LECTURE 4:
The Seizure of Power
Keppler Circle
Dr. Horace Greely Hjalmar Schacht (1877 – 1970)
- Baron Kurt Freiherr von Schröder
- Sullivan & Cromwell Limited Liability Partners
John Foster Dulles LINK: Dulles & IG Farben – BIS Board
- IG Farben Link to IG Farben Trial Transcripts
- Bank of International Settlements (BIS)
Reichsbank
- January 4, 1933 Hitler-Papen Meeting
January 15 election in Lippe
Alfred Hugenberg / DNVP
January 30, 1933
Wilhelm Frick (1877 –1946)
Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering) 1893–1946
Cabinet January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler (NSDAP) – Chancellor Franz von Papen – Vice Chancellor Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath – Minister of Foreign Affairs Wilhelm Frick (NSDAP) – Minister of the Interior Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk – Minister of Finance Alfred Hugenberg (DNVP) – Minister of Economics and Food Franz Seldte – Minister of Labour Franz Gürtner (DNVP) – Minister of Justice Werner von Blomberg – Minister of Defence Paul Freiherr Eltz von Rübenach – Minister of Posts and Transport
Hermann Göring (NSDAP) – Minister without Portfolio
The “National Revolution” (Jan-March 1933) ( The “Legal Revolution”)
Decree for the Protection of the German People (Feb 4, 1933)
Schutzhaft – “protective custody”
Gestapo — Geheime Staatspolizei
Rudolf Diels (1900 – 1957)
The Reichstag Fire
Decree for the Protection of the People and State
(Reichstag Fire Decree, February 28)
Hilfspolizei
March 5, 1933 Election
Nazis: 17.2 million votes – 44 percent
Communists 4.8 million votes
Social Democrats (SPD) 7.1 million – second largest party
Nationalist (Nazi partners) 3.1 million
Nazi 288 + 52 nationalist seats = 340 seats out of 647 – enough for a majority to govern
but not enough for the two-thirds needed to amend the constitution.
Protective custody arrest statistics for Prussia
DATE DISTRICTS REPORTING ARRESTS 1-15 March 24/34 7,784 16-31 March 16/34 2,860 1-15 April 20/34 3,017 16-30 April 1 9/34 2,693Total (Approximately 60%) 16,354
Law for the Removal of the Distress of People and Reich
(The Enabling Act, 23 March 1933)
Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (Pope Pius XII)
Reichskonkordat (concordat)
The Gleichschaltung – “Coordination” (April-December 1933)
- Law on Industry Representation and Economic Associations (4 April 1933)
National Labour Front
- Law for the Re-establishment of the Professional Civil Service (7 April 1933)
- Law against the Establishment of Parties (14 July 1933)
Law for Securing the Unity of the Party and State (1 December 1933)
- Operation Hummingbird (Night of the Long Knives, 30 June 1934)
Law Regarding Measures of State Self-Defense (July 3, 1934)
Death of von Hindenburg (August 1934)
- First they came for the communists, and I did not speak up,
for I was not a communist.
Then they came for the social democrats,
and I did not speak up,
for I was not a social democrat.Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I did not speak up,
for I was not a trade unionist.Then they came for the Jews, I did not speak up,
for I was not a Jew.
And then when they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.FURTHER READINGS:
Henry Ashby Turner, Jr. German Big Business & The Rise of Hitler
Max Wallace, The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of the Third Reich
James Pool, Who Financed Hitler 1919-1933 James Pool, Hitler and His Secret Partners 1933-1945
Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris
George C. Browder, Foundations of the Nazi Police State: The Formation of the Sipo and SD
Peter Hayes, Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era
Joseph Borkin, The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben
Harold James, The Nazi Dictatorship and the Deutsche Bank
Richard Overy, Goering
Ingo Muller, Hitler’s Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich