![]() Regardless, the event signaled the Nazis’ intent to target German Jews and foreshadowed the onslaught of discrimination that would soon follow. The boycott did not receive the widespread support the Nazis had hoped for in some places in Germany people embraced the attack on Jewish businesses, but in other places people deliberately shopped in Jewish-owned businesses in defiance. On April 1, the Nazis called for a nationwide day-long boycott of Jewish businesses. The Nazis also targeted Jews, imprisoning Jewish immigrants and attacking Jewish judges, lawyers, and shopkeepers. ![]() The SA and SS attacked political dissenters in the streets, and the secret police force known as the Gestapo was created in April to spy on, interrogate, and imprison citizens in order to “protect public safety and order.” The Nazis initiated attacks on homosexual men, imprisoning dozens under a long-existing law (Paragraph 175) that was not regularly enforced by the Weimar Republic. In the first six months of Hitler’s chancellorship, the Nazis also stepped up violence, intimidation, and terror toward the German people. By July, remaining political parties dissolved and the Nazi Party was the only legal party in Germany. The Nazis continued to attack opposing parties and organizations through the summer of 1933, dissolving trade labor unions in May and outlawing the Social Democratic Party in June. That day, the Nazi government also announced the opening of the first concentration camp at Dachau to hold Communists and other political prisoners. And three days after that-while many Reichstag deputies from opposing parties were in prison, exile, or hiding-the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which gave Hitler and his cabinet the power to enact laws that overrode the constitution and the power to imprison anyone Hitler deemed an enemy of the state. A few weeks later, on March 21, Hitler issued another decree making it illegal to speak out against the government or criticize its leaders. The day after the fire, Hitler used emergency powers under Article 48 to issue two decrees that suspended every part of the constitution that protected personal freedoms and also legalized the arrest of Communists and other political opponents of the Nazis. While historians continue to debate who set the fire, Hitler chose to immediately blame the Nazis’ chief political competitors, the Communists. On February 27, 1933, less than a month after Hitler became chancellor, the Reichstag building in Berlin was set on fire. ![]() Hitler seized on those powers, relying on Hindenburg’s willingness to sign off, to eliminate opposition, increase his power, and dismantle democracy. According to the constitution, only the president could invoke Article 48, so Paul von Hindenburg had to approve each of the measures chancellors took under emergency powers. Previous chancellors had already invoked emergency powers under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution (see Lesson 8: The Weimar Republic) to bypass the Reichstag and enact their own laws to try to pull the country out of the Great Depression. The Nazis moved swiftly in early 1933 to take advantage of the weaknesses of the Weimar Republic. The events described in this lesson begin to answer Haffner’s question. We agreed that it had a good chance of doing a lot of damage, but not much chance of surviving very long.How could things turn out so completely different? 1 I discussed the prospects of the new government with my father. Recalling a discussion with his father on the day Hitler became chancellor, journalist Sebastian Haffner wrote in 1939: After all, in the 14 years since the creation of the Weimar Republic, Germany had had 14 chancellors, most of whom served for less than a year. In fact, many did not believe Hitler would remain in power for long. ![]() Yet, by July of 1933, Hitler and the Nazis had succeeded in dismantling democracy and laying the foundation for dictatorship in Germany. Historians point out that Hitler’s political position upon his appointment as chancellor in January 1933 was precarious.
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