The Removal of Opposition in 1933 Allowed Hitler to Become a Dictator

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The Removal of Opposition in 1933 Allowed Hitler to Become a Dictator The removal of both internal and external opposition in the period March 1933 to August 1934 allowed Hitler to become a dictator. The first thing Hitler had to do was to remove 'external' opposition, (opposition outside the party). On the 27th February 1933 the Reichstag building was set on fire. A Dutch communist was caught by the authorities, was put on trial and eventually found guilty of starting the fire. Hitler said the fire was evidence of a communist plot to take control of the government. Hitler used this to his advantage and persuaded Hindenburg to sign an emergency decree, the law for the Protection of People and the State'. This new rule ended all freedoms guaranteed in the constitution and gave the police total power. Working with the S.A., the police arrested Communist leaders, detained them without trial and closed all their newspapers down. A lot of evidence actually points to the Nazi's burning down the Reichstag building. Nazi terror tactics reached a peak after the fire. The Enabling Act was then put in place. The Act gave Hitler power to make laws without the approval of either the Reichstag or the President. On voting day each voting station was policed by a mass of uniformed Nazi officers watching people as they made their vote. Hitler and his party were out of control. He banned communists from serving in the Reichstag and then put his plan into action to convince other parties, that his way was the right way to go. Really, the parties had no choice as to whether or not they would follow Hitler. If they refused to align with him Hitler would simply run their party out of existence, making sure only he could have his say. Hitler's final task was to remove any threats within his own party. Ernst Röhm wanted to take total control of the army. This startled Hitler as it would make Röhm more powerful than he himself was. Another reason Hitler saw him as a threat was because he held

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