Germany grants Adolph Hitler dictatorial powers.
How did Adolph Hitler rise to power? For various and strange reasons, Hitler was sworn in as chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, and his cabinet’s few Nazis were assigned key positions, including control of the police. Weeks later, the Nazis burned down the German Parliament building (the Reichstag) and blamed it on the communists. Hitler used the event as an excuse to con President Hindenburg and the cabinet into passing emergency laws that quashed freedom of speech, a free press, the right to assemble and most other basic rights. The stage was set, and the Nazis proceeded to use brutish and murderous tactics and spend millions of marks to win the next election. When they managed to win only 44 per cent of the popular vote on March 5th, Hitler decided to employ another strategy to grasp full control. He drafted changes to the constitution that would essentially create a dictatorship. He called his proposal the Enabling Act, or “the law for removing the distress of the people and the Reich.” Two-thirds of the Reichstag had to support the act to turn it into law, and Hitler found himself 31 votes short. By the time he’d applied various methods of persuasion and pressure, the Catholic Centre Party delivered him the votes he required on March 23, 1933. Only the 84 Social Democrats voted against giving Hitler his new dictatorial powers. In the end, the elected representatives of Germany gave Hitler all the power he needed.
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