In Hitler's grab for power we see a classic example of the way a democracy can abolish its own foundation. There is no safeguard against a repetition of this occurrence except constant viligence and a return to our most treasured values.

1. Is a Review of the Events Occurring in 1932 and 1933 that Led to
Hitler’s Dictatorship of More than Academic Interest Today?
At the beginning of 1932 Adolf Hitler was a stateless agitator and the leader of a
party that hitherto had achieved only modest success in German state elections.
Furthermore, in polite circles within Germany he laboured under a bad
reputation, having only partially lived down the opprobrium caused by the
abortive Beerhall Putsch of November 9, 1923. He was disregarded by President
Paul von Hindenburg as a truculent upstart, a mere corporal during his period of
military service; he was despised by Heinrich Brüning, the incumbent chancellor
and leader of the pro-Catholic Centrum (Centre) party, who banned SA Brownshirt
gangs from the streets. At the time the forum of political life was disturbingly
crowded, so much so that the NSDAP, the Nazis for short, had to fight turf wars
on two fronts, on the left against the Communists for the hearts and minds of the
battered working class, and, on the right, against non-Nazi militarists, old-guard
nationalists and Colonel Blimps of every description. Any hope of Hitler’s gaining
an absolute majority in the Reichstag was totally unrealistic and, as subsequent
events demonstrated, never to be fulfilled. From Hitler’s point of view such a
majority was unnecessary as long as he gained a foothold in the political
establishment by becoming the Reichskanzler, the Prime Minister, roughly
speaking. Let us consider how he overcame all the handicaps that stood in his way
to absolute power and what factors enabled him to do so.
The removal of Hitler’s first obstacle, not having German citizenship, was easy
enough to accomplish. ‘All that” was seen to thanks to his being the leader of a
recognized political party, indeed one that had already formed the government
in the parliament of the Thüringen region, in which Hitler, even if only
sporadically and nominally, served as a ‘Beamter’ (civil servant with lifelong
tenure).
Now the deck was clear for Hitler’s pursuit of political advancement, nay, his
ambition to occupy the highest office of the state as Reichspräsident in
competition with none less than Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, himself now
seeking a second term as President. Hitler lost the contest in the election held on

2. April 11 but at least with a respectable portion of the votes. To further his
objectives Hitler had to enter the Reichstag fast, a “mission impossible” for as
long as Brüning was Chancellor.
It was not only Hitler who wanted to see Brüning’s government fall. The head of
the army General Kurt von Schleicher and Franz von Papen, a Prussian aristocrat,
a disaffected member of the Centrum party and diehard authoritarian to boot,
wanted Brüning out of the way. Through no fault of own Brüning presided over a
lame duck minority government that had to take excessive recourse to executive
orders for want of a viable majority, a course of action that greatly compromised
the democratic principles on which Weimar Republic rested, the very same
republic which Hitler, von Papen and von Schleicher strove to terminate, albeit
for very different reasons.
Through short term tactical alliances the three enemies of democracy achieved
their common aim. Brüning was dismissed and von Papen, now Chancellor, had
Parliament dissolved and set the date for a new election with the consequence
that the NSDAP was catapulted to the position of being the largest party in the
Reichstag on the strength of an impressive 37 percent tranche of the vote. After a
period of behind-the-scenes horse trading Hitler, to cut a long story short, finally
pushed through his unconditional demand to become Reichskanzler - surprisingly
enough - not without facing stiff opposition to his maximalist claim from a fellow
National Socialist, Gregor Strasser, a leader of SA (Sturmabteilung) section of the
Nazi apparatus comprised of ruffians whose function it was to disrupt rival
gatherings, particularly on the Communist front, paralyze opposition through
provoking fear and unrest and generally doing whatever dirty work was deemed
necessary to further the Nazi cause. Not least by generating a mood of anxiety,
the SA encouraged a call for “law and order” and measures to meet a national
emergency. The hope that the public would overlook the fact the SA contingents
were both arsonists and firefighters was not groundless. Even today social critics
assert that the Law is blind in the right eye. In Hitler’s day the truth of this
statement was undeniable, as it had been perhaps even way back at the trial of
Hitler and General Ludendorff after the Beer Hall Putsch. The Communists for
their part “gave as good as they took” with the unintended consequence that

3. they granted the Nazis a supply of heroic ‘martyrs,” among whom Horst Wessel
gained high prominence by posing the theme of the “Horst Wessel Song.” On the
other side, on August 22 five SA men murdered a prominent Communist activist
in a particularly sadistic manner, arousing widespread public condemnation and
demands for their execution in accord with a law against terrorist atrocities
which, ironically enough, Reichskanzler von Papen, an arch conservative but not a
Nation Socialist himself, had just placed on the statute book. Hitler hailed the
“Potempa five” as German patriots who had defended the German nation in its
hour of greatest need. Von Papen, at most
conceding that the five had perhaps been
somewhat overzealous in this question of
“defence,” agreed that the death penalty in this
case should be suspended. Today the Potempa
case has been forgotten by most people but it has
been mentioned in recent weeks in connection
with statements of opinion about the “Black Lives
Matter” issue. There have also been mutterings
and talk of the “Reichstag fire” within the context of the same area of
controversy. While we are about it in this review of ominous events that took
place in 1932 and 1933, we need not limit the scope of discussion to Germany for
commentators concerned with the urgent issues of our own time recall that in
1932 President Hoover used military force against gatherings of veterans who had
served their nation during the First World War, his decision having a great deal to
do with the decline of his political fortunes. Let us not become embroiled in
philosophical discussions as to the relationship between the past and present.
Not everybody has a doctor's degree in history or philosophy, but everyone is free
to assess the nature of basic attitudes that govern interaction between human
beings at a practical level. How did Hitler eliminate all political opposition to his
dictatorship? He induced the German democratic system to abolish itself by
securing the votes of two thirds of delegates to the Reichstag in favour of
political suicide. There seems to be no immediate danger of a similar outcome in
the United States, but ultimately democracy depends on mutual respect between

4. different schools of opinion, and between adherents of rival political parties of
whatever colour: red, blue, green, white or black.
Picture: Court hearing in the Potempa Murder Case.