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Enabling Act Of 1933
The Enabling Act of 1933 (German: '), officially titled ' (), was a law that gave the German Cabinet – most importantly, the Chancellor – the power to make and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or Weimar President Paul von Hindenburg, leading to the rise of Nazi Germany. Critically, the Enabling Act allowed the Chancellor to bypass the system of checks and balances in the government. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, was appointed as chancellor, the head of the German government. On 27 February, the German parliament building – the Reichstag – caught fire. Acting as chancellor, Hitler immediately accused the Communists of being the perpetrators of the fire and claimed the arson was part of a larger effort to overthrow the German government. Using this justification, Hitler persuaded Hindenburg to enact the Reichstag Fire Decree. The decree abolished most civil liberties, including the right to speak, assemble, protest, and d ...
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Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
The Reichstag of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) was the lower house of Germany's parliament; the upper house was the Reichsrat (Germany), Reichsrat, which represented the states. The Reichstag convened for the first time on 24 June 1920, taking over from the Weimar National Assembly, which had served as an interim parliament following the collapse of the German Empire in November 1918. Under the Weimar Constitution of 1919, the Reichstag was elected every four years by universal, equal, secret and direct suffrage, using a system of party-list proportional representation. All citizens who had reached the age of 20 were allowed to vote, including women for the first time, but excluding soldiers on active duty. The Reichstag voted on the laws of the Reich and was responsible for the budget, questions of war and peace, and confirmation of state treaties. Oversight of the Reich government (the ministers responsible for executing the laws) also resided with the Reichstag. It could ...
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Reichstag Fire Decree
The Reichstag Fire Decree (german: Reichstagsbrandverordnung) is the common name of the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State (german: Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat) issued by German President Paul von Hindenburg on the advice of Chancellor Adolf Hitler on 28 February 1933 in immediate response to the Reichstag fire. The decree nullified many of the key civil liberties of German citizens. With Nazis in powerful positions in the German government, the decree was used as the legal basis for the imprisonment of anyone considered to be opponents of the Nazis, and to suppress publications not considered "friendly" to the Nazi cause. The decree is considered by historians as one of the key steps in the establishment of a one-party Nazi state in Germany. Background Hitler had been appointed Chancellor of Germany only four weeks previously, on 30 January 1933, when he was invited by President von Hindenburg to lead a ...
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German Rearmament
German rearmament (''Aufrüstung'', ) was a policy and practice of rearmament carried out in Germany during the interwar period (1918–1939), in violation of the Treaty of Versailles which required German disarmament after WWI to prevent Germany from starting another war. It began on a small, secret, and informal basis shortly after the treaty was signed, but it was openly and massively expanded after the Nazi Party came to power in 1933. Despite its scale, German re-armament remained a largely covert operation, carried out using front organizations such as glider clubs for training pilots and sporting clubs, and Nazi SA militia groups for teaching infantry combat techniques. Front companies like MEFO were set up to finance the rearmament by placing massive orders with Krupp, Siemens, Gutehofnungshütte, and Rheinmetall for weapons forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles. Carl von Ossietzky exposed the reality of the German rearmament in 1931 and his disclosures won him ...
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Night Of The Long Knives
The Night of the Long Knives (German: ), or the Röhm purge (German: ''Röhm-Putsch''), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: ''Unternehmen Kolibri''), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate his power and alleviate the concerns of the German military about the role of Ernst Röhm and the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA), the Nazis' paramilitary organization, known colloquially as "Brownshirts". Nazi propaganda presented the murders as a preventive measure against an alleged imminent coup by the SA under Röhm – the so-called ''Röhm Putsch''. The primary instruments of Hitler's action, which carried out most of the killings, were the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) paramilitary force under Himmler and its Security Service (SD), and Gestapo (secret police) under Reinhard Heydrich. Göring's personal po ...
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Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of the Holocaust. As a member of a reserve battalion during World War I, Himmler did not see active service, and did not fight. He studied agriculture in university, and joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and the SS in 1925. In 1929, he was appointed by Adolf Hitler. Over the next 16 years, he developed the SS from a 290-man battalion into a million-strong paramilitary group, and set up and controlled the Nazi concentration camps. He was known for good organisational skills and for selecting highly competent subordinates, such as Reinhard Heydrich in 1931. From 1943 onwards, he was both Chief of German Police and Minister of the Interior, overseeing all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo (Secret State Police). H ...
