History coursework
Question 3
Explain what the Nazis made of the Reichstag fire in the 1933 election campaign?
Hitler took advantage of the fire to get majority in the march 1933 elections. He wanted to get rid off opponents, and to gain more power to do so.
The Nazis took the fire to there full advantage, in order to have a majority in the elections. After the fire the Nazis arrested as communists and other opponents to get rid of them. They blamed the fire on them, and this gave them the power to arrest them. Source D tells me that the Nazis blamed it on all communists, even though they had only found one in the fire, because the picture includes three communists preparing to set fire to the Reichstag.
On the day of the elections the Nazi police would watch over people voting, to make them feel uncomfortable and so they would vote for the Nazis and they would get more votes. The elections on the 5th march 1933 the Nazis gained there best vote ever, 288 seats , however they still did not have the majority of votes and need about 36 votes more to gain the majority. The other party’s got a total of 359, so that made there total majority higher than Hitler’s results. What Hitler wanted was an ‘enabling law’ now which would place all power in his hands, allow him to pass laws without consulting the Reichstag, and effectively allow him to establish a dictatorship.
So Hitler could get the majority vote he got the nationalists on his side, and got them to agree with all his plans. He also got them to agree that it was the communists that started the fire.
Source E justifies all the actions of the Nazi’s and explains everything that happened when the fire happened in the Reichstag fire and what they lost in it. It explains how they thought it was an arson attack and an act of terrorism, which may have signalled for a bloody revolt and civil war from the communists.
Overall the source’s D and E explain what the Nazi’s made of the Reichstag...