Today in History: Hitler dissolves the German Parliament

When Adolf Hitler was appointed as Chancellor of Germany, on the 30th of January, he didn't waste a lot of time taking full control of the government. A mere 2 days later through acts of intimidation and vote repression of the non-Nazi party members in the government, it was determined to completely dissolve the German Reichstag.

The year was 1933

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Despite already being extremely popular in much of Germany, Hitler did not have the absolute power that he desired and required in order to be capable of acting unilaterally with the full might of the German government and military. Prior to this resolution of sorts, non Nazi representatives still controlled enough of the German Parliament to prevent Hitler for passing just whatever he wanted to.

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I had mentioned in an article that I wrote some time ago that Hitler would not have been capable of rising to fame and therefore power if the media had simply not covered his trial for treason as closely as they did but on the past few days in 1933 a couple of critical things happened that lead to Adolf eventually gaining the ability to make decisions without anyone's approval.

• President Paul von Hindenburg was compliant in handing Hitler this power (he could have prevented it)
• The non Nazi members of Parliament allowed the Nazi party to intimidate them into stepping aside

One can only speculate about whether or not Hitler had the intention of ever following through with his promise of having new, fair elections which were scheduled for the 5th of March of the same year but given the tactics that the Nazi party had used up until this point including eliminating the free press and suspension of habeas corpus just before his election to Chancellor, I think it can be safely assumed that Hitler had no intention of giving this power back to a group of Parliamentary representatives, many of which would not be his allies.

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A very conveniently timed fire would later break out in the German Parliament building just a few days before the scheduled elections (The famous Reichstag fire) and this, combined with what was promised would be temporary power for Hitler, served as a pivotal moment in what would later be complete control for the Nazi party in Germany.

While a Dutch communist sympathizer admitted to starting the fire and was later executed for it, it is largely believed that the Nazis, under the direction of Hitler, started this fire themselves in order to spread some serious fake news afterwards to garner near complete public approval.

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There are a lot of things that lead to Adolf Hitler becoming quite possibly the greatest villain of all time but there is no denying that the Parliament that existed in 1933 could have prevented what Hitler sought to accomplish (there were more than enough representatives to deadlock any proposed legislation by the Nazis at the time.) So which do you think is easier? To negotiate with political adversaries or simply eliminate them? Based on the actions of February 2nd I think we can safely assume which option Hitler preferred.

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_{Was Hindenburg in on it? This is the focus of much debate to this day}

After these events occurred, Hitler rapidly expanded the powers of the police, most notably the Gestapo, which were charged with stamping out any opposition that might arise and there was nothing that still President Hindenburg, or anyone else, could do about it.

And it all started today, 87 years ago.