Historian reveals how Hitler 'dismantled' democracy in less than two months

08 January

After Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933, he promptly packed the government full of loyalists and used Weimar Germany's constitution to turn himself into an absolute dictator.

In a Wednesday essay for the Atlantic, historian Timothy W. Ryback, who is the director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague, described the process in which Hitler rapidly disintegrated Germany's constitutional republic in just 53 days. Ryback noted that after the failed Beer Hall Putsch — in which the Nazi leader attempted to violently overthrow the government — Hitler abandoned his goal of violent revolution in favor of "destroying the country's democratic system" through legal means.

"Having spent a decade in opposition politics, Hitler knew firsthand how easily an ambitious political agenda could be scuttled," Ryback wrote. "He had been co-opting or crushing right-wing competitors and paralyzing legislative processes for years, and for the previous eight months, he had played obstructionist politics, helping to bring down three chancellors and twice forcing the president to dissolve the Reichstag and call for new elections."

After his election in 1933, Hitler bragged that the German electorate welcomed him with "jubilation," and rolled out a plan to force out longtime career civil servants with political stooges committed to his vision. He then executed a plan to get two-thirds of the Reichstag (the German parliamentary body) to pass an "empowering law" that would allow him to centralize his authority and govern by decree.

Hitler was convinced that he needed the empowering law to follow through on his campaign promises, which, according to Ryback, included calls to "revive the economy, reduce unemployment, increase military spending, withdraw from international treaty obligations, purge the country of foreigners he claimed were 'poisoning' the blood of the nation and exact revenge on political opponents." He also notably ran on draining den parlamentarischen Sumpf, or "the parliamentarian swamp," and his economic agenda including sweeping new tariffs on grain imports.

Ryback — who has authored multiple books about the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime – explained that Hitler becoming an absolute dictator was a significant comeback story. After the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler was jailed and his movement was discredited. And when the Nazi Party lost the 1932 election and 34 Reichstag seats, he was apparently "contemplating suicide" and had effectively "given up all hope."

However, when President Paul Von Hindenburg agreed after a negotiating session to make him chancellor and gave him two cabinet posts to fill, Hitler picked two staunch loyalists (Wilhelm Frick and Hermann Göring) and "put his two ministers to work targeting the Weimar Republic’s key democratic pillars: free speech, due process, public referendum, and states’ rights."

As part of his duties as minister of the interior, Frick had oversight over Germany's 18 federated states and the press. Ryback wrote that he focused on "suppressing the opposition press and centralizing power in Berlin," which included banning the daily newspapers run by the Communist Party and the Social Democrats.

Meanwhile, Göring used his position as minister without portfolio — which included oversight of the state of Prussia, which encompassed two-thirds of Germany — to purge state security forces. Hitler then put a Schiesserlass, or "shooting decree," in place, allowing police to shoot on sight without fear of accountability. And following the Reichstag fire, which was rumored to have been a false flag operation by the Nazis to scapegoat the Communist Party (the Nazi's biggest enemy), Hitler used the arson attack to successfully push for new powers allowing him to imprison his political opponents.

"The Communist Party was banned (as Hitler had wanted since his first cabinet meeting), and members of the opposition press were arrested, their newspapers shut down," Ryback wrote. "Göring had already been doing this for the past month, but the courts had invariably ordered the release of detained people. With the decree in effect, the courts could not intervene. Thousands of Communists and Social Democrats were rounded up."

Elections were held shortly after the Reichstag fire that saw the Nazis dramatically increase their representation in parliament. A few weeks later, Ryback wrote that Hitler issued a decree indemnifying any Nazi who committed crimes "in the battle for national renewal," including murder. He noted that "men convicted of treason were now national heroes," and that the first batch of detainees soon arrived at the Dachau concentration camp.

Click here to read Ryback's essay in its entirety (subscription required).

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