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The inauguration of the newly elected Reichstag was scheduled for 21 March in Potsdam’s Garrison Church. Goebbels, as Germany’s first propaganda minister, had assumed responsibility for organising the ceremony,101 and both the location and date were symbolic. March the 21st was not only the beginning of spring but also signified “national renewal,” since it was the date when Bismarck had called to order the first Reichstag after the founding of the German Empire in 1871. Moreover the church crypt in Potsdam contained the coffins of the “Soldier King” Friedrich Wilhelm I and his son Friedrich the Great, making it the perfect location for a propaganda spectacle intended to symbolise the connection between Prussian tradition and National Socialism.102 The state celebrations began in the morning with services in the main churches of both major denominations, although Hitler and Goebbels declined to attend. Instead, they laid wreaths at the graves of Horst Wessel and other “martyrs of the movement.”103
Around noon, Hitler and Hindenburg met in front of the Garrison Church. The president wore his Prussian field marshal’s uniform, while Hitler had swapped his party uniform for a formal black jacket, which made him visibly uncomfortable. One observer commented that he seemed like “a nervous arriviste being introduced by a powerful patron to an alien social circle.”104 In the imperial box, where the seat belonging to Kaiser Wilhelm II had been left empty, Hindenburg greeted Crown Prince Wilhelm by raising his field marshal’s baton. The gesture was intended to express Hindenburg’s connection to the Hohenzollern dynasty, conveniently ignoring the fact that relations between the field marshal and the royal family had been irreparably damaged when Hindenburg ostensibly abandoned the Kaiser to his fate in 1918.105 The president’s welcoming address was kept short, in the military tradition. With the election of 5 March, Hindenburg stated, the German people had backed the government he had appointed “with a clear majority” and provided the “constitutional basis for its work.” With that, Hindenburg threw his weight behind the fiction that Hitler’s consolidation of power was completely legal. SPD deputies did not attend the ceremony, and KPD representatives were either in detention or had gone underground. Hindenburg called on those members of the Reichstag who were in attendance to look beyond “selfishness and party quarrels” and support the “difficult work” of the government “for the blessing of a free, proud and internally unified Germany.”106
Speaking after Hindenburg, Hitler was initially inhibited, his voice subdued, but gradually he grew more confident. Theodor Heuss, who attended the ceremony as a State Party deputy, found Hitler’s speech “moderate,” if also “very general,” and remarked that it contained “several good formulations but no concrete specification of goals.”107 Very much in the tenor of his address of 1 February, Hitler began by painting a grim picture of the “internal decay” that the revolution of 1918 had brought upon Germany before all the more vividly heralding the “great work of national revival.” The core of Hitler’s speech, however, was a tribute to Hindenburg, whom Hitler directly addressed at a number of junctures. Hitler not only praised the president’s “generous decision” to entrust “young Germany” with the leadership of the Reich on 30 January 1933. He also underlined Hindenburg’s military achievements, declaring: “Your wonderful life is a symbol for all of us of the indestructible vitality of our people.”108 Goebbels noted afterwards: “His best speech. All were moved at the end.”109 Hindenburg himself was also deeply impressed. “The Reich president could hardly conceal how moved he was—there were tears in his eyes,” remarked Hamburg’s mayor, Carl Vincent Krogmann.110 After the speech, Hindenburg went up to Hitler, and the two men shook hands. The marriage of the “old” and the “new” Germany—the central message of the day—was thereby sealed.
“The Day of Potsdam” had an extraordinary public resonance. Like millions of others Elisabeth Gebensleben followed the events by radio. “We are all still under the sway of what we experienced yesterday,” she wrote to her daughter, in Holland, on 22 March.
