Gleichschaltung

Terminology

Legal basis

• Reichstag Fire Decree. The day after the Reichstag fire, the President of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg, acting at Hitler's request and based on the emergency powers in article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, issued the Reichstag Fire Decree. This decree, formally titled "Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State", suspended most civil rights and civil liberties enshrined in the constitution, including the right of habeas corpus, freedom of speech, press, assembly and privacy of communications. This allowed for the arrest of political adversaries, mostly Communists, and for the terrorizing of voters by the Sturmabteilung before the upcoming election. It was in this atmosphere that the general election of the Reichstag took place on 5 March 1933. The Nazis had hoped to win an outright majority and push aside their coalition partners, the German National People's Party. However, the Nazis won only 43.9 percent of the vote, short of a majority and well below the proportion that would deliver the two-thirds majority required to amend the federal constitution.
• Enabling Act. When the newly-elected Reichstag convened – not including the Communist delegates whose participation in politics had been banned – it passed the Enabling Act. This law, formally titled "Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich", gave the government the right to enact laws for a period of four years without the involvement of the Reichstag or the Reich President. Under certain circumstances, these laws could "deviate from the Constitution". As a constitutional amendment, it required a two-thirds majority for passage. Even with the proscription of the Communists, the Nazis and their ally the DNVP still controlled well below the number of votes required for this majority. However, through intimidation of deputies, and through promises of religious freedom protections to the Catholic Centre Party, the required supermajority was obtained. With only the SPD voting in opposition, the Enabling Act passed 444 to 94 through the Reichstag. In practical terms, this Enabling Act meant that the rule of law and democratic protections established by the Weimar Constitution were rendered void. It formed a purportedly legal basis upon which Hitler could effectively circumvent the constitutional framework of the Weimar Republic and impose his will on the nation by decree. For all intents and purposes, it converted his government into a dictatorship.
• Provisional Law on the Coordination of the States with the Reich. Enacted by the Reich government using the Enabling Act, the "Provisional Law on the Coordination of the States with the Reich" dissolved the sitting parliaments of all German states except the recently elected Prussian parliament, which the Nazis already controlled. It also ordered the state parliaments reconstituted based on the state votes cast in the 5 March Reichstag election. Under this provision, the Nazis and their DNVP partners were able to attain working majorities in all the parliaments. It further mandated the simultaneous dissolution of all state parliaments after the Reichstag was dissolved. It also gave the state governments the same powers to enact legislation that the Reich government possessed under the Enabling Act.
• Second Law on the Coordination of the States with the Reich. In order to further extend its power over the German states, the Reich government enacted the "Second Law on the Coordination of the States with the Reich". This measure deployed one Reichsstatthalter in each state. These officers, appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Chancellor, were responsible to Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick and were intended to act as local proconsuls in each state, with near-complete control over the state governments. They were empowered to preside over meetings of the state government, appoint and dismiss the state minister-president as well as other high officials and judges, dissolve the state parliament, call new elections, and promulgate state laws. The law conferred the office of Reichsstatthalter in Prussia on the Reich Chancellor himself.
• Law for the Restoration of a Professional Civil Service. Another measure of Nazi Gleichschaltung was the enactment of the "Law for the Restoration of a Professional Civil Service", which mandated the "co-ordination" of the civil service – which in Germany included not only bureaucrats, but also schoolteachers, professors, judges, prosecutors, and other professionals – at the federal, state and municipal level. The law authorized the removal of Jews and Communists from civil service positions, with only limited exceptions for those who had fought in the First World War or had lost a father or son in combat.
• Law on the Trustees of Labour. On 2 May 1933, trade union offices were attacked and occupied by SA stormtroopers. The offices were closed, their newspapers shuttered, funds confiscated and leaders arrested. In order to impose coordination on private sector workers, the Law on the Trustees of Labour created new regional positions known as Trustees of Labour, each of which was assigned to one of thirteen large economic areas. They were charged with ensuring industrial peace and regulating employment contracts, including the setting of wages and the resolution of employer-employee disputes. This effectively supplanted collective bargaining, industrial action and strikes, as the trustees were authorized to impose legally binding settlements.
