themselves exclusively for this eventuality. But Hitler’s experiences during his long rise to power, especially the well-remembered failed putsch of November 1923, had persuaded him that it was best not to be seen seizing control through overtly violent means. Having risen to chancellor through constitutional channels, he was not about to stigmatize himself as a revolutionary. The considerable forces still arrayed against him in the democratic fighting organizations; the cautious attitude of the majority of citizens, who remained hesitant amid all the stage- managed displays of jubilation; the respect Hitler felt compelled to show the president and the armed forces, the Reichswehr–all these factors forced him to continue ostensibly observing the rule of law while doing all he could to seize the reins of power. Later it would be said that the republic did not fight but simply froze helplessly-and then crumbled-in the face of these unexpected tactics.
Hitler’s opening gambit in the struggle for power not only confused his avowed enemies but tended to reassure the wary in all social classes and organizations, overcoming or considerably reducing the apprehension they had always felt about him. A coup achieved through legal channels was something thoroughly unknown. The classical literature on resistance to tyrants, stretching back to the days of the ancient Greeks, dealt exclusively with violent seizures of power; there was no talk of silent takeovers through outwardly democratic methods, of obeying the letter of the law while mocking its spirit. By leaving the facade of the constitution in place, Hitler hopelessly confounded the public’s ability to judge the legality of the new regime, to choose whether as good citizens they should feel loyal to it or not. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, radical change was under way.
The paradoxical idea of a legal revolution dumbfounded not only Hitler’s opponents but his allies as well. The civil service was similarly perplexed but took comfort in the basically legal nature of the upheaval, despite its obvious excesses. Thankful to be spared the internal divisions and conflict that a revolution might have brought, the civil service willingly placed itself and its expertise at the disposal of the new government. As a result the Nazis eased smoothly into control of the entire apparatus of state. Indeed, since the days of the kaisers, civil servants had tended toward antidemocratic sentiments, but it was primarily the appearance of legality that won them over to the new regime or at least prevented any doubts from arising about the propriety of what the Nazis were doing. It is particularly significant that both the emergency decree (suspending virtually all major civil liberties) issued on February 28, 1933, the day after the Reichstag fire, and the Enabling Act wresting legislative authority from the Reichstag and conferring it on the government were crafted by loyal civil servants with no particular affection for the Nazi Party. The bureaucracy responded in the same acquiescent way to subsequent legislation, which led step by step to the demolition of the entire constitutional order.
The tactic of a “legal revolution” was complemented by another clever move, namely the depiction of the Nazi seizure of power as a “national revival.” After all the humiliations of the Weimar Republic, many members of the middle class and other Germans understood this to signal a kind of liberation. The Nazis’ single-minded pursuit of power did not, therefore, raise much protest and was even cheered as a sign of the nonpartisan resurgence of a country that had been divided against itself for too long and was finally gathering its strength. This confusion of the Nazi lust for power with the revival of Germany itself, encouraged by incessant, stage-managed festivities and the excitement generated by various plebiscites, led to a shift in mood that gradually enabled Hitler to shed any pretense of legality and boldly claim a right to govern in his own name.
Hitler’s opponents were never allowed so much as a moment to catch their breath, consider their options, or prepare a counterattack. The new chancellor immediately set his sights on the innermost sancturns of power, working with stunning speed but with a highly effective overall plan to seize key positions one after the other or else to drain them of their importance so that little more than hollow shells remained. The opposition was left off- balance, discouraged, and demoralized. To fathom the speed and vigor of this operation one need only look at Italy, where it took Mussolini nearly seven years to accumulate the kind of power Hitler amassed in only a few weeks. Even then the monarchy still lay outside Mussolini’s orbit, providing Italians with a legitimate alternative- whatever its weaknesses-for which there was no equivalent in Germany.
One cannot fully comprehend the ease with which Hitler seized power, however, without giving some consideration to the weariness of the nation’s democratic forces after fourteen years of political life in an unloved republic that seemed fated to stumble from one crisis to the next. Most of the leading figures in the republic, men who shortly before had appeared so stalwart, simply packed their bags and vanished in a state of nervous exhaustion-Otto Braun, for example, the “Red Tsar of Prussia”; his minister of the interior, Karl Severing, who presided over the best-equipped police force in the Reich; the leaders of the Reichsbanner, and many others. Men who had always insisted that they would yield only to force melted before any heat at all was applied. It seemed as if the Weimar Republic never overcame the impression that it was somehow just a temporary phenomenon. Born of sudden surrender and tainted from the outset by the moral condemnations heaped upon Germany, it never gained the broad loyalty of the population. Their contempt only increased with the virtual civil war that raged during its early years, the inflation of 1923, which impoverished much of the traditionally loyal middle class, and finally the Great Depression, when confusion, mass misery, and political drift destroyed any claim the young republic might have had to being the kind of orderly state Germans were accustomed to. This series of disasters contributed enormously to the impression that such a republic would not long endure.
The feeling that major change was needed was not confined to the Weimar Republic, with the particular handicaps under which it struggled. Throughout the Western world a rising tide of voices decried parliamentary democracy as a system without a future. Such convictions were particularly widespread in nations with no indigenous history or tradition of civil constitutional government. All across Europe, in countries where liberal democracy had emerged only a few years earlier to the cheers of the throngs, its funeral was now announced and its tombstone readied. Feeding on this burgeoning mood, Hitler convinced millions that he represented the birth of a new era. His display of total confidence in his mission heightened his attractiveness to a fearful, depressed people without hope or sense of purpose.
And how could the Fuhrer’s opponents expect to counter such a powerful appeal? Divided among themselves, unable to muster their strength, and long plagued by feelings of impotence, many simply gave up in the spring of 1933, convinced that they had been defeated not only by an overpowering political foe but by history itself. This abstract way of thinking, inherent in the German intellectual tradition and therefore all the more easily adopted, advanced the Nazi cause by lending Hitler’s conquest of power an air of grave inevitability. A higher principle seemed to be at work, against which all human resistance would be in vain.
Such feelings were encouraged by a numbing barrage of propaganda-an art at which the Nazis realized they were far superior to any of their opponents. This was not the least of the reasons why, from the very outset, Hitler strained his governing coalition to the limit by demanding new elections to the Reichstag (only four months had passed since the last elections, in November 1932). An electoral campaign, after all, would allow his propaganda experts to display their prodigious talents to the full, especially now that he controlled the resources of the state. More than anyone else, the Nazis recognized the power of the new medium of radio and immediately set about seizing control of it. As the state radio network was in the hands of the government, they managed to ensure that all electoral speeches delivered by cabinet members were broadcast. The commentary for Hitler’s appearances was provided by Goebbels himself. This master propagandist usually began on a solemn, dignified note, drawing on pseudoreligious imagery as he built to a fervid climax: “The people are standing and waiting and singing, their hands raised in the air,” he once intoned while waiting for the Fuhrer to arrive. “All you see are people, people, people… the German
The Nazis’ opponents had little to offset the verve and drama of shows like this. In early February the Social Democrats, the Iron Front, and the Reichsbanner responded to the spectacular Nazi parade of January 30 by organizing a mighty demonstration of their own in the Lustgarten in Berlin. Thousands came, but the speeches reeked so of the timidity, indecision, and impotence of the old-time leaders that the crowd listened apathetically before finally slinking away, disappointed and downhearted, as if from some kind of farewell. What a contrast with the self-assured, boisterous, optimistic gatherings of the Nazis, which reverberated in the mind for days afterwards! The difference lay not only in the rhetoric. Even more telling were all the symbols of a break with the past and an exciting new beginning. Columns of troops marching in close formation, brilliant pageantry, and oceans of flags contrasted with the aimlessness and anxiety of the Weimar years and transformed politics into liturgy and grand ritual.
At the same time, the Nazis did not hesitate to employ force to achieve their ends, beginning in Prussia, by far the largest of the states. Prime Minister Hermann Goring was given a free hand under an emergency decree
