What Happened After The Fire Dbq

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CONSOLIDATION OF POWER-COMMUNISTS-ENABLING ACT- INTIMIDATION-ELECTION Immediately after the Fire, the Nazis started attacking their political opponents, especially the Communists. They effectively did this by convincing President Hindenburg to issue the Emergency Decree for the protection of the People and the State (28 February 1933) to give them the ability to increase their attacks on their political opponents. About 100,000 leaders were arrested following the Emergency Decree. It removed the right of assembly, freedom of speech and freedom of the press, among other rights, and allowed the police to investigate freely, without restraints. The Decree also allowed the Nazis to arrest and imprison political opponents without a specific charge. On top of it all, it allowed the central government to take over the local state government, Länder, and introduced the death penalty for certain offences. It may have been expected …show more content…

Willi Frischauer, the Berlin correspondent for the Vienna newspaper, Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, commented on the night of the Fire that he was sure that the Nazis were behind the Fire – “there can scarcely be any doubt that the fire which is now destroying the Reichstag was set by henchmen of the Hitler government. By all appearances, the arsonists used the underground passage connecting the Reichstag to the palace of its president, Hermann Göring.” The British journalist, Seftan Delmer, agreed with this viewpoint – “the arson of the German Parliament building was allegedly the work of a Communist-sympathizing Dutchman, van der Lubbe. More probably, the fire was started by the Nazis, who used the incident as a pretext to outlaw political opposition and impose dictatorship… the fire broke out at 9:45 tonight in the Assembly Hall of the Reichstag. It had been laid in five different comers, and there is no doubt whatsoever that it was the handiwork of

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