• Law Against the Formation of Parties. The Communist Party had effectively been outlawed in all but name by the Reichstag Fire Decree, and was completely banned from 6 March. Following additional months of violence and intimidation against the Social Democratic Party, the government seized all its assets, and banned it outright on 22 June 1933, canceling all SPD electoral mandates in both the Reichstag and the state parliaments. By early July, all other parties, even the Nazis' erstwhile allies the DNVP had been intimidated into dissolving themselves rather than face arrests and concentration camp imprisonment. Thus the DNVP, the German State Party, the Bavarian People's Party, the German People's Party and the Centre Party all formally disbanded. The "Law Against the Formation of Parties" then declared the NSDAP as the country's only legal political party, formalizing what had already been accomplished through the campaign of Nazi terror and the complete capitulation of the opposition.File:Deutsches Reichsgesetzblatt 33T1 135 1016.jpg|right|thumb|Promulgation of the "Law to Secure the Unity of Party and State" in the Reichsgesetzblatt of 2 December 1933
• Law to Secure the Unity of Party and State. With the Nazi Party as the only remaining legal party, Hitler then sought to extend the Party's grasp over all the levers of state power and administration through the "Law to Secure the Unity of Party and State", which was enacted by the Reich government under the provisions of the Enabling Act. The Law established the Nazi Party as a statutory or public corporation, with jurisdiction over its members. The Party and the SA became official organs of the German Reich. The Deputy Führer of the Party and the Stabschef of the SA were made ex officio members of the Reich government as ministers without portfolio, further interlocking the leadership of the Party and State. Government agencies, including public safety and law enforcement authorities such as the police, public prosecutors and the courts, were obligated to provide the Party and the SA with administrative and legal information and investigatory assistance. Party courts received the status of official legal institutions of the State and any crime committed against the Party now was considered a crime against the State. These courts were now authorized to impose detention or imprisonment as punishment.
• Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich. All the state parliaments had been dissolved on 14 October 1933. While new Reichstag elections took place on 12 November, no new state parliamentary elections were scheduled. Now, on the one-year anniversary of coming to power, the Reich government had the Reichstag pass by a unanimous vote the "Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich". This was one of only seven laws passed by the Reichstag in the 19 sessions held during the entire Nazi regime, as opposed to 986 laws enacted solely by the Reich government under the authority of the Enabling Act. The Reconstruction Law, in the form of a constitutional amendment, formally did away with the concept of a federal republic. The state parliaments were abolished altogether and state sovereignty passed to the Reich government. The states, though not themselves eliminated, were reduced to mere administrative bodies subordinated to the Reich, effectively converting Germany into a highly centralized unitary state. By destroying the autonomy of the historic German states, Hitler achieved what Bismarck, Wilhelm II and the Weimar Republic had never dared to attempt.
• Law on the Abolition of the Reichsrat. Within two weeks of the abolition of the state parliaments, the Reich government enacted the "Law on the Abolition of the cat=no", which formally abolished the Reichsrat, the second or upper chamber of the national parliament that represented the states. This was a clear violation of the Enabling Act: whilst Article 2 of the Enabling Act allowed the government to pass laws that deviated from the Constitution, it explicitly protected the existence of the Reichstag and Reichsrat.
• Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich. With Reich President von Hindenburg fatally ill, the Reich government enacted the "Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich". This law was signed by the entire Reich cabinet. It combined the office of Reich President with that of Reich Chancellor under the title of "cat=no and Reich Chancellor", and was drawn up to become effective on the death of the Reich President, which occurred the next day. Again, this flagrantly violated Article 2 of the Enabling Act, which forbade interference with the office of the Reich President. On 2 August 1934, Hitler thus became Germany's head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, while maintaining his power as head of government. Less than 19 months after Hitler first became Chancellor, this Law also removed the last possible mechanism by which Hitler could be legally removed from office, and with it all checks on his power.