worst still, torture chambers set up by the SA [still in power before
the Night of Long Knives] in homes. This was supposed to be a purge of
the communists, but it showed that the SA was powerful enough to
arrest anyone who dared to oppose the Nazi regime.
This whole purge was called ‘preventive detention’, i.e. imprisoning
people who harmed the state to prevent them from further doing so, but
it was an open threat to opposition so that they’d either convert to
Nazism or be way to frightened to ever oppose the Nazis.
Hitler didn’t get rid of only the communists, he also effectively
dealt with the Social Democrats and accused them and the center party
of being communists. Jews were also included in this purge. It’s said
that he sent out instructions to arrest those who have been especially
active in the political scenario. By late 1933, the Nazis had wiped
out strong opposition organization in addition to closing down trade
unions. The KPD [communist party] was forcibly disbanded; other
parties disbanded themselves for fear of being confronted by the
Nazis. Seizing this opportunity, Hitler banned all parties and the
creation of new parties. Having a political meeting was considered to
be a criminal offense. Political opposition was now divided and those
who weren’t arrested went underground or fled, so there was little
political resistance for more than a decade.
It was easy to squelch the communists as they weren’t as strong as the
communists in Russia, they had no strong leader with equal caliber or
status as that of Stalin and they did not have a wide network of
strong organizations. They were popular, as in well known, only
because people were against them. Germans feared communist rule in
Germany and were willing to let the Nazis repress the KPD. The KPD was
greatly weakened by the fact that they took orders from the Moscow
communists who insisted on a passive policy towards the Nazis as they
[especially Stalin] thought Nazi rule would collapse very soon, and
the communists would be victorious in Germany.
They didn’t know how Hitler’s dictatorship and policies operated and
adopted a rather casual, passive attitude towards the Nazis. [The
biggest blow to communists actually came with the [ironic] Nazi-Soviet
Pact [1939]].
The Socialists were also weak and were easy prey for Hitler. After the
depression, even trade unions were crippled and so the weapon of the
socialists, a general strike, wasn’t possible, so they couldn’t use
mass action against Hitler. Plus they had hardly any contacts with the
establishment and were thus easily marginalized.
Thus Hitler used clever manipulation, and played on the weak points
his opposition, to ultimately get rid of them.
