Reichstag Fire to Führer: the legal creation of a dictatorship

What the specification asks for

“Setting up the Nazi dictatorship through the Reichstag Fire, Enabling Act, Night of the Long Knives and Hitler as Führer” — examined through change and causation. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

Four weeks: the fire and the decree

On the night of 27 February 1933 the Reichstag burned. Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch council communist, was arrested inside and convicted; whether he acted alone remains argued, and the current scholarly balance favours that he did. What is not argued is the response. Within hours the government blamed a Communist rising, and on 28 February Hindenburg signed the Decree for the Protection of People and State.

The decree suspended the constitution's guarantees of personal liberty, free expression, association, press freedom, privacy of post and telephone, and the protection of property, and allowed the Reich government to take over the powers of the states. It was made under Article 48 and it was never repealed. Every arrest, every camp, every act of the police state for the next twelve years operated under an emergency decree signed six days before an election.

Around 4,000 Communists were arrested immediately, including the party's leadership. The KPD was not banned outright — its candidates stood on 5 March and won 81 seats — but its deputies were arrested or in hiding and could not take them.

The Enabling Act, 23 March 1933

The election of 5 March, held under the decree with the SA on the streets and the state's broadcasting under Nazi control, gave the Nazis 43.9 per cent — still short of a majority, and only a majority with the DNVP's 8 per cent.

The Enabling Act transferred legislative power, including the power to make laws departing from the constitution, to the cabinet for four years. As a constitutional amendment it required a two-thirds majority of a quorate house. The government reached it three ways: the 81 Communist seats were simply not counted, the standing orders were altered so that absent deputies counted as present, and the Centre Party was persuaded to vote for it in exchange for verbal assurances about the Church and the civil service that were never written down.

It passed 441 to 94. The 94 were the Social Democrats, whose leader Otto Wels made a speech defending the constitution with the SA lining the walls of the Kroll Opera House. Germany's parliament voted itself out of existence, which is why the phrase 'seizure of power' misdescribes it: the mechanism was a vote, obtained under duress and by procedural manipulation, but a vote.

Gleichschaltung, and then the SA problem

Through 1933 the regime coordinated German public life: state governments taken over in March, trade unions abolished and replaced by the German Labour Front on 2 May, the SPD banned in June, all other parties dissolved by July, and a law of 14 July making the NSDAP the only legal party.

That left one unsolved problem, and it was internal. Röhm's SA had around two million men and wanted to absorb the 100,000-man Reichswehr into a people's militia under its own command. The army's generals were the only remaining institution that could have blocked Hitler and their price for supporting him as Hindenburg's successor was the SA leadership.

On 30 June 1934 the SS shot Röhm and the SA leadership. The killings extended well beyond the SA: Schleicher and his wife, Gregor Strasser, Kahr of the 1923 putsch, and two of Papen's staff. Estimates of the dead range from about 85 to several hundred. On 3 July the cabinet passed a law declaring the murders lawful as emergency defence of the state — retrospectively, and in one sentence.

2 August 1934

Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934. Within hours the offices of President and Chancellor were merged, and Hitler took the title Führer und Reichskanzler. The same day the armed forces swore a new oath — not to the constitution or to the office, but of unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler personally. A plebiscite on 19 August approved the merger with about 89 per cent.

The eighteen months from February 1933 to August 1934 removed, in order: civil liberties, the legislature, the states, the unions, the other parties, the party's own radical wing, and the separation between the head of state and the leader of a movement. Every step but the last used an existing legal instrument, which is the point of the whole lesson.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

27–28 February 1933

The Reichstag Fire; the Decree for the Protection of People and State suspends civil liberties. Why this date: The legal foundation of the entire police state, in force until 1945 and never repealed.

5 March 1933

Election under the decree; the Nazis take 43.9 per cent. Why this date: Even with the KPD suppressed and the SA on the streets, the Nazis could not win a majority.

23 March 1933

The Enabling Act passes 441 to 94 with Centre Party votes. Why this date: The two-thirds majority is the detail that makes the Centre's decision decisive rather than incidental.

2 May and 14 July 1933

Trade unions abolished; the NSDAP made the only legal party. Why this date: The two dates that complete Gleichschaltung of organised civil society.

30 June 1934

Night of the Long Knives; Röhm, Schleicher, Strasser and Kahr killed. Why this date: The price paid to the army, and the demonstration that the regime would kill its own.

