Why Did Hitler Lose The Reichstag

Ever since with Emperor Wilhelm I’s union of Germany in 1871, elections have been held at the German Reichstag. After the Weimar Republic's Constitution of 1919, the official German voting system was changed from one person running on his own to proportional representation throughout the political party that wins the election. The German election of 1933 was the final free German election until after World War II.

Shortly after Hitler’s appointment as chancellor of Germany, he suggested, to President Hindenburg, that the Reichstag be dissolved. The next German election was scheduled for March of that same year to renew the democratic style of government in Germany. However, six days prior to the Election Day, the Reichstag building in Berlin was set ablaze which effectively dissolved the democratic government.

The burning of the Reichstag building was the clear cut symbol for the beginning of the Nazi revolution. The attack led to the Reichstag Fire Decree . Hitler used this decree to raid various government offices which effectively led to the elimination of all political counterparties to the Nazis. This elimination of rival parties made way for the Hitler led Nazis to assume control.

Although the Nazi party did receive a substantial amount of votes in the next parliamentary election, they failed to win an absolute majority in parliament .

A slim majority was not Hitler’s goal. He immediately freed the Nazis from the coalition by forcing the cabinet to draft the initial legislation for the Enabling Act. The proposal would designate all legislative power formerly possessed by the Reichstag to the cabinet for four years. The Nazis draft of the Enabling Act ensured complete political dominance for the party, without the needing any support of a majority in the Reichstag or any deals to be made with their now former coalition

members.
Simply being opposed to the Nazi regime was notoriously difficult. Despite this, there was plenty of anti-Nazi criticism to go around, mainly between 1933 and 1939. Most of these criticisms were conducted in secret due to the expansive Nazi police state established by Hitler and the near eternal powers of government agencies such as the Gestapo. Opposition movements took several forms across several sections of society. There was an abundance of opposition among industrial workers and former trade unionists. Universities were notable sources of anti-government criticism and protest. Even Christian churches, both Catholic and Protestant, opposed the imposition of Nazi ideology on German life. Some in the military despised Hitler, and there were occasional plots and discussions about forcibly removing him from power.
In May 1933, The SPD was declared illegal, robbed of its funds, and forced to disband. The party leadership relocated to Prague, where they continued to operate in exile. Many SPD members also remained in Germany to form a resistance group called Roter Strosstrupp(‘Red Strike Troops’). By 1933 this group had around 3,000 members. They began to produce a newspaper, highlighting the Nazi’s abuse of power and attempting to entice a workers’ uprising to overthrow the regime. By 1934, the SPD’s underground activities in Germany were ceased. The Gestapo located and arrested leaders of Roter Strosstrupp, while the Nazi regime was too popular with too many Germans to incite any kind of counter-revolution.

During the opening stages of World War II, anti-Jewish policy was revised and developed into a comprehensive plan to ultimately eliminate all remnants of Jews from European soil. The Nazis quickly built and populated ghettos in occupied Poland following their invasion. Polish and other western European Jews were searched out, captured, and deported to these new Polish ghettos. During the German invasion of the USSR in 1941, ‘Einsatzgruppen’ are reported to have gunned down, bombed, and gassed entire Russo-Jewish communities. These methods used, however, were quickly scorned due to their ‘lack of efficiency’ and the psychological burden that these methods placed on the killers.
Following the Wannsee Conference , Nazi troops began systematically deporting Jews from all over their conquered European land to the six most prominent extermination camps established in former Polish territory. The camps were named Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Majdanek. Around three million Jews were gassed or shot in these extermination camps.