Rarely in history has a nation enjoyed such a day of celebration, of national enthusiasm and of cheering joy. It was a day that released all of what is best and most holy in our people, which had been bound by tight constraints for many years, so that it could flow out in limitless celebrations of the most profound gratitude.111
The Potsdam spectacle even swayed social circles previously sceptical towards the “national revival.” It seemed as though Hitler were about to transform himself from a narrow-minded party leader into a statesman and a “people’s chancellor,” who bridged gaps and reconciled contradictions instead of polarising people. “He has grown in stature—it can’t be denied,” commented Erich Ebermayer. “As surprising as it may be to his opponents, a true statesman seems to be developing from the demagogue and party leader, the fanatic and rabble-rouser.” What most impressed Ebermayer was Hitler’s carefully staged bow before Hindenburg: “The aged field marshal extends his hand to the private from the First World War. The private bows deeply above the hand of the field marshal…No one could avoid feeling deeply moved.”112
“The Day of Potsdam” represented the “definitive breakthrough” in Hitler and Hindenburg’s personal relationship.113 When he appointed the cabinet of “national concentration” on 30 January, the latter had still had considerable reservations about the former, exemplified among other things by the fact that the new chancellor was only allowed to address Hindenburg in the presence of Papen. In the first weeks of his chancellorship, Hitler therefore concentrated particularly on gaining Hindenburg’s trust with expressions of seeming affection. “The main thing is to win over the old man completely,” Hitler told Baldur von Schirach on 5 February. “We must not do anything to upset him right now.”114 Hitler, a fine actor, was quickly able to gain Hindenburg’s favour and push Papen from his privileged position. “He’s now on good footing with the old man,” Goebbels reported on 17 February.115 On a long train journey from his headquarters in East Prussia to Berlin in May 1942, Hitler himself recalled that his relationship with Hindenburg had improved after ten days to the point that Papen no longer had to be present as a monitor when the two men spoke. After three weeks, Hitler said, the “old gentleman” had behaved with “paternal affection.”116
Hitler was probably exaggerating: Papen recalled that it took until April before he was no longer required to be present for consultations.117 But it is certain that Hindenburg already began showing Hitler his favour in February, for example by defending him against external criticism. On 17 February, the BVP chairman and Bavarian finance minister, Fritz Schäffer, warned Hindenburg that Hitler would “try to violently seize total power,” and complained that “upstanding people” such as Social Democrats were being “labelled Marxists and excluded from the community of the German people.” He received the following answer: “After some initial hesitations, he, the Reich president, found Herr Hitler to be a man of the most honest national intentions and was glad that the leader of this major movement is working together with him and other right-wing groups.”118 Hindenburg was quite pleased with the results of the 5 March election, noting with satisfaction that “once and for all we’re done with all this going to the polls.” The “parliamentary hullabaloo,” the president said, had always been “deeply alien and unsavoury” to him.119
The ceremony in the Garrison Church, so effectively staged by Goebbels, marked a new high point of Hindenburg’s appreciation for Hitler. “The old man very happy about Potsdam,” the propaganda minister noted.120 Three days after the ceremony, Hindenburg told Hamburg’s mayor Krogmann that he “had only got to know and value Hitler after appointing him chancellor.” While it was well known, Hindenburg said, that he had had reservations about Hitler because of the latter’s “demands for sole power,” he now recognised the great gifts and abilities of the chancellor.121 Hitler had succeeded in replacing Papen as Hindenburg’s favourite. Now, after exploiting the aura of the “hero of Tannenburg” to improve his own political reputation,
he was going to emerge from the shadow of the aged Reich president and put himself “at the forefront as a charismatic leader in his own right.”122
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Anyone who thought that Hitler’s bow before Hindenburg meant that he acknowledged the president’s pre-eminence and was ready to give up his pursuit of absolute power would learn better only two days later, when the Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House to decide whether to pass the Enabling Act. Hitler not only wanted to strip parliament of power but also to “liberate himself from the constraints of the Reich president and his right to issue emergency decrees, which had thus far been the basis of his rule.”123 The Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich, as the Enabling Act was officially known, had first been debated in Hitler’s cabinet on 15 March. Interior Minister Frick stressed that the legislation had to be worded broadly enough “so that we can deviate from every provision of the Reich constitution.” Once again, the conservative-nationalist ministers expressed no objections. Hugenberg alone queried “whether the laws to be issued by the government on the basis of the Enabling Act would require any active role at all from the Reich president.” Otto Meissner, and not Hitler, brushed this implicit criticism aside, stating that it was “not necessary” for the Reich president to participate in issuing laws, nor would he demand the right to do so.124
