Hitler's Enabling Act, 23 March 1933
The History Place, [17 February 2003] Read the
Enabling Act of Hitler
On March 23, 1933, the newly elected members of the German Parliament
(the Reichstag) met in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin to consider
passing Hitler's Enabling Act. It was officially called the ‘Law for
Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich.’ If passed, it would
effectively mean the end of democracy in Germany and establish the legal
dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.
The ‘distress’ had been secretly caused by the Nazis themselves in
order to create a crisis atmosphere that would make the law seem
necessary to restore order. On February 27, 1933, they had burned the
Reichstag building, seat of the German government, causing panic and
outrage. The Nazis successfully blamed the fire on the Communists and
claimed it marked the beginning of a widespread uprising.
On the day of the vote, Nazi storm troopers gathered in a show of
force around the opera house chanting, Full powers—or else! We want
the bill—or fire and murder!! They also stood inside in the
hallways, and even lined the aisles where the vote would take place,
glaring menacingly at anyone who might oppose Hitler's will.
Just before the vote, Hitler made a speech to the Reichstag in which
he pledged to use restraint.
The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they
are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures...The number
of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to
such a law is in itself a limited one. —Hitler told the Reichstag.
He also promised an end to unemployment and pledged to promote peace
with France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. But in order to do all
this, Hitler said, he first needed the Enabling Act.
A two thirds majority was needed, since the law would actually alter
the German constitution. Hitler needed 31 non-Nazi votes to pass it.
He got those votes from the Center Party after making a false promise
to restore some basic rights already taken away by decree.
However, one man arose amid the overwhelming might. Otto Wells,
leader of the Social Democrats stood up and spoke quietly to Hitler.
We German Social Democrats pledge ourselves solemnly in this
historic hour to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and
socialism. No enabling act can give you power to destroy ideas which are
eternal and indestructible.
This enraged Hitler and he jumped up to respond.
You are no longer needed!—The star of Germany will rise and yours
will sink! Your death knell has sounded!
The vote was taken—441 for, only 84, the Social Democrats, against.
The Nazis leapt to their feet clapping, stamping and shouting, then
broke into the Nazi anthem, the Hvrst Wessel song.
They achieved what Hitler had wanted for years—to tear down the
German Democratic Republic legally and end democracy, thus paving the
way for a complete Nazi takeover of Germany.
From this day on, the Reichstag would be just a sounding board, a
cheering section for Hitler's pronouncements.
******
The Patriot Act
The U.S. Congress has just passed a law that
fundamentally changes the rights and protections afforded people under
the U.S. Constitution. The law is called the Military Commissions Act of
2006 (S.3930).
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, said he knew the law violated the Constitution, as did
others. That didn't stop them from voting for it. What is the
significance of this new law?
Essentially, it provides legal cover for the executive branch of
government to violate the rights of the people in the U.S. The law says
that if the government suspects that someone is an enemy of the U.S. or
gives material aid to someone who is an enemy, that person can be taken
into custody and held indefinitely with no way of challenging his or her
detention.
Only if the government decides to carry out a military trial -- a trial
that is held in a way that is different from normal military trial
procedures -- only then would that person have the ability to respond to
being held in detention. This ability is also seriously limited by the
way the new law modifies the processes and procedures that a person
accused of a crime would have available.
The new law essentially gives the executive branch of government the
ability to create its own processes and procedures for how it will
behave. And it removes any oversight processes from the other two
branches of the government.
This new law has been compared to the "Enabling
Act" that Hitler used to consolidate fascism in Germany in March
1933.
Hitler was appointed Chancellor in Germany in January 1933. In February,
there was a fire in the Reichstag (the German parliament building).
There are many who believe the fire was set by the Nazis.
In March, using the fire as an excuse, Hitler had the Enabling Act
passed by the Reichstag. The Enabling Act gave the executive branch of
government in Germany the right to make the laws, bypassing the
Reichstag. This required a change in the Constitution, and by using
intimidation and force, Hitler got the two-thirds majority of votes in
the Reichstag needed for a constitutional amendment. Hitler used the
legal authority this gave him to outlaw opposition to the Nazis and
fascism.
The events in Germany in 1933 strike a discomforting parallel with
recent events in the U.S.
Bush was put into the presidency with the fraudulent election in 2000,
which saw massive voter fraud and many people denied the right to vote.
