The Enabling Act of 1933 (German: , officially titled ) was a law that gave the German Cabinet—most importantly, the chancellor, Adolf Hitler—the power to make and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or President Paul von Hindenburg. By allowing the chancellor to override the checks and balances in the constitution, the Enabling Act of 1933 was a pivotal step in the transition from the democratic Weimar Republic to the totalitarian dictatorship of Nazi Germany.
Background On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), was appointed as Chancellor, the head of the German government. Hitler immediately asked President von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag. A general election was scheduled for 5 March 1933.
Reichstag fire On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building of the German parliament caught fire. Acting as chancellor, Hitler immediately accused the communists of perpetrating the arson as part of a larger effort to overthrow the German government. He persuaded Hindenburg to enact the Reichstag Fire Decree, which abolished most civil liberties, including the right to speak, assemble and protest, and the right to due process. A state of emergency was declared on the basis of the decree, which enabled a violent crackdown against the Nazis' political enemies, in particular the Communist Party.
Amid the ongoing repression, Hitler contended that the Reichstag Fire Decree was nonetheless insufficient and demanded a more sweeping measure. He submitted to the Reichstag a proposal for an enabling law that would grant effectively untrammeled power to his cabinet.
March 1933 election For the general election of 5 March 1933, the Nazis were allied with other nationalist and conservative factions. At a secret meeting on 20 February, major German industrialists had agreed to finance the Nazis' election campaign. The main residual opposition was the Social Democrats. On election day Germans voted in an atmosphere of extreme voter intimidation, perpetrated mainly by the Nazi (SA) militia.
The NSDAP emerged from the election with five million more votes than in the previous election, but failed to gain an absolute majority in parliament. It remained dependent on the 8% of seats won by its coalition partner, the German National People's Party (DNVP), to attain a 52% majority.
In the first post-election cabinet meeting on 7 March, Hitler declared his intention to pass an Enabling Act in the form of a constitutional amendment that would enable the cabinet to bypass the Reichstag and the president in order to promulgate laws on its own.
Preparations and negotiations The Enabling Act would allow the National Ministry (essentially the cabinet) to enact legislation, including laws deviating from or altering the constitution, without the consent of the Reichstag, for a period of four years. The law was thus itself considered a constitutional amendment. It therefore required a two-thirds super-majority support from a quorum of at least two-thirds of all members of the Reichstag.
Despite the elimination of the Communists and heavy pressure on the rest of the opposition, the bill's passage was not a certainty. To pass it, the Nazis used a strategy of coercion, bribery, and manipulation of parliamentarians.
The Social Democrats and the Communists were expected to vote against. The government had already arrested all Communist and some Social Democrat deputies under the Reichstag Fire Decree. The conservative parties representing the middle class, the Junkers and business interests were expected to vote for the law.
A two-thirds majority would therefore be in reach with the votes of the Catholic Centre Party. Hitler negotiated with the Centre Party's chairman, Ludwig Kaas, a Catholic priest, and finalized an agreement on 22 March. Kaas agreed to support the law in exchange for assurances of his party's continued existence, the protection of Catholic civil liberties and Catholic schools, and the retention of civil servants affiliated with the party.
Some historians, such as Klaus Scholder, have maintained that Hitler also promised to negotiate a Reichskonkordat with the Holy See, a treaty that formalized the position of the Catholic Church in Germany on a national level. Kaas was a close associate of Cardinal Pacelli, then Vatican Secretary of State (and later Pope Pius XII). Pacelli had been pursuing a German concordat as a key policy for some years, but the instability of Weimar governments, as well as the opposition of some parties to a treaty, had blocked the project.Klaus Scholder The Churches and the Third Reich volume 1 pp. 160–61 The day after the Enabling Act vote, Kaas went to Rome in order to, in his own words, "investigate the possibilities for a comprehensive understanding between church and state".Letter from Kaas to von Bergen, German ambassador to the Vatican, translation quoted in Scholder, p. 247
Text
As with most of the laws passed in the process of Gleichschaltung, the Enabling Act is quite short, especially considering its implications. The full text, in GermanUwe Brodersen, Gesetze des NS-Staates, p. 22 and English, follows:
Articles 1 and 4 gave the government the right to draw up the budget, approve treaties, and enact almost any law without input from the Reichstag. By the rules of pre-1933 German legal interpretation, and post-1945 if such a law were not now unconstitutional, this would mean that such laws would henceforth be decided by a majority vote in the Cabinet. This was not followed.
In the years immediately preceding, the government had relied on Article 48 emergency decrees. These had to be made by the President, alongside ordinary laws which he simply enacted. In the passing of Enabling-Act-based laws, the President had no role to play at all. Until Hitler effectively assumed the President's role in 1934, laws were passed without any contribution by the head of state. This was a situation unique in German history.
