Enabling Act (1933): How Hitler Became Dictator by Law

The Enabling Act of 23 March 1933 was the law that gave Adolf Hitler’s government the power to make laws without the German parliament, the Reichstag. Passed by 444 votes to 94 in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin, under the eyes of armed Nazi stormtroopers, it ended parliamentary democracy in the Weimar Republic. It allowed Hitler to build a dictatorship that still appeared, on paper, to be legal.

Background: from chancellor to dictator

Hitler had been appointed chancellor on 30 January 1933 at the head of a coalition in which his Nazi Party held few ministries. Under the Weimar Constitution he still needed either a majority in the Reichstag or emergency decrees signed by President Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler wanted to be free of both, so that neither parliamentary bargaining nor the moods of an 85-year-old president could limit him.

The Reichstag fire of 27 February gave him an opening. The emergency decree signed the next day suspended civil liberties, and thousands of Communists and Social Democrats were arrested. In the election of 5 March 1933, held amid intimidation, the Nazis won 43.9 per cent of the vote and 288 of 647 seats. With their nationalist allies of the DNVP they had a bare majority, but an enabling law that changed the constitution required a two-thirds majority.

What the law said

The official title was the Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich (Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich). It had only five short articles.

Article 1 allowed laws to be enacted by the Reich government as well as by the normal procedure in the Reichstag. Article 2 stated that such government laws could deviate from the constitution, as long as they did not affect the institutions of the Reichstag and Reichsrat or the powers of the president. Article 3 gave the chancellor the task of drafting these laws, which would take effect the day after publication. Article 4 allowed treaties with foreign states to be made without parliament, and Article 5 limited the law to four years or until the present government was replaced.

Securing a two-thirds majority

The Nazi leadership used both pressure and manipulation to reach two-thirds. The 81 Communist deputies were not allowed to take their seats: many had been arrested, others had fled. Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick explained that the quorum would be calculated without them. Reichstag President Hermann Goring also changed the rules of procedure so that deputies who were absent without excuse could be counted as present.

The key to the vote was the Catholic Centre Party, with about 73 seats. Its leader, the priest and politician Ludwig Kaas, negotiated with Hitler for guarantees for the Catholic Church, its schools and its associations, and for the independence of the courts. Hitler offered verbal assurances and promised a written letter, which never came. Former chancellor Heinrich Bruning and some others in the party argued against the law, but in the end the Centre deputies voted for it as a bloc.

Two days before the vote, on 21 March, the new Reichstag had been opened with a carefully staged ceremony at the Garrison Church in Potsdam, the “Day of Potsdam”. Hitler bowed to Hindenburg in a display meant to reassure conservatives that the new regime stood in the tradition of Prussian order and the old Germany.

The vote in the Kroll Opera House

Because the Reichstag building had been gutted by fire, the session of 23 March 1933 took place in the Kroll Opera House, opposite the damaged parliament. The hall was decorated with a giant swastika flag. SA and SS men lined the corridors and surrounded the building, and deputies of the left had to pass through their ranks.

Hitler spoke first, wearing his brown party uniform. He presented the law as a temporary measure to save the nation and promised to respect the Church and the president, but he also made clear that he expected a positive answer and was ready for a negative one, a thinly veiled threat.

Otto Wels, chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), then rose to give the only speech against the bill. Several SPD deputies were already in custody or in hiding. Wels defended the principles of humanity and justice, freedom and socialism and declared that no enabling law could destroy ideas that were eternal. His most remembered words were: “Freedom and life can be taken from us, but not our honour.” Hitler answered with an angry, partly improvised reply.

In the final vote, 444 deputies voted in favour and 94 Social Democrats voted against. The Reichsrat, which represented the states, approved the law the same day. Hindenburg signed it, and it was published and came into force on 24 March 1933.

Key people

• Adolf Hitler, chancellor, who gained the power to rule by decree.
• Otto Wels (1873–1939), SPD chairman, who spoke against the law and died in exile in Paris.
• Ludwig Kaas (1881–1952), Centre Party leader, who led his party to vote yes and soon left for Rome.
• Hermann Goring, Reichstag president, who altered the procedural rules.
• Wilhelm Frick, interior minister, who helped draft the law.

Consequences: Gleichschaltung

With the Enabling Act in hand, Hitler’s government pushed through the “coordination” (Gleichschaltung) of German society. The federal states lost their independence, Jewish civil servants were dismissed under a law of April 1933, trade unions were seized on 2 May, and the SPD was banned on 22 June. The other parties, including the Centre, dissolved themselves under pressure. On 14 July 1933 a law declared the Nazi Party the only legal party in Germany.

The Reichstag survived as a body of Nazi deputies that met only to applaud Hitler’s speeches. The act’s four-year limit proved meaningless: it was renewed in 1937 and 1939, and in 1943 Hitler extended it indefinitely. After Hindenburg’s death in August 1934 and the bloody purge that preceded it, the Night of the Long Knives, no institution in Germany was left to restrain him.

Timeline

• 1933, 30 January: Hitler is appointed chancellor.
• 1933, 28 February: The Reichstag Fire Decree suspends civil liberties.
• 1933, 5 March: The Nazis win 43.9 per cent in the Reichstag election.
• 1933, 21 March: The new Reichstag opens with the “Day of Potsdam”.
• 1933, 23 March: The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act by 444 votes to 94.
• 1933, 24 March: The law is published and takes effect.
• 1933, 22 June: The Social Democratic Party is banned.
• 1933, 14 July: The Nazi Party becomes the only legal party.

Legacy

The Enabling Act is a classic example of how a democratic constitution can be used to abolish democracy itself. The framers of West Germany’s Basic Law of 1949 drew direct lessons from it: the Basic Law cannot be amended to remove its core principles of human dignity, democracy and the federal order, and it creates a constitutional court to protect them. The act marked the effective end of the Weimar Republic, founded in 1919 with high hopes as Germany’s first parliamentary democracy.

Why it matters

The Enabling Act turned Hitler’s chancellorship into a legal dictatorship. It shows how intimidation, broken promises and the weakness of moderate parties allowed a parliament to vote away its own power, and why modern constitutions build in safeguards against such a law.