On Sept 11, 2001, the World Trade Center was destroyed and the Bush
administration opposed an investigation into the government's role in
the events. When a commission was finally established to investigate
what had happened, Henry Kissinger, an advisor and confidant to the
president, was appointed as the head. When there was criticism that this
was a crony appointment, Philip D. Zelikow, who had been on Bush's
2000-2001 transition team was made the executive director of the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, aka the
9/11 Commission. He is now a top aide to Condoleezza Rice at the State
Department and serious questions remain unanswered about what
responsibility U.S. government officials may have had regarding 9/11.
Now, on Sept. 29, 2006, Congress has passed a law with characteristics
similar to the Nazi Enabling Act. Both laws take legislative power and
transfer it to the executive branch of the government.
In Germany, the Enabling Act required an amendment to the Constitution.
In the U.S., the Military Commissions Act also requires a constitutional
amendment, which requires that two-thirds of the Congress consider and
approve the amendment and then a vote by the legislatures of two-thirds
of the states to approve the amendment. An alternative means for seeking
an amendment is to have two-thirds of the states call a constitutional
convention, approve the amendment, and then vote in favor of the change.
Unlike Hitler, Bush didn't seek a constitutional amendment. Instead, he
asked Congress to pass this fundamental change to the Constitution as a
normal bill, and they complied.
The actual
bill passed by Congress was 50 pages long.
It is doubtful that many of those in Congress who voted for the bill
read or considered it with any seriousness. The bill also overrides a
number of provisions in an earlier law passed by Congress, the Detainee
Treatment Act, passed in 2005. This law limited what the government
could do with regard to those who are being held at Guantanamo Bay.
On the day the Military Commissions bill was passed, discussion on the
floor of the Senate went on for several hours and took up 276 pages in
the Congressional Record, which reports on the actions and discussions
in the Congress.
The passing of a bill by Congress that takes away significant rights
from a whole group of people with so little attention to the seriousness
of the event demonstrates the great weakness of the minimal democratic
structures remaining in the U.S.
The trouble this new law can cause before the Supreme Court can rule on
its constitutionality is great. If the Supreme Court ignores its
obligations, as Congress has just done, then the continuing damage that
the law can do will be very great.
During the discussion of the bill in the Senate, a discussion that the
Congressional Record reports went on for 10 hours, several Senators
spoke of serious problems with the bill.
One Senator, Russ Feingold from Wisconsin, explained how the bill
invests unchecked power in the hands of the president and thereby
undermines the foundation of the government. He explains:
"The rule of law is something deeper and more profound than the
collection of laws that we have on paper … The rule of law tells us that
no man is above the law -- and as an extension of that principle -- that
no executive will be able to act unchecked by our legal system. Yet by
stripping the habeas corpus rights of any individual who the executive
branch decides to designate as an enemy combatant, that is precisely
where we end up -- with an executive branch subject to no external check
whatsoever, with an executive branch that is king."
In general, media coverage of the passing of the law focused on the
politics involved, not on how the law represents a fundamental change in
the Constitution.
Another important aspect of the law is that it undermines the oversight
functions of the three branches of government, taking away the power of
the judiciary and the legislature to oversee the executive, thereby
inappropriately establishing an executive with a form of unbridled
power.
The passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (1) raises a serious
challenge to those who are concerned about the present and future of
democratic institutions in the U.S.
While few of the traditional media reported on the serious nature of the
challenge to the Constitution represented by the passage of the law,
some online comments about the law recognized the serious danger it
represents to democracy and the threat it poses in the spread of fascism
in the U.S.
In one online discussion, several commentators expressed the view that
the passing of this law signaled the rise of dictatorship in the U.S.
Others were amazed at how little attention the law has aroused. The one
aspect of the law that drew some public attention has been the fact that
the law denies the right of habeas corpus to people the government calls
alien enemy combatants. (2) How the government determines this
designation is left up to the president and so violates the fact that
there must be procedures for government processes and oversight over
those procedures.
Congress is specifically prohibited by the Constitution from suspending
the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. With this new law, Congress
has put aside that part of the Constitution. In addition, it has
increased the powers of the presidency, also in violation of
constitutional checks and balances. These violations by Congress are
setting the U.S. further along the road to a dictatorship of the
executive branch of government, a hallmark of Fascism and Nazism. (3)
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1.
Passed by a vote of 65-34 in the U.S. Senate with 12 Democrats
joining Republicans to support the bill, and accepted by the
House, which had previously passed