Article 76 of the Reich constitution, however, stipulated that any constitutional amendments had to be approved by a two-thirds parliamentary majority, with at least two thirds of the Reichstag’s members present. Frick calculated for the cabinet how this majority could be achieved. If the 81 KPD seats were invalidated from the 647 mandates in total, only 378 deputies would need to vote for the Enabling Act and not 432. Together with the Battle Front Black, White and Red, the NSDAP had won 340 seats on 5 March. The government thus needed the support of the Centre Party. In order to ensure that two thirds of deputies attended the parliamentary session, parliamentary rules were changed so that “Reichstag members absent without excuse” would also be considered in attendance.125 Hitler was eager to gain the support of the Centre Party because, as he explained at a cabinet meeting on 20 March, in which the wording of the law was approved, “that would strengthen the government’s prestige abroad.” The Enabling Act was limited to four years (Article 5) and allowed the Reich government to decree national laws “outside the process envisioned by the Reich constitution” (Article 1). It was permissible for such laws “to deviate from the constitution” (Article 2). In place of the Reich president, the Reich chancellor was allowed to formulate and publish laws (Article 3). In addition, the Reich government was granted the right to negotiate contracts with foreign countries without consulting the Reichstag (Article 4).126
On the afternoon of 23 March, the Reichstag convened under circumstances unprecedented in German parliamentary history. The National Socialists had arranged for an intimidating backdrop. “The entire square in front of the Kroll Opera House was swarming with fascists,” the SPD deputy Wilhelm Hoegner remembered.
We were received with wild chanting: “We want the Enabling Act.” Young men with swastikas on their chests look us up and down insolently and blocked our way. They made us run the gauntlet while they shouted out insults like “Centrist swine” and “Marxist sow”…When we Social Democrats had taken our seats on the outside left of the assembly, SA and SS men positioned themselves in a semicircle in front of the exits and along the walls behind us. The expressions on their faces told us that nothing good was in store.127
A gigantic swastika flag hung at the front end of the grandstand, where the members of the government were seated, as if this was a Nazi Party event and not the session of an institution representing the people. Hitler appeared again in a brown shirt, after presenting himself in civilian clothing two days before.
After being greeted by the NSDAP faction with a “threefold Heil,” Hitler launched into a two-and-a-half-hour speech, which started with repetition of his tirade about the “national decay caused by the mistaken teachings of Marxism,” before moving on to a very general sketch of the government’s plans “to create a genuine ethnic-popular community” and “morally cleanse the body of the people.” When it came to the economy, Hitler promised something for everyone. Agriculture would once again be made profitable for farmers; the middle classes would be protected from excessive competition; labourers and office workers would enjoy increased spending power; the unemployed would be reintegrated into the production process; and the interests of the export economy would receive additional attention. As far as foreign policy was concerned, Hitler struck a conciliatory note. Germany only wanted “the same rights and freedoms” as other countries and aimed to “live in peace with the world.” Only at the very end of his speech did Hitler discuss the Enabling Act, which he claimed was needed because the government of “national uprising” could not do its job if “it had to request and negotiate permission from the Reichstag in every case.” Hitler promised that his government would only make use of the new law “in so far as it is necessary to take measures that affect the life and death of the nation.” Neither the existence of the Reichstag nor that of the Reich Council was threatened, the German local states were not to be eradicated, and the rights of the Churches would not be curtailed. That final promise was directed at the Catholic Centre Party, whose support for the Enabling Act was still uncertain. After these promises came an unconcealed threat: “Now, gentlemen, you may decide whether it’s to be war or peace.”128
