Was Legislation Important In The Nazi Consolidation Of Power In 1933

To say that the Nazis created a Germany that was legal and everything they created was done legally would be both true and incredibly false. For example, although the Nazis did emphasis the fact that the acts that they brought out, like the Enabling act for example, were launched by legal means, the truth lies in the fact that when the voting occurred to pass this act, such great forces of terror were used that this act was a quite simple juxtaposition. The importance of legality and legislation was, to an extent, useful in the consolidation, but as this essay will examine, it was backed up or initiated by terror. As source A confirms, Hitler had a very natural and charismatic appearance when talking and with this the Nazis were able to get away with terrible things, which they passed as legislation. However along with the superficial stance of legality, many acts were passed within the consolidation and the Nazis, and more specifically, Hitler, were very intelligent and understood, especially after the Munich Putsch, that in order to achieve power, they needed to go about it in a gradual and legal way. Source A shows this by implying that Hitler will give an appeasing outlook to opposition by use of the phrase 'continuation of the great traditions', showing that the traditions of Germany were the driving force behind Hitler's actions. However, the reliability of source A is debatable as it is from memoirs, meaning that they were written sometime after, allowing time for certain events to obscure specific memory. Contrary to this though, there is hard evidence, in the loss of votes in the 1933 election which would have come as a shock to the Nazis after their terror strategies and would have driven them to change and use legislation. As much as the Nazis and Hitler told the country that they had their wishes at heart, they were driven purely by power and the need to 'rid' the country of un-pure citizens, meaning that, for a party so driven by this belief, the matter of legality seems to be minor and wouldn't have stood in their way. This change of tactics, from legislation to terror can be seen most predominantly in the rise and fall of the SA. The rise of the brownshirts led to nearly 27000 political leaders being arrested by July 1933 showing their influence, and the fall, in the night of the long knives shows the terror that the Nazis were willing to unleash against those of their own. This proves that legality was not as much of a concern to Hitler, as appeasing the army and other supporters was. Source B describes a view of the passing of the Enabling Act at the Kroll Opera House, coincidentally there as the Reichstag fire occurred only days before, proving again that terror was at large as the Nazis used this to exploit their opponents. The view shows the events of the enabling act voting and how the SA and SS lined the passage ways, proving that the Nazis ironically used terror through these groups to gain legislation and order within the country, or the farcical appearance that they were. This leads onto the idea that the two, terror and legislation were interlinked. Like many strategies for gaining power that can be seen in history, Stalin and the use of propaganda and terror for example, there is a clear trend of two opposing tactics linking and connecting. The terror used here was a way of paving a path for the superficial acts of legislation in order to gain trust for the Nazis. This shrewd way of consolidating power can be seen in Source C which is depicting a system where the party was willing to stay within the bounds and beliefs of the Weimar Republic in terms of law and order, but they were also willing to push through their own beliefs by any means possible. This is shown in the source by the objective way of describing the law under the Nazis which involved many acts being passed by the inability to maintain this without the 'exceptional measures'. This can be seen, again, through the passing of the Enabling Act and the use of terror, in order to achieve legislation. In summary, although the Nazis desired their party to come off as legal through some genuine but mainly artificial reasons, like the Munich Putsch and the desire for an Aryan Germany, their way of achieving this perception was carried out through violent and illegal means. The consolidation was seemingly successful however, as although the illegal methods were used greatly, it is more the legal means that came off to other countries and Germans as to the method using for gaining power.