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Allies Of World War II
The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. Its principal members by 1941 were the United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union, and China. Membership in the Allies varied during the course of the war. When the conflict broke out on 1 September 1939, the Allied coalition consisted of the United Kingdom, France, and Poland, as well as their respective dependencies, such as British India. They were soon joined by the independent dominions of the British Commonwealth: Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Consequently, the initial alliance resembled that of the First World War. As Axis forces began invading northern Europe and the Balkans, the Allies added the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Greece, and Yugoslavia. The Soviet Union, which initially ha ...
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Rubber Stamp (politics)
A rubber stamp, as a political metaphor, is a person or institution with considerable ''de jure'' power but little ''de facto'' power — one that rarely or never disagrees with more powerful organizations. Historian Edward S. Ellis called this type of legislature a toy parliament. In situations where this superior official's signature may frequently be required for routine paperwork, a literal rubber stamp is used, with a likeness of their hand-written signature. In essence, the term is meant to convey an endorsement without careful thought or personal investment in the outcome, especially since it is usually expected as the stamper's duty to do so. In the situation where a dictator's legislature is a "rubber stamp", the orders they are meant to endorse are formalities they are expected to legitimize, and are usually done to create the superficial appearance of legislative and dictatorial harmony rather than because they have actual power. In a constitutional monarchy or parli ...
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Reichstag (Nazi Germany)
The Reichstag (" Diet of the Realm"), officially the Greater German Reichstag (''Großdeutscher Reichstag'') after 1938, was the parliament of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. In effect it essentially served as a rubber stamp parliament. Following the Nazi seizure of power and the enactment of the Enabling Act of 1933, it was meant only as a rubber stamp for the actions of Adolf Hitler's dictatorship — always by unanimous consent — and to listen to Hitler's speeches. In this purely ceremonial role, the Reichstag convened only 20 times, the last on 26 April 1942. The President of the Reichstag (german: Reichstagspräsident) throughout this period was Hermann Göring. During this period, the Reichstag was sometimes derisively referred to by the German public as the "''teuerste Gesangsverein Deutschlands''" (the most expensive singing club in Germany) due to frequent singing of the national anthem during sessions. To avoid holding scheduled elections during World War II, in 1943 ...
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Deutsche Welle
Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service consists of channels in English, German, Spanish, and Arabic. The work of DW is regulated by the Deutsche Welle Act, meaning that content is intended to be independent of government influence. DW is a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). DW offers regularly updated articles on its news website and runs its own center for international media development, DW Akademie. The broadcaster's stated goals are to produce reliable news coverage, provide access to the German language, and promote understanding between peoples. It is also a provider of live streaming world news which can be viewed via its website, YouTube, and various mobile devices and digital media players. DW has been broadcasting since 1953. It is headquartered in Bonn ...
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Dachau Concentration Camp
Dachau () was the first concentration camp built by Nazi Germany, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents which consisted of: communists, social democrats, and other dissidents. It is located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory northeast of the medieval town of Dachau, about northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany. After its opening by Heinrich Himmler, its purpose was enlarged to include forced labor, and, eventually, the imprisonment of Jews, Romani, German and Austrian criminals, and, finally, foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded. The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps, which were mostly work camps or , and were located throughout southern Germany and Austria. The main camp was liberated by U.S. forces on 29 April 1945. Prisoners lived in constant fear of brutal treatment and terror detention including standing cells, flog ...
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Franz Von Papen
Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen, Erbsälzer zu Werl und Neuwerk (; 29 October 18792 May 1969) was a German conservative politician, diplomat, Prussian nobleman and General Staff officer. He served as the chancellor of Germany in 1932, and then as the vice-chancellor under Adolf Hitler from 1933 to 1934. Born into a wealthy family of Westphalian Catholic aristocrats, Papen served in the Prussian Army from 1898 onward and was trained as a German General Staff officer. He served as military attaché in Mexico and the United States from 1913 to 1915, organising acts of sabotage in the United States and financing Mexican forces in the Mexican Revolution. After being expelled from the United States in 1915, he served as a battalion commander on the Western Front of World War I and finished his war service in the Middle Eastern theatre as a lieutenant colonel. Appointed chancellor in 1932 by President Paul von Hindenburg, Papen ruled by presidential decree. H ...
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Sturmabteilung
The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment (military), Detachment") was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties, especially the ''Roter Frontkämpferbund'' of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the ''Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold'' of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and intimidating Romani people, Romani, trade unionists, and especially Jews. The SA were colloquially called Brownshirts () because of the colour of their Uniforms and insignia of the Sturmabteilung, uniform's shirts, similar to Benito Mussolini's blackshirts. The official uniform of the SA was the brown shirt with a brown tie. The color came about because a large shipment of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, Lettow-shirts, ori ...
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