Consolidation of Nazi power, 1933-1934
From Chancellor to Dictator
When Hitler became Chancellor on 30 January 1933, he did not yet have dictatorial power. Germany was still a constitutional republic. He had only two other Nazis in his twelve-man cabinet, and President Hindenburg retained the power to dismiss him. Within eighteen months, Hitler had eliminated all rivals, abolished all other political parties, and fused the offices of Chancellor and President. The speed and completeness of this transformation shocked even those who had expected him to be radical.
The Reichstag Fire and Emergency Decree, February 1933
On the night of 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire. A young Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was found at the scene and arrested. Hitler immediately blamed the Communist Party for an organised plot to overthrow the state. Within hours, he had persuaded President Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended freedom of speech, assembly, and the press, and allowed the police to arrest and detain anyone without trial. The communists were effectively outlawed. Over the following days, thousands of political opponents were arrested.
The Enabling Act (23 March 1933) passed by 444 votes to 94, with the SA lining the chamber. It gave Hitler the power to pass laws without the Reichstag's approval for four years — effectively making him a dictator within the bounds of the constitution.
The Enabling Act, March 1933
On 23 March 1933, the Reichstag voted on the Enabling Act. For it to pass, Hitler needed a two-thirds majority. He achieved this by having communist deputies arrested and by surrounding the Reichstag with SA stormtroopers to intimidate the remaining members. Only the Social Democrats voted against — their leader Otto Wels delivered a courageous speech defending democracy, knowing it would make no difference. The act passed by 444 votes to 94. Hitler now had the legal power to govern by decree.
Gleichschaltung (co-ordination) swept through German society over the following months. State governments were abolished and replaced by Nazi-appointed Reich governors. Trade unions were banned and replaced by the Nazi-controlled German Labour Front in May 1933. All political parties except the Nazis were dissolved or forced to disband by July 1933. Germany became a one-party state.
By 1934, the SA had grown to over two million members and its leader, Ernst Röhm, was demanding that the SA absorb the regular army and lead a ‘second revolution’ that would redistribute wealth. This alarmed conservative generals and industrialists whose support Hitler needed. On the night of 29–30 June 1934, the SS carried out mass arrests and executions across Germany. Röhm was murdered, as were many other SA leaders and political opponents, including former Chancellor Schleicher. Estimates of those killed range from several dozen to several hundred.
The Night of the Long Knives had two crucial effects. First, it destroyed the SA as an independent political force — it was subordinated to the SS and effectively domesticated. Second, it showed the German army that Hitler would protect their institutional interests, which secured military loyalty. The generals accepted what had happened because it served their own interests.
When President Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, Hitler merged the offices of President and Chancellor, taking the title Führer (leader). The German army swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler as an individual — not to the German state or constitution — binding every soldier to him personally.
On 2 August 1934, President Hindenburg died. Within hours, Hitler announced that the offices of Chancellor and President had been merged into the new title of Führer. A plebiscite held on 19 August 1934 gave Hitler 89.9% of the vote in approval — though the conditions under which it was held made a free vote impossible. The personal oath of loyalty sworn by the army meant that any resistance to Hitler was now not merely illegal but a personal betrayal of a sacred vow. In just eighteen months, Hitler had dismantled the entire Weimar constitutional framework and concentrated all power in his own hands.
The speed of this consolidation is worth emphasising for exam purposes. Hitler exploited every crisis and opportunity methodically: the Reichstag Fire gave him a pretext to arrest communists before the March elections; the Enabling Act gave him legal cover for dictatorship; Gleichschaltung dismantled every independent institution before opposition could organise; and the Night of the Long Knives eliminated internal rivals while securing the loyalty of the one institution — the army — that could theoretically have stopped him. Each step was legally dressed in constitutional language even as it destroyed constitutional norms. This use of ‘legal revolution’ was precisely what Hitler had drawn from the failure of the Munich Putsch in 1923: raw force alone was insufficient; he needed the appearance of legitimacy to neutralise conservative resistance until it was too late to matter.