Hitler's appointment and Nazi consolidation of power

Date

30 January 1933 – August 1934

Category

Politics & governance

Region

Central Europe (Germany)

Era

Modern

Significance

On 30 January 1933 President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor at the head of a coalition government. The Nazis moved swiftly to entrench a dictatorship.

After the Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933, the Reichstag Fire Decree suspended civil liberties and enabled mass arrests of Communists and other opponents. On 23 March the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, allowing Hitler's cabinet to legislate without parliament or president. Through Gleichschaltung ('coordination') other parties were banned, trade unions dissolved, and the press brought to heel; on 14 July 1933 the Nazi Party was made the only legal party. The first concentration camp opened at Dachau in March 1933. The Night of the Long Knives (30 June–2 July 1934) purged the SA leadership and other rivals. When Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, Hitler merged the presidency with the chancellorship to become Führer and commander of the armed forces, completing the transformation of Germany into a totalitarian state.

Empires active in 30 January 1933 – August 1934

• Soviet Union
  1922 CE – 1991 CE
• Empire of Japan
  1868 CE – 1947 CE
• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE – 1962 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE

Related politics & governance events

• Stalin's Great Purge (Great Terror)
  1936–1938
• The Munich Agreement Cedes the Sudetenland
  1938
• Founding of the United Nations
  26 June 1945 (in force 24 October 1945)
• Treaty of Versailles and the founding of the League of Nations
  28 June 1919 (in force 10 January 1920)
• Russian Revolutions of 1917
  March & November 1917 (February & October Revolutions, O.S.)
• Sykes-Picot Agreement partitions the Ottoman Middle East
  16 May 1916

Also relevant

• Black Saturday and the Samoan Mau Movement
  28 December 1929

Further reading

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

The wider story

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

Roger Crowley

Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.

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