![]() ![]() Instead, he opted to simply have Communists functionaries jailed by the thousands. He feared a violent Communist uprising in the event of a ban, and he also believed the KPD's presence on the ballot could siphon off votes away from the Social Democrats. ![]() The emergency law removed many civil liberties and allowed the arrest of Ernst Thälmann and 4,000 other leaders and members of the KPD : 331 shortly before the election, suppressing the Communist vote and consolidating the position of the Nazis.Īlthough Hitler could have banned the KPD outright, he opted not to do so. That event reduced the popularity of the KPD and enabled Hitler to persuade Hindenburg to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree as an emergency decree according to Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. Six days before the scheduled election date, the German parliament building was set alight in the Reichstag fire, allegedly by the Dutch Communist Marinus van der Lubbe. : 322 Only the Nazi Party and the German National People's Party were allowed to campaign untouched. Government officials known to be Centre Party supporters were dismissed from their offices, and stormtroopers violently attacked party meetings in Westphalia. : 318–320 Twenty newspapers of the Centre Party, a party of Catholic Germans, were banned in mid-February for criticising the new government. Issues of Social Democratic newspapers were banned. In the second half of February, the violence was extended to the Social Democrats, with gangs of brownshirts breaking up Social Democrat meetings and beating up their speakers and audiences. Sturmabteilung stormtroopers began attacking trade union and Communist Party (KPD) offices and the homes of left-wingers. On his second day as Chancellor, Hitler opened his campaign with a nationwide radio address pledging to save the nation from the left-wing, which he castigated as "political nihilism." In early February, the Nazis "unleashed a campaign of violence and terror that dwarfed anything seen so far". The Nazi seizure of power commenced on 30 January, when President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor, who immediately urged the dissolution of the Reichstag and the calling of new elections. Within months, the Nazis banned all other parties and turned the Reichstag into a rubberstamp legislature comprising only Nazis and pro-Nazi "guests". Two weeks after the election, he was able to pass an Enabling Act on 23 March with the support of all non-left wing parties, which effectively gave Hitler dictatorial powers. Despite now holding a bare working majority in the Reichstag, Hitler wanted more. ![]() This would be the last contested election held in Germany until after World War II. However, despite waging a campaign of terror against their opponents, the Nazis only tallied 43.9 percent of the vote on their own, well short of a majority to govern alone. This was the first time since 1930 that a governing coalition had held a parliamentary majority. The Nazi Party (officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party or, in German, NSDAP) registered a large increase in votes in 1933 and gained a Reichstag majority together with its coalition partner, the German National People's Party (DNVP). In Prussia 50,000 members of the SS, SA and Der Stahlhelm were ordered to monitor the votes by acting Interior Minister Hermann Göring, as auxiliary police. In the months before the 1933 election, SA and SS displayed "terror, repression and propaganda across the land", : 339 and Nazi organizations "monitored" the vote process. The 1933 election followed the previous year's two elections ( July and November) and Hitler's appointment as Chancellor. : 322 They were the last multi-party all-German elections until 1990. Nazi stormtroopers had unleashed a widespread campaign of violence against the Communist Party (KPD), left-wingers, : 317 trade unionists, the Social Democratic Party of Germany, and the Centre Party. Federal elections were held in Germany on 5 March 1933, after the Nazis lawfully acquired power pursuant to the terms of Weimar Constitution on 30 January 1933 and just six days after the Reichstag fire.
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