2 August 1934

Hindenburg dies; the offices merge; the army swears personal loyalty. Why this date: The dictatorship is complete on this date, not in January 1933.

The figures, and how far to trust them

• 441 to 94 — The Enabling Act vote.
• 43.9 per cent — The Nazi share on 5 March 1933, under emergency decree.
• About 4,000 — Communists arrested in the days after the fire.
• About 85 to several hundred — Killed in the Night of the Long Knives. (The regime admitted 85; historians' estimates run higher. Quote the range, not a single figure.)

The people to place

• Marinus van der Lubbe — Dutch council communist convicted of the fire and executed in January 1934.
• Ludwig Kaas — Centre Party leader who delivered its votes for the Enabling Act in exchange for undocumented assurances.
• Otto Wels — SPD leader who spoke against the Act; the last free speech in a German parliament until 1949.
• Ernst Röhm — SA chief of staff; wanted the army absorbed and was killed on 1 July 1934.
• Paul von Hindenburg — Signed the February decree and the Enabling Act into effect; his death completed the process.

How historians disagree

Attributed interpretations, never voiced — the AO4 seam.

• The 'legal revolution' reading: The regime took power through the constitution's own instruments — Article 48, a parliamentary two-thirds majority, and cabinet legislation — which is why German institutions offered so little resistance. Contested by Readings that stress the coercion behind each legal step: the 81 uncounted seats, the SA in the chamber, and the retrospective legalisation of murder in July 1934. Legality obtained by force is a description of the form, not of the process..

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: The Nazis started the Reichstag Fire.

This: It was argued for decades and the current scholarly balance is that van der Lubbe acted alone. The examinable point does not depend on it: what matters is that the government had a decree ready within twenty-four hours and used it far beyond any Communist threat.

Not this: The Enabling Act was forced through against everyone's will.

This: The Centre Party voted for it, and without those votes it could not have reached two-thirds. Coercion and consent were both present, and an answer that has only coercion cannot explain the arithmetic.

Two things students merge

Blurred: The Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act.

The distinction: The decree (28 February) suspends rights and is issued by the President under Article 48. The Act (23 March) transfers law-making to the cabinet and is passed by the Reichstag. One removes protections; the other removes the parliament.

Blurred: Chancellor and Führer.

The distinction: Chancellor from 30 January 1933 within a cabinet and under a President. Führer und Reichskanzler from 2 August 1934, with the presidency absorbed and the army sworn to him personally. Eighteen months separate them and they are what key topic 4 is about.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer notices that every step until August 1934 used a power that already existed and was signed by someone who was not a Nazi. The dictatorship was not imposed on German institutions from outside; it was assembled out of them, which is why the question about consent in the next lesson is unavoidable rather than provocative.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 1 (b) (8 marks — “Explain two effects of … on ….”); Paper 1 (c)(i) or (c)(ii) (16 marks — “'[A statement about the period.]' You may use the following in your answer: • [prompt] • [prompt]. You must also use information of your own. How far do you agree? Explain your answer.”).

What earns marks: Sequencing with dates and naming the instrument used at each step. An answer that can say 'Article 48 decree, then a two-thirds vote, then a retrospective law' is demonstrating the argument rather than asserting it.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

1. Explain two effects of the Reichstag Fire on Germany. [8 marks · Paper 1 (b)]
2. Explain two reasons why the Enabling Act was passed. [8 marks · Paper 1 (b)]
3. Explain two effects of the Night of the Long Knives on Germany. [8 marks · Paper 1 (b)]
4. 'The Enabling Act was the most important step in the creation of the Nazi dictatorship.' How far do you agree? Explain your answer. [16 marks · Paper 1 (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]
5. 'Hitler's dictatorship was created legally.' How far do you agree? Explain your answer. [16 marks · Paper 1 (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]

Carry on through the option

• Previous lesson, in key topic 3: 1932 to January 1933: Papen, Schleicher and Hindenburg
• Next lesson: The police state, censorship and propaganda — and their limits
• Also in this key topic: Education, women, the young and the Churches · Racial policy and the persecution of Jews to 1939 · Unemployment, the Labour Service, the Labour Front and Strength Through Joy
• Key topic 4 · Nazi Germany 1933–39 · Germany: development of dictatorship, 1918–45 · the option's timeline · Incandio History
• The other key topics of Germany: The establishment of the Weimar Republic and its early problems · The recovery of Germany, 1924–29 · The rise of Hitler and the Nazis to January 1933 · Germany and the occupied territories during the Second World War