When Hitler had finished, Göring declared a two-hour recess, and the parliamentary factions withdrew for consultations. For the Social Democrats, there was nothing to discuss. The detention, in violation of his parliamentary immunity, of one of their most prominent members, former Prussian Interior Minister Carl Severing, as he tried to enter the opera house, had shown once again what lay in store for the political Left.129 By contrast, there were heated debates within the Centre faction, with a majority, led by Party Chairman Ludwig Kaas, voting to accept the legislation. They argued that in the preceding negotiations Hitler had dangled the prospect of written assurances that the Enabling Act would only be used under specific circumstances. This promise was nothing but one of the feints at which Hitler was so uniquely expert—the plan was never to mail the letter in question. Former Chancellor Brüning, who had described the Enabling Act that morning in a faction meeting as “the most horrific thing ever demanded of a parliament,” tried to the very end to get his party to withhold support. It was “better to go under with honour,” he said, than to reach out to a political movement that “won’t allow the Centre any air to breathe.” But both he and a like-minded minority within the faction ultimately agreed to vote with the majority.130
The parliamentary session reconvened shortly after 6 p.m., with SPD Chairman Otto Wels taking the floor. After the persecution Social Democrats had suffered in recent days, he declared, no one could expect him to support the Enabling Act: “You can take away our liberty and our lives, but not our honour.” It was a courageous speech considering the murderous atmosphere in the makeshift parliamentary hall. It was the last time for twelve years that anyone would make a public declaration of support for democratic principles and the rule of law in front of the Reichstag. “No enabling law gives you the power to destroy ideas that are eternal and indestructible,” Wels said and went on to pay tribute to those who were being pressured and persecuted. “Your determination and loyalty deserve admiration. Your courage in your convictions and unbroken confidence are signs of a brighter future to come.” At this point the parliamentary protocol recorded repeated “laughter from the National Socialists.”131
Hardly had Wels finished speaking than Hitler hurried to the podium to attack him: “You’ve shown up late, but you’ve shown up. The nice theories you’ve just put forth here, Herr Deputy, have been communicated a bit too late to world history.” Hitler’s reply seemed to have been extemporaneous, and it has been often cited as evidence of his gift with wor
ds. But the truth is that the editor-in-chief of Vorwärts, Friedrich Stampfer, had earlier distributed the text of Wels’s speech as a press release, which gave Hitler time to prepare his answer to it.132 “You’ve never seen anyone cut down like that,” Goebbels crowed. “Hitler was on a roll. It was a massive success.”133 In fact, the Reich chancellor’s speech revealed his true, brutal, power-hungry face, which he had kept concealed behind the mask of the respectable statesman in Potsdam. “Gentlemen, you are whiny and unfit for the current age, if you already speak of persecution,” Hitler snarled at the Social Democrats. He even went so far as to admit that his overtures to secure support for the Enabling Act were a calculated manoeuvre: “Only because we have Germany and its misery and the necessities of national life clearly in view do we appeal at this hour to the German Reichstag to approve what we could have seized for ourselves anyway.” In conclusion, Hitler once again directly addressed the Social Democrats: “I think that you will not vote for this law because your innermost mentality is incapable of comprehending the intention that animates us…I can only say: I do not want you to vote for it! Germany should be free, but not through any action of yours!” The protocol recorded: “Long, frenetic cries of ‘Heil’ from the National Socialists and the rows of spectators. Applause from the conservative nationalists.”134
Hitler could not have expressed any more clearly that his emphasis on “legality” had been mere lip service and that his government was going to do away with all norms of separation of powers and the rule of law. Nonetheless, that did not prevent the spokesmen of the Centre Party, the Bavarian People’s Party, the German State Party, the German People’s Party and Christian People’s Service from voting for the Enabling Act on behalf of their factions—“in the expectation of an orderly development,” as Reinhold Maier from the State Party put it.135 In the final roll call 441 deputies voted yes, while 94 representatives of the decimated SPD faction voted no. With that, the “blackest day” in German parliamentary history was over.136 On 24 March in cabinet, Hugenberg expressed his gratitude for the “excellent success” to Hitler. He particularly praised Hitler’s reply to Wels’s speech, which had “generally been received as giving the SPD a complete dressing-down.”137 As far as the definitive removal of parliamentary democracy and persecution of its last defenders, the Social Democrats, were concerned, there was complete agreement between National Socialists and conservative nationalists.
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