Lessons From the Past
…No one dares say anything anymore, everyone is afraid…
It was on this day in 1933 that the Nazi Party won the majority of the seats in the German parliament, known as the Reichstag, effectively taking control of the country. It was the last free election in Germany until the end of World War II. Adolf Hitler had secured the chancellorship after the November 1932 elections, but he still didn’t have a majority in the Reichstag, so he set March 5, 1933 as the date for new elections. Six days before the election, the Reichstag building caught fire, and the Nazis used the fire as a symbol of the chaos that they would help correct, though some historians believe that the Nazis set the fire themselves. After the elections, Hitler passed a law that gave him absolute power over the country.
Just five days after the election, Victor Klemperer, a Jewish professor of romantic languages living in Germany, wrote in his diary: “It’s astounding how easily everything collapses. … Since [the election,] day after day commissioners appointed, provincial governments trampled underfoot, flags raised, buildings taken over, people shot, newspapers banned, etc., etc. … A complete revolution and party dictatorship. And all opposing forces as if vanished from the earth. … No one dares say anything anymore, everyone is afraid.”
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