Essay Planning - Assess how significant was the Reichstag Fire for Germany

Profundity

Durability

Importance

How far did it affect things in the longer term

Enabling Act and Election of March 1933

Reichstag Fire Decree

How was it reported?

COUNTERARGUMENT - Not much of a turning point in the banning of the KPD

How iconic/symbolic was the development?

COUNTERARGUMENT - Hitler's rise to power

Bludmai (Crackdown on Communists in Berlin)

Ebert's use of force on protestors in the 1920s signified that the KPD was already disliked and leaders were arrested by the previous Weimar governments

KPD Delegates could not vote, allowing an easy 2/3rds majority passing of the Enabling Act

Waiting for KPD to be banned meant that the left-wing vote was split between KPD and SPD (Creating the Third Reich)

Nazi Takeover of Länd, dismissing high level civil servants that worked against Hitler

Symbolism of the place of Democracy in Weimar Germany being burnt to the ground, bearing the words "Dem Deutsche Volk" - To the German People

“Hitler reminded his Conservative colleagues that the coalition had intended from the onset to destroy the communists” - Creating the Third Reich (the Hitler-Papen coalition was created from the outset to prevent a potential KPD-SPD coalition

Nazi's still did not receive a majority in the aftermath of the Reichstag fire, signifying that the German people were not particularly bothered enough to vote

Symbolism of the use of the emergency act which bypassed parliament - representative of the failure of the Weimar constitution

Conservative judges already against the KPD (Creating the Third Reich), and bans proposed against KPD several times in the 20s and 30s

Capitalising off of the fear of Communists in the middle class may have allowed Hitler to win more votes

KPD caught unprepared

KPD Thought it would be mild repression (Creating the Third Reich) like in 1924 and 1926

Propaganda

Berlin Newspapers

How deeply were people's lives, beliefs and attitudes affected?

How far were other aspects changed

COUNTERARGUMENT - Scale and Nature of reaction to the development

Needed a 2/3rds Majority

Dismissal of State-Ministers, allowing for the creation of Nazi-held local governance

Not many people were actually arrested

Restriction of liberties, the personal freedoms avowed to people as part of the Weimar constitution had been curbed, and this allowed for a culture of fear to take hold

Usage of Propaganda to instill fear in the German populace of a Communist revolution

Ban on Communist propaganda in streets which allowed Hitler to be the sole proprietor of propaganda

Deutches Zeitungsportale - Many newspapers focused on the fear caused by the threat of a Communist revolution

Nazi newspapers propagated these fears to a wide audience

8 Million voted for Communist party, only 10k were arrested

Most of the reactions outside of Germany were ambivalent

Change to the Weimar Constitution

Change to KPD Leadership - Many fled and some were arrested - Thalmann,

Many foreign newspapers (Fox in America) parroted the German party line and helped garner dislike of Communism outside of Germany

The Fire being started in the speakers chamber (Booklet) - The place where German democracy lies

Banned Political Parties, made the Reichstag redundant and allowed Hitler to consolidate power

Banning of Zentrum Papers, politcally stifling one of the major opposition parties on the same side of the political spectrum as Hitler

Brownshirts allowed to run amok throughout Germany, attacking KPD and SPD functionaries

LOOK AT WHERE IN NEWSPAPER IT IS PLACED