Rise and consolidation of Nazi power, 1933-1934
Why Did Germans Turn to the Nazis?
By 1932 the Nazi Party had become the largest party in Germany. Several overlapping factors explain this surge. The Great Depression, which began in 1929, had caused approximately six million Germans to lose their jobs by early 1932. Weimar's coalition governments seemed paralysed and ineffective. Traditional parties of the centre and left lost the confidence of voters who blamed them for Germany's humiliation under the Treaty of Versailles and the economic disaster.
The Nazis offered simple, powerful messages: a strong Germany restored to greatness, punishment of the groups they blamed for Germany's troubles (Jews, communists, the Weimar politicians), full employment, and national unity. Their propaganda — mass rallies, striking imagery and the cult of Hitler's personal leadership — was carefully managed. The party also ran effective local organisations that provided welfare in the early Depression years, winning grassroots loyalty. While no single group exclusively supported the Nazis, they drew heavily from the middle class, rural voters, Protestants and the young.
In the July 1932 election the Nazis won 37.4% of votes — their highest ever in a free election. In November 1932 support fell to 33.1%, suggesting their peak support had passed. Hitler was nonetheless appointed chancellor on 30 January 1933.
Hitler as Chancellor, January 1933
President Hindenburg disliked and distrusted Hitler but was persuaded by advisers — notably Franz von Papen — that Hitler could be appointed chancellor and then controlled. Papen believed conservative politicians in the cabinet would act as a check on Hitler. On 30 January 1933 Hindenburg appointed Hitler as chancellor. This proved a catastrophic miscalculation. Within eighteen months Hitler had used a series of legal and semi-legal steps to transform Germany from a democratic republic into a one-party dictatorship.
The Reichstag Fire and the Emergency Decree
On 27 February 1933 the Reichstag building was set on fire. A young Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe was found at the scene and arrested. Hitler immediately claimed the fire was evidence of a communist plot to overthrow the government. The next day Hindenburg signed the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending civil liberties including freedom of speech, press and assembly, and allowing arrest without trial. Over 4,000 communists were arrested in the following weeks, removing the Nazi Party's main political rivals from the election campaign then under way.
On 23 March 1933, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which gave Hitler the power to make laws without consulting parliament for four years. To pass it required a two-thirds majority. The Nazis had arrested communist deputies and intimidated opposition members. Only the Social Democrats voted against. SA and SS troops lined the chamber. The Enabling Act was the legal foundation of Hitler's dictatorship; from this point, Germany's government operated outside the Weimar Constitution.
Gleichschaltung: Coordinating German Society
Gleichschaltung — literally 'co-ordination' or 'bringing into line' — was the process by which the Nazis extended their control over every institution in Germany during 1933. Trade unions were banned in May 1933 and replaced by the Nazi Labour Front. All political parties other than the NSDAP were banned by July 1933. State governments were stripped of their independence and replaced by Nazi-appointed governors. Newspapers, radio and film came under the control of Joseph Goebbels's new Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.
The Night of the Long Knives, June 1934
The SA (Sturmabteilung — the Nazi stormtroopers) numbered approximately three million by 1934 and its leader, Ernst Röhm, demanded that the SA absorb the army into a 'people's militia'. This alarmed the regular army, which Hitler needed to rearm Germany and secure his regime. Conservative politicians and business leaders also feared the SA's radical, street-fighting culture. Over the weekend of 29–30 June 1934, Hitler ordered the SS and Gestapo to arrest and execute SA leaders. Röhm was shot in his prison cell.
The purge — known as the Night of the Long Knives — killed approximately 85 to 200 people, including Röhm and other SA leaders, along with conservative opponents like former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher. The purge demonstrated the ruthlessness of the Nazi regime and reassured the army that its position was secure under Hitler.
After President Hindenburg's death on 2 August 1934, Hitler merged the offices of chancellor and president, declaring himself Führer and commander-in-chief. The army swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler. Germany was now a full dictatorship.
The Police State
Control was maintained through a network of terror. The SS and Gestapo monitored, arrested and intimidated opponents. The Gestapo relied heavily on denunciations from ordinary citizens — neighbours, colleagues and family members reporting suspected disloyalty. Concentration camps had been established as early as March 1933 at Dachau; by 1934 they held political prisoners — communists, socialists, trade unionists and others deemed enemies of the state. Fear was an effective tool: people self-censored because they did not know who might report them.
By August 1934 Hitler held complete formal power: chancellor, president, supreme commander of the armed forces, and Führer of the Nazi Party. All other parties were banned, the press was controlled, civil liberties suspended. However, in practice the regime still relied on the cooperation of existing institutions — the civil service, the judiciary and the army — many of whose members were not committed Nazis. The consolidation of power was therefore more a dismantling of democratic safeguards than an overnight transformation of every aspect of German life.