the Reichstag
• Press censorship laws passed to restrict reporting of the press by Hindenburg


  6th February 1933
• Press censorship


  An act of blatant authoritarianism, the antithesis of the essence of democracy which is freedom of speech and the press
• Hindenburg agreed to press censorship


  Because it stopped other parties from getting a platform to promote themselves i.e. less competition
• SA/SS become auxiliary police units in Prussia


  17th February 1933
• Auxiliary Police Powers Act


  Makes SA and SS members of the Prussian State Police, showing the SA is an extension of the army, infiltrating Nazism into the army
• Police force


  The essence of democracy is a police force which only acts in cases of clear cruciality based on empirical evidence, therefore a criminal police force is a political police force i.e. authoritarian
• Beginning of the Gestapo, made legal by Hindenburg
• Gestapo


  Sometimes known as the "shoot to kill" law, begins the process of Nazis working in an extra-legal way
• Raison d'etre of the SA was violence
• Reichstag Fire


  27th February 1933
• Reichstag Fire


  Marius van der Lubbe, no other compelling evidence of communist plots, dramatic scene which lead people to think others were involved
• Lead to the Law for the Protection of People and State
• Law for the Protection of People and State

  28th February 1933
• Law for the Protection of People and State


  Suspends all civil rights and liberties of German people, that were guaranteed by the Weimar Constitution, with no judicial review
• German Federal Election


  5th March 1933
• German Federal Election


  Not significantly better than the July elections, ultimately a poor result- 33.6%, 56% of people didn't vote Nazis in an atmosphere of severe intimidation, large number of people voted anti-Nazi, DNVP Hugenberg 8% 'Pitiful performance'
• Flag changed to represent old imperial colours (swastika)

  12th March 1933
• Flag change


  1848 present flag was created to overthrow autocracy with democracy therefore was highly divisive, imperial flag was the flag of the elites
• Hitler's announcement of the opening of Dachau prison

  20th March 1933
• Dachau was the first concentration camp
• Law for the Protection of People and State


  Legalised the opening of Dachau concentration camp
• Day of Potsdam


  21st March 1933
• Day of Potsdam


  Ceremony of opening the new Reichstag, first meeting since the end of May 1932, in the Garrison church in Potsdam (20 miles out of Berlin, home of the Prussian army therefore HQ of the official German Reichswehr), with a vast lineup of significant military figures, Nazis' first attempt to make an impression on people essential to his maintenance of power, outside the church was a statue of Frederick the Great, Goebbels gets Hitler to wear a suit worn traditionally by politicians, the throne traditionally used by Prussian King left empty as a symbol of Germany's history, handshake between Hindenburg and Hitler "like power passing down through Frederick the Great through Hindenburg to Hitler"
• Enabling Act


  23rd March 1933
• Enabling Act


  Coercion - communists had 81 deputies but none present, Persuasion - Hitler guarantees Catholic rights, Voting manipulation - 444 in favour, 94 against (SPD), Otto Wels gave a strongly spirited speech against the Enabling Act, makes Article 48 redundant
• Gleichschaltung of regional government

  31st March 1933
• Gleichschaltung


  Literally means coordination but Nazification is more representative, dissolution of state governments and replaced Reich State Governors with the authority of local Gauleiters, federalism did not suit Nazism as it created diversity in German culture and identity which contradicted Volksgemeinschaft
• Intentionalism


  Hitler created a bureaucratic mess in which his governance was seemingly panacea, behaved like a mediaeval potentate
• Structuralism


  Confusion in governance wasn't an intentional outcome of Hitler's chaotic approach to bureaucracy, created conflict between Nazis, Judeocide was a result of a systematic dynamic unleashed by efforts to solve the "Jewish question"
• Fuhrerprinzip


  Ian Kershaw's theory attempting to reconcile the intentionalism vs structuralism debate
• Worker's Day


  1st May 1933
• Worker's Day


  International day of labour, highly symbolic of the trade union movement, Hitler granted the day which hadn't been recognised in Germany until then, highly cynical manoeuvre as the next day trade union officials found their HQs occupied by the SA and SS who took all machinery and assets
• Dissolution of the Union Movement

  2nd May 1933
• Dissolution of the Union Movement


  Trade unions were banned and replaced with NSBO which evolved into the German Workers' Front (DAF), trade unions could unite people to protest - therefore the Nazis had got rid of a potential form of opposition, compulsory membership by 1939 90% of workers were in the DAF
• Hitler appoints Robert Ley as head of the DAF

  10th May 1933