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GERMANY WOKE UP ON Tuesday morning to an official government account of the events, claiming that the “burning of the Reichstag was intended to be the signal for a bloody uprising and civil war” by the Communists that would include “large-scale pillaging in Berlin” and “acts of terrorism” planned “against prominent individuals, against private property, against the lives and safety of the peaceful population.”
The government announced that “warrants have been issued for the arrest of two leading Communist Reichstag deputies on grounds of urgent suspicion,” and “other deputies and functionaries of the Communist Party are being taken into protective custody.”
Those constitutional provisions were not very different from the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution. As the decree hauntingly explained:
“It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom, freedom of expression, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications. Warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.”
President von Hindenburg, stricken with lung cancer and largely confined to his bed, felt that he had no choice.
Though no fan of Hitler, he despised the Communists, having led the Germans in battle against the Russians during the Great War.
And regardless of the credibility of the information on which it was based, the news this morning had created a massive public alarm throughout Germany.
Hitler played directly into the president’s fears and biases and political pressure.
Von Hindenburg signed the decree almost immediately.
It created the functional equivalent of martial law throughout Germany.
Without the input of parliament or the president, Chancellor Hitler’s government could now detain citizens indefinitely without criminal charge or judicial oversight.
It could ban political parties. It could shut down newspapers.
It could outlaw organized protest or any criticism whatsoever of the government.
It could eavesdrop on citizens. It could seize property and search houses randomly.
Overnight, Adolf Hitler had become the dictator of Germany.