Nazi Germany (1933–1945): government, ideology, war, and legacy

National Socialism saw itself as a revolutionary movement transforming all areas of state and society. Its goal was to replace democracy with the dictatorship of the NSDAP as the sole party - or rather, with that of its leader - and to replace the fundamentally open, bourgeois society with a racially defined Volksgemeinschaft.

In order to reshape the state in line with the Führer principle and a specific concept of the Volksgemeinschaft, the aim was to eliminate individual civil rights and the institutionalized division of powers between the Reich and state governments on the one hand, and the legislative, executive and judicial branches on the other. A "strong central power of the Reich" was already part of the NSDAP's 25-point program of 1920.

Internally, the idea of the Volksgemeinschaft was to weld politics, morality and law into an indissoluble whole. The "Führer's will", which was not obligated to any higher legal authority, was to create a new National Socialist form of rule and government - anticipated by the party branches in anticipatory obedience. The obligation of state officials to general principles of law was replaced by a personal obligation to be affirmed by "Führer oaths." Central to Nazi ideology was völkisch anti-Semitism and racism. Jews, but also Sinti and Roma as well as other population groups defined as "non-Aryan", could therefore not be part of the national community.

In order to eliminate democracy and pluralism and establish dictatorship, Hitler's government initiated measures right at the beginning aimed at eliminating competing centers of power in the Reich, the states, and the municipalities and subordinating all state, social, and cultural life to the ideology of National Socialism. This process of Gleichschaltung affected not only state institutions but also all major organizations, associations, and political parties. They were either banned or ideologically and organizationally brought into line with the Nazi party.

The first Gleichschaltung measures were legitimized by the so-called Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February 1933 and the Enabling Act of 24 March 1933, which de facto abolished the Weimar Constitution: Essential principles such as fundamental rights, the rule of law and control of the government by parliament were thereby eliminated.

First, the federal structures of the Weimar Republic were abolished. The two laws enacted for this purpose eliminated all previously elected ministers, deputies and higher state officials in the Länder - especially in southern Germany - and the senates of the Hanseatic cities. The first Gleichschaltungsgesetz of 31 March 1933 dissolved the Landtage, Bürgerschaften, Kreistage and Gemeinderäte and empowered the Land governments to enact laws even against the Land constitutions. The self-governing bodies had to be reconstituted according to the voting results of the Reichstag elections of March 5, 1933. As a result, thousands of NSDAP members were appointed to posts that had become vacant. The second Gleichschaltungsgesetz of 7 April 1933 created Reich governors with dictatorial powers in all Länder except Prussia, where this had already been done by the "Preußenschlag" of 1932; they could be appointed by the Reich President, were directly subordinate to the Reich Chancellor, and were superior to the Land governments. They were allowed to appoint and dismiss their members, other state officials, and judges. They were also given the right to enact laws. The office of a state president, which some state constitutions enshrined, was declared to have ended. In practice, Reich President Paul von Hindenburg followed Hitler's suggestions of old henchmen and NSDAP Gauleiters in appointing Reich governors almost everywhere.

With the persecution of the KPD from 28 February as a result of the Reichstag fire, the banning of the SPD on 22 June and the self-dissolution of the other parties until the Law against the Re-Formation of Parties of 14 July 1933, the NSDAP became the sole and only ruling party in the Reich, which was further confirmed in December 1933 with the Law to Secure the Unity of Party and State. This established a one-party system and eliminated parliamentarism, which was regarded as a hallmark of the hated "system". In order to deprive any possible opposition of the possibility of organizing, the Nazi regime also smashed all trade unions on May 10, 1933, confiscated their assets, and abolished the right to strike. All workers' and employers' associations were forcibly merged into the German Labor Front (DAF), which was subordinate to the NSDAP from 1934.

The Reichstag had already given up its legislative and executive control function with the approval of the Enabling Act by a two-thirds majority on 23 March 1933. It remained formally in existence as an institution to provide a staffage for Hitler's government declarations and also to maintain a democratic appearance vis-à-vis foreign countries. It was now staffed half by party members and half by representatives of the SA, SS and party-affiliated associations. By 1939, it had passed nine more laws, while the remaining 5,000 or so laws and decrees were issued directly by the top echelons of the Nazi regime.

With the Act on the Reconstruction of the Reich of 30 January 1934, the Länder lost their state sovereignty, so that in the Gleichschaltungsverordnungen, which lasted until 1935, the judicial and administrative sovereignty of the Länder was completely undermined until it was directly subordinated to the responsible Reich ministries. The Reichsrat, which as the representation of the Länder in the Weimar Constitution had the right to object to all bills proposed by the Reich government, was dissolved on 14 February 1934.