On January 30th, 1933 the Nazi party assumed control of the German state. Backroom negotiations were held between German industrialists, the son of President Paul von Hindenburg, the former chancellor Franz von Papen, and Adolf Hitler. The result was that Paul von Hindenburg appointed the Nazi party leader, Adolf Hitler as Chancellor to head a coalition government of ‘National Renewal’. Following the fire that totally destroyed the Reichstag, the seat of the German Parliament, the German government claimed, falsely that it was the work of communists attempting to overthrow the exiting government. The following day, the Nazi leadership using emergency constitutional powers, passed the Reichstag Fire Decree. This abolished constitutional protections previously afforded to the press and authorised the police to ban political meetings. What followed was The Enabling Act, a law passed on March 23rd,1933, again using Hitler’s emergency powers. This allowed the National Ministry, (essentially Hitler’s cabinet) to enact laws that both deviated or altered the constitution without the consent of the Reichstag or the electorate. Thus, it became a de facto constitutional amendment passed without the consent or vote by the German electorate. This allowed Hitler and his cabinet to continue to remove any remaining political obstacles to assuming the powers of a dictator.
In December, 2022 and again in August 2023, the leading Republican candidate in the 2024 election, Donald J Trump, announced on his media platform, Truth Social, that his often repeated allegation of massive voter fraud “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
Anybody spot the similarities with Hitler’s playbook?