Signatories The signatories of the Enabling Act were: Reich President Paul von Hindenburg Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler Reich Minister of the Interior Frick Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs Baron von Neurath Reich Minister of Finances Count Schwerin von Krosigk
Passage
Late on 23 March, the Reichstag assembled at the Kroll Opera House, its temporary home since the Reichstag fire. SA men were positioned inside and outside the chamber.
Party positions The KPD had not been formally banned despite the Nazis' virulent anti-Communist rhetoric. A violent uprising was still feared, and it was hoped that the KPD's presence on the ballot would siphon off votes from the SPD. However, even before the election of 5 March, the party was subject to intense police repression on the grounds of its purported involvement in the Reichstag fire and it was widely understood that the KPD deputies would not be allowed to take their seats in parliament.
The SPD's expected opposition was partly neutralized by the Reichstag Fire Decree, which had been used to detain a number of SPD deputies. Other SPD parliamentarians had fled into exile.
Debate within the Centre Party had continued until the day of the vote. Ludwig Kaas advocated voting in favour of the act, touting promised written guarantees from Hitler. Former Chancellor Heinrich Brüning wanted the bill to be rejected. The majority sided with Kaas, and Brüning agreed to maintain party cohesion by voting for the law.
Manoeuvring The Reichstag, led by its president, Hermann Göring, changed its rules of procedure to make it easier to pass the bill. Under the Weimar Constitution, a quorum of two-thirds of the entire Reichstag membership was required to be present in order to call up a law amending the constitution—in this case, 432 of the Reichstag's 647 deputies. To sidestep this potential obstruction, Göring reduced this figure to 378 by not counting the 81 KPD deputies who were absent.
Speeches Hitler spoke in favour of the proposed law. The speech recapitulated the supposed historical responsibility of the Weimar Republic in Germany's crisis, and then listed grievances that would be addressed by the Enabling Act. In a pitch to the Centre Party, Hitler emphasised the importance of Christianity in German culture and incorporated Ludwig Kaas's requested guarantees almost verbatim. His speech concluded with reassurances about the continuity of Weimar institutions, but an appeal to the inadequacy of parliamentary government: "Some of the [government's] planned measures require the approval of the majority necessary for constitutional amendments. The performance of these tasks and their completion is necessary. It would be inconsistent with the aim of the national uprising and it would fail to suffice for the intended goal were the Government to negotiate with and request the approval of the Reichstag for its measures in each given case."
The Centre's Ludwig Kaas spoke to voice his party's support for the bill amid "concerns put aside". He had still not received the written guarantee he had negotiated but had been assured it was being "typed up". It was never received. Heinrich Brüning remained silent.
Only SPD leader Otto Wels spoke against the Enabling Act. He defended the Social Democrats' record in rebuilding Germany following the First World War, and dismissed the Nazis' claimed need for special powers. Defying direct intimidation, Otto Wels declared his party's continued allegiance to Germany's institutions: "The Weimar Constitution is not a socialist constitution. But we stand by the principles enshrined in, the principles of a state based on the rule of law, of equal rights, of social justice. In this historic hour, we German Social Democrats solemnly pledge ourselves to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and socialism. No Enabling Act gives you the power to destroy ideas that are eternal and indestructible." Reinhold Maier (an MP of the German State Party) gave his own statement during the Reichstag session:On March 5th, the German people elected an absolute majority of right wingers to the Reichstag, thereby expressing their will to entrust the leadership of their state to the current government. We hope and wish that, under the current leadership, the German people may successfully bring to a close their struggle for freedom and the resurgence of the nation, a struggle waged with great effort and sacrifice for the past fourteen years. We feel entirely aligned with the great national goals as presented today by the Reich Chancellor. […] If, however, we feel obliged in this most urgent hour to express our concerns, we assume that the current government will also welcome objective and loyal criticism of its measures. We find the current draft law lacking in explicit safeguards against infringements on fundamental constitutional rights and the foundations of the civil legal order. […] In the interest of the people and the fatherland, and in anticipation of a peaceful development, we today set aside our serious reservations and approve the law.
Initially the representatives of the German State Party had been divided, with some suggesting that they should vote against the Enabling Act or abstain, but the other members overruled them.Heuss, Theodor (1967). Pikart, Eberhard (ed.). Die Machtergreifung und das Ermächtigungsgesetz. Zwei nachgelassene Kapitel der "Erinnerungen 1905–1933". Tübingen: Wunderlich. p. 24.
Voting As voting proceeded, SPD deputies were actively intimidated by the Nazi SA men, who were present throughout the proceedings.Martin Collier, From Kaiser to Fuhrer: Germany, 1900–45, p. 131
Results