Growing up Adolf
Hitler, according to multiple sources, was a not a brilliant student. He had no
formal, university-level education and his greatest written work Mein Kampf was a work of fiction. Given
these circumstances it seems unlikely that he Hitler would become the most
popular response to the question of “which individual dominated the past
millennium” (Bergen, 51). The vast majority of people would label Hitler as a brutal,
sadistic and evil tyrant, whose corrupted morals lead to the deaths of millions
of people during the twelve years he was in power. Such a description would
suggest that his actions were illegal, that he acted outside the authority of
his government; however assuming this to be true, would mean accepting
falsehoods as truth. While Hitler’s actions are morally objectionable to most
people, according to the German constitution adopted after World War I, Hitler’s
rise to power in the early-to-mid 1930’s was legal.
Article 48 of
the German constitution allows for the president of the country to rule by
decree during a state of emergency (Bergen, 49). In 1930 the chancellor,
Heninrich Bruning, convinced the president, Paul von Hindenburg, to invoke
Article 48 and rule without the approval of the Reichstag, or parliament (Bergen, 49). After a third election in
November 1932 when the Nazis failed to gain widespread support in the Reichstag, von Hindenburg was convinced
to appoint Hitler as chancellor of Germany; Hitler was officially sworn into
this office on January 30, 1933 (Bergen, 50).
Although political scheming and bargaining
played roles in Hitler’s appointment, he was ultimately appointed to his post
as chancellor by legal means. Later when Hitler merged the offices of the
president and chancellor, he did so while the legislative branch of the
government was in operation, having convinced that governing body to pass the
Enabling Act of 23 March 1933; this act allowed Hitler to put into law “any
measure without approval by the Reichstag
(Bergen, 53). This essentially meant that as of March 23, 1933, Hitler was
acting alone despite the continued standing of the parliament; Hitler was able
within one month of appointment to effectively overthrow the democratic
government of Germany and he did it with that same government’s approval. Unless
members of the Reichstag were willing
to stand up to Hitler and the Nazis (the Social Democrats seemed to be the only
party willing to do so (Bergen, 54)), there was no one to stop him: “Hitler’s
political revolution was not without violence, but he established his
dictatorship through means that were, at least in a narrow sense of the word,
legal” (Bergen, 54).
Adolf Hitler was
a dictator but according to author Doris L. Bergen, he also placed great value
in public opinion; he often acted according to his own beliefs but not after he
gained substantial support from the public. Anti-Semitism was something which
had existed in Germany for hundreds of years and provided the basis for
Hitler’s hatred of Jews. The humiliation Germans felt at the signing of the
Treaty of Versailles in 1919, spurred a desire to re-arm; Hitler’s leadership
during years of economic depression also lead to members of the public
supporting him. Hitler would often “test the waters” as it were, before
enacting his “reforms” in their entirety (Bergen, 54).
The series of
laws which provided the foundation for Hitler’s actions against Jews and many
other minority/ fringe groups within Germany society were the Nuremberg Laws. The
Nuremberg Laws were passed in the fall of 1933 and took the form of two laws:
the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor, and the Reich Citizenship
Law; the first law defined the limits of interaction between Aryans and Jews,
while the second defined who was considered to be a Jew by the government
(Bergen, 71). Again these laws as morally ambiguous as they seem were proposed
and adopted “legally”; Hitler was a dictator but he was also shrewd and
realized that in order for his goals to be realized he needed the legal backing
and also the support of the populace. Once again these laws would provide the
foundation for later legislation which enabled Hitler to enact his “Final
Solution” during the Holocaust.
Source: Bergen, Doris. War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publisher Inc., 2009.
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