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Essay Planning - Assess how significant was the Reichstag Fire for Germany…
Essay Planning - Assess how significant was the Reichstag Fire for Germany
Profundity
How deeply were people's lives, beliefs and attitudes affected?
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
How far were other aspects changed
Change to the Weimar Constitution
Change to KPD Leadership - Many fled and some were arrested - Thalmann,
Brownshirts allowed to run amok throughout Germany, attacking KPD and SPD functionaries
COUNTERARGUMENT
- Scale and Nature of reaction to the development
Not many people were actually arrested
8 Million voted for Communist party, only 10k were arrested
Most of the reactions outside of Germany were ambivalent
Durability
How far did it affect things in the longer term
Enabling Act and Election of March 1933
KPD Delegates could not vote, allowing an easy 2/3rds majority passing of the Enabling Act
Capitalising off of the fear of Communists in the middle class may have allowed Hitler to win more votes
Needed a 2/3rds Majority
Banned Political Parties, made the Reichstag redundant and allowed Hitler to consolidate power
How far did it affect things in the longer term
Reichstag Fire Decree
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
Dismissal of State-Ministers, allowing for the creation of Nazi-held local governance
Banning of Zentrum Papers, politcally stifling one of the major opposition parties on the same side of the political spectrum as Hitler
COUNTERARGUMENT
- Hitler's rise to power
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
Importance
How was it reported?
Propaganda
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
Berlin Newspapers
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
Many foreign newspapers (Fox in America) parroted the German party line and helped garner dislike of Communism outside of Germany
LOOK AT WHERE IN NEWSPAPER IT IS PLACED
COUNTERARGUMENT
- Not much of a turning point in the banning of the KPD
Bludmai (Crackdown on Communists in Berlin)
KPD caught unprepared
KPD Thought it would be mild repression (Creating the Third Reich) like in 1924 and 1926
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
“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
Conservative judges already against the KPD (Creating the Third Reich), and bans proposed against KPD several times in the 20s and 30s
How iconic/symbolic was the development?
Symbolism of the place of Democracy in Weimar Germany being burnt to the ground, bearing the words "Dem Deutsche Volk" - To the German People
Symbolism of the use of the emergency act which bypassed parliament - representative of the failure of the Weimar constitution
The Fire being started in the speakers chamber (Booklet) - The place where German democracy lies