Nazi state

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Dictatorial government established in Germany by the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), or Nazis, under Adolf Hitler from 1933 onwards. The Nazi state was characterized by the concentration of absolute power in the hands of an individual (the Führer, or ‘leader’) and the violent suppression of all dissent. National socialist Germany is also known as the Third Reich.

Once the Nazis became the largest party in the German parliament (though with no overall majority), and Hitler was named chancellor on 30 January 1933, the machinery of constitutional government and multiparty democracy that had operated in the Weimar Republic was swiftly dismantled. In February the parliament building was burned down – an attack blamed on communists, but widely thought to have been staged by the Nazis – and the Enabling Act was passed, which gave the Nazi government sweeping powers to bypass parliament in drafting laws and conducting foreign affairs. Over the next year, regional assemblies were forced to adopt the same party make-up as the national parliament, so ensuring Nazi dominance, and finally all other political organizations were outlawed. A vast network of secret police (Gestapo), aided by informers, enforced the new laws; political opponents were murdered or imprisoned in concentration camps. The final phase in establishing a dictatorship came on June 1934, the Night of the Long Knives, with an internal purge of the Nazi Party. To reassure the big-business interests that had funded his rise, Hitler ordered the murder of the leadership of the SA (Sturmabteilung, or ‘stormtroops’) – the radical, populist wing of the party. The swift annihilation of any perceived opposition, a tactic known as Blitzkrieg, confirmed Hitler's total hold over Germany. Power was now consolidated in the elite group around Hitler known as the SS.

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