The Safeguarding of Nazi Power and the Practice of Nazi Persecution, 1933–1937 Johannes Tuchel

The Safeguarding of Nazi Power and the Practice of Nazi Persecution, 1933–1937 Johannes Tuchel National Socialism’s accession to political power for 50 per cent, the SS for 30 and the paramil- and the associated establishment of a dictator- itary Stahlhelm [Steel Helmet] organization for ship in Germany would not have been possible by 20 per cent) represented a new stage in the legal and parliamentary means alone. From the legalization of violence. The campaigns of the time of the NSDAP’s (National Socialist German democratic parties and the Communists were Worker’s Party / Nazi party) founding, violence severely obstructed. and terror were fundamental elements in the constitution of Nazi power, and they became a On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building mainstay of Nazi rule. The power secured do- went up in flames, an incident that gave the mestically later provided a basis for aggression Nazis a welcome occasion to launch the com- towards the outside. The establishment of the prehensive violent persecution of their polit- dictatorship and the development of the con- ical opponents. The next day, Reich President centration camps in the initial years of the Nazi Paul von Hindenburg enacted the “decree for regime will therefore be described briefly in the the protection of people and state” that in the following. 1 following years served the National Socialists as a pseudo-legal basis for persecution. It provided a comprehensive means of suppressing political I. After the “seizure of power” dissidents and would continue to serve that pur- pose until the end of the Nazi system. 2 The basic On 30 January 1933, Paul von Hindenburg rights of the Weimar Constitution had ceased appointed Adolf Hitler Reich chancellor and to have effect. If initially only Communists were Franz von Papen took office as vice-chancellor. taken into custody with the aid of this decree, Apart from a few regional exceptions, the major they were soon followed by trade unionists, So- “purge” hoped for by the SA and the party did cial Democrats, Socialists, non-affiliated intel- not yet come about in the initial days following lectuals and anyone who resisted “Gleichschal- this “seizure of power”. Violence now no longer tung” – enforced conformity to National Socialist had to serve the purposes of propaganda and in- ideology. Among these persons were also so- timidation, but to safeguard, as quickly as possi- called “asocials” and “professional criminals” ble, the newly attained power. At the same time, as well as the Jews, Sinti and Roma subjected to the outward show of open violence was not to persecution for racist-ideological reasons. be allowed to conflict with the Nazi leadership’s policy of exploiting the conservative camp. On 24 March 1933, soon after the Reichstag elections, the Nazis passed the Enabling Act, The sovereign assembly of the Weimar Republic which, along with the “Gleichschaltung” in every – the Reichstag – was dissolved, and new elec- area of life, took them a major step forward in tions scheduled for 5 March 1933. This election the process of establishing their power. The campaign, however, differed fundamentally from two-thirds majority needed for the Enabling Act all that had preceded it. On 4 February 1933, was obtained only because all 81 Communist Hermann Göring, the acting Prussian minister members of parliament as well as 26 Social of the interior, issued the oral directive to the Democratic MPs had been arrested or had police to take tougher action “against Marxists”, fled, and because those of the Zentrumspartei an order supplemented on 17 February 1933 by (Centre Party) and the Deutsche Staatspartei the decree “on the promotion of the national (German State Party) gave credence to Hitler’s movement”. Now the police were permitted – promises to interpret the new law restrictively. and expected – to shoot. The establishment of Only the 94 remaining Social Democratic MPs the auxiliary police in Prussia after 22 February voted against it after an impressive speech by 1933 (50,000 men, of which the SA accounted their chairman Otto Wels. It was not long be- 236 | 237 fore the “laws on the conformity of the Länder political activity was no longer possible and [states] with the Reich” destroyed the federal Gestapo informers increasingly undermined at- structure of the Weimar Republic. In the weeks tempts to rebuild illegal oppositional structures. that followed, National Socialist “Reich gover- nors” were appointed in the place of the elected minister presidents of all of the German Länder II. The early concentration camps and the Land parliaments were dissolved. Throughout Germany, the police thus came un- On 8 March 1933, the Reich minister of the der National Socialist control. interior Wilhelm Frick publicly declared: “When the new Reichstag convenes on 21 March, urgent The SA, SS and police collaborated closely. To and more useful work will prevent the Commu- carry out arrests, the police made use of lists nists from taking part in the session. They must that for the most part had already been drawn become re-accustomed to productive work, up in the Weimar period. The SA subdivisions and will be given the opportunity to do so in the combed their residential districts in search of concentration camps.” 4 political opponents, who were then often taken to SA homes or clubhouses. Torture was just Beginning in March 1933, nearly seventy con- as common in the Nuremberg “Burg” as it was centration camps were established, for exam- in the Dortmund “Steinwache” or the many SA ple the Dachau SS concentration camp near clubhouses of Berlin. Under the guise of legality, Munich and the Oranienburg SA concentration many a “personal account” dating back to the camp near Berlin. They were supplemented by Weimar period was settled. The pub owner who over thirty “preventive custody departments” had once thrown the SA out of his establishment in prisons. 5 Between March and April 1933, more might just as easily become a victim as a Com- than 45,000 persons were detained in these munist living downstairs from an SA officer who facilities for shorter or longer periods, and it can had already long coveted the Communist’s flat. be assumed that there were more than 80,000 The total number of makeshift detention rooms prisoners in the year 1933 as a whole. In the first that came into use from February 1933 onward, few months, primarily Communists, Socialists, and usually served to detain inmates for just a Social Democrats and trade unionists were put few weeks or months, has yet to be ascertained. in “preventive custody” and imprisoned in con- As many as two hundred of them are thought centration camps. to have existed in Berlin alone. 3 Yet violence and terror were to have a lasting effect, and it was As National Socialism gained political stability, therefore necessary to provide for the longer- however, many of these persons were released term accommodation of the prisoners. from the camps. In July 1933, for example, according to a survey by the Reich ministry of Many Communists, Social Democrats, Socialists the interior, there were approximately 26,800 and democratic intellectuals fled Germany and “preventive custody prisoners”, with Prussia went into exile as early as 1933. The situation of accounting for 14,906, Bavaria for 4,152, Saxony the oppositionists remaining in the country was for 4,500 and Württemberg for 971. 6 Nazi rule desperate. The parties were dissolved or prohib- had been consolidated to the point where it was ited, the trade union movement crushed. Legal possible to scale back the openly violent meas- 1 For the most recent introductions to this topic, see Nikolaus Wachsmann and Sybille Steinbacher, eds., Die Linke im Visier. Zur Errichtung der Konzentrations- lager 1933 (Göttingen, 2014); Wolfgang Benz and Barbara Distel, eds., Der Ort des Terrors. Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager , vol. 1: Die Organisation des Terrors (Munich, 2005), vol. 2: Frühe Lager, Dachau, Emslandlager (Munich, 2005). 2 See Michael Hensle, “Die Verrechtlichung des Unrechts. Der legalistische Rahmen der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung”, Benz and Distel 2005 (see note 1), vol. 1, pp. 76ff. 3 Irene Mayer-von Götz, Terror im Zentrum der Macht. Die frühen Konzentrationslager in Berlin 1933/34–1936 (Berlin, 2008), p. 56. 4 cuno Horkenbach, Das deutsche Reich von 1918 bis heute. 1933 (Berlin, 1934), p. 106. 5 Klaus Drobisch and Günther Wieland, System der NS-Konzentrationslager 1933–1939 (Berlin, 1993), p. 12. See ibid., p. 73, “Liste der berüchtigten Folterstätten, Konzentrationslager und Justizstrafanstalten 1933” (list of the notorious places of torture, concentration camps and penal institutions in 1933). 6 Bundesarchiv, R 43 II/398, fol. 91f. See Drobisch and Wieland 1993 (see note 5), p. 134 with a precise analysis of the numbers. e S SAYS ures. At the end of October 1933, there were Above all in the two large area Länder of Prussia still some 22,000 prisoners in custody in the and Bavaria, aspirations towards centralization concentration camps, of whom – above all with in the “enforcement of preventive custody” were a look abroad – 2,000 were released after the already evident at an early stage. 8 In Prussia “Reichstag elections” of 12 November 1933. The the inmates were to be accommodated central- first phase in the consolidation of Nazi power ly in the moorlands of the Emsland region. At had thus been concluded and, objectively speak- the end of June 1933, the Prussian ministry of ing, the concentration camps were no longer the interior reckoned “with a constant inmate necessary for the maintenance of the Nazi dic- population of 10,000 for the coming years”, and tatorship. Along with the already existing penal in a letter to the Reich ministry of the interi- system, the “special courts” in operation since or explicitly formulated its concept for coping March 1933 and the “people’s court” estab- with these inmates.

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