On the 27th of February 1933, the Reichstag (German houses of parliament) was burned down. The only suspect found for the disaster, was a Dutch communist named Marianus van der Lubbe. Hitler used this to persuade the government, that Germany was under the threat of a communist attack. So a new law was passed, called the Law for the Protection of People and State. The law banned the Communist and Socialist parties from the Reichstag. This meant that their votes would have to be placed onto other parties, and as there were now less parties to vote for, a lot more votes would be given to the Nazis. Although hitler did gain more votes, he did not get the majority that he needed, to put him into power.
Hitler needed another way to earn power, as he could not get an outright majority in the Reichstag. Although he had more seats than the other individual parties, they could still combine their number of seats, to create an overall majority over Hitler. He managed to persuade the Reichstag to pass another new law. This was called the Enabling Law. This gave Hitler the power to enforce new laws, without the Reichstag’s concent. The power that the Enabling law gave Hitler, meant that he could do anything he wanted. He could now carry out his plans, that he hoped would solve the problems in Germany. These plans included re-building a German army, and re-taking the land that was lost to Germany, after worl war one. No-one could stop Hitler from within Germany, as he had become a dictator.
In 1934, Hitler started to run into some obstacles. A German officer named Ernst Roehm, who had control over the German military, wanted to combine the forces of the SA and the SS together to create one large army. But Hitler did not like the idea of Roehm having such power over the German military, even though he and Hitler were old friends. So Hitler devised a plan to remove Roehm, without raising any suspicions. This event would later be called ‘The Night of the Long Knives’, as it was a treachorous event. Hitler ‘gathered up’ Roehm and a number of other military officers, and he had them sent on a holiday. He told them that they were being rewarded for the hard work that they had done for him. During the night , while the officers were at a resort near Berlin, hitler personally had teh men arrested, and later killed. He wanted to personally be there when it happened, as Roehm was a good friend.
There were also some slightly more minor events that helped Hitler, but they still each had a certain importance. One example was the Beerhall Putsch. Hitler tried to seize Munich, but the attempt failed and Hitler was arrested. Although he was sentenced to 5 years in prison, he only served 9 months. However during this time, Hitler could plan everything that he wanted to do once he had been released. Hitler did infact write all of his plans, in a book called ‘Mein Kampf’ of ‘My Struggle’.
The Treaty of Versailles was not the most important reason for Hitler coming to power. There were lots of events which were mostly all as importnat as each other. In many cases one event
could not have occurred without another. Without the great depression people would not have turned from trusting the government, to supporting Hitler. Without the Treaty of Versailles the people of Germany would not have had a grudge against their government, right from the beginning. Without the Reichstag fire Hitler could not have persuade the Reichstag that Germany was under the threat ov communist attack, and inevetably the Enabling law would not have been passed. Although on their own some events may not look any more imporant than others, when combined together they reveal Hitler’s rise to power.
.