Gleichschaltung - Specific Measures

Specific Measures

In a more specific sense, Gleichschaltung refers to the legal measures taken by the government during the first months following January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. It was in this sense that the term was used by the Nazis themselves.

1. One day after the Reichstag fire on February 27, 1933, President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg, acting at Hitler's request and on the basis of the emergency powers in article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, issued the Reichstag Fire Decree. This decree suspended most human rights provided for by the constitution and thus allowed for the arrest of political adversaries, mostly Communists, and for general terrorizing by the SA, the Nazi paramilitary force, of other voters before the upcoming election.
2. In this atmosphere the Reichstag general election of March 5, 1933 took place. This election yielded only a slim majority for Hitler's coalition government and no majority for Hitler's own Nazi party.
3. When the newly elected Reichstag first convened on March 23, 1933, (not including the Communist delegates, since their party had already been banned by that time) it passed the Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz), transferring all legislative powers to the Nazi government and, in effect, abolishing the remainder of the Weimar constitution as a whole. Soon afterwards the government banned the Social Democratic Party, which had voted against the Act, while the other parties were intimidated into dissolving themselves rather than face arrests and concentration camp imprisonment.
4. The "First Gleichschaltung Law" (Erstes Gleichschaltungsgesetz) (March 31, 1933) dissolved the diets of all Länder except Prussia and ordered them reconstituted on the basis of the votes in the last Reichstag election (with the exception of Communist seats). It also gave the state governments the same powers the Reich government possessed under the Enabling Act.
5. A "Second Gleichschaltung Law" (Zweites Gleichschaltungsgesetz) (April 7, 1933) deployed one Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) in each state, apart from Prussia. These officers, responsible to Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, were supposed to act as local proconsuls in each state, with near-complete control over the state governments. For Prussia, which constituted the bulk of Germany in any event, Hitler reserved these rights for himself and delegated them to Prussian minister-president Hermann Göring.
6. The trade union association ADGB (Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund) was shattered on May 2, 1933 (the day after Labour Day), when SA and NSBO units occupied union facilities and ADGB leaders were imprisoned. Other important associations including trade unions were forced to merge with the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront — DAF), to which all workers had to belong.
7. The Gesetz gegen die Neubildung von Parteien ("Law against the establishment of political parties") (July 14, 1933) declared the Nazi Party to be the country's only legal party. However, for all intents and purposes, Germany had been a one-party state since the passage of the Enabling Act.
8. The Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reiches ("Law concerning the reconstruction of the Reich") (January 30, 1934) abandoned the concept of a federal republic. Instead, the political institutions of the Länder were practically abolished altogether, passing all powers to the central government. A law dated February 14, 1934 dissolved the Reichsrat, the representation of the Länder at the federal level. This law actually violated the Enabling Act, which specifically protected the existence of both legislative chambers.
9. In the summer of 1934 Hitler instructed the SS to kill Ernst Röhm and other leaders of the Nazi party's SA, former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and several aides to former Chancellor Franz von Papen in the so-called Night of the Long Knives (June 30, 1934/July 1, 1934). These measures received retrospective sanction in a special one-article Law Regarding Measures of State Self-Defense (Gesetz über Maßnahmen der Staatsnotwehr) (July 3, 1934).
10. The Law Concerning the Highest State Office of the Reich (August 1, 1934) prescribed that upon the death of the incumbent president, that office would be merged with the office of the chancellor, and that the competencies of the former should be transferred to the "Führer und Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler", as the law stated. Hindenburg died at nine o'clock, making Hitler head of state as well as head of government. This law abolished the last remedy by which Hitler could be legally dismissed—and with it, the last remaining checks on his power. Like the law abolishing the Reichsrat, this law actually violated the Enabling Act, which specifically forbade Hitler from tampering with the presidency. Additionally, in 1932 the constitution had been amended to make the president of the High Court of Justice, not the chancellor, acting president pending new elections. However, no one raised any objections. Following the Reichswehr purge of 1938, Hitler could be described as the absolute dictator of Germany until his suicide in 1945.