Enabling Act — Legal Seizure of Power
The German parliament voted on 23 March 1933 to let Hitler's cabinet make laws without it, and did so by 441 votes to 94. The act was a constitutional amendment and therefore needed two-thirds of the deputies present, which the Nazis and their Nationalist partners did not have on their own. They obtained it by a combination of terror and arithmetic. The Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February had suspended civil liberties, and the 81 Communist deputies were in custody, in hiding or dead; the government simply declared their seats vacant for quorum purposes. Some two dozen Social Democrats were prevented from attending. The Kroll Opera House, where the session was held because the Reichstag had burned, was lined with SA and SS men, and the deputies filed past them. The Centre Party — Catholic, and holding the decisive bloc — was promised a concordat with the Vatican and the protection of church schools, and voted yes. Only the 94 Social Democrats present voted against. Otto Wels made the speech, saying that no enabling act could destroy ideas that are eternal and indestructible, with Hitler taking notes for the reply he screamed at him. The act was limited to four years and to specific purposes, and was renewed in 1937, 1939 and 1943 as a formality. Every remaining party was dissolved or banned within four months, and Germany was a one-party state by July. It is the legal instrument by which a democracy voted itself out of existence. Wels had his passport confiscated and left for Prague, where he ran the party in exile and died in 1939. The German constitution written in 1949 makes the core of its basic law unamendable, which is a direct answer to this vote.
- Year: 1933 CE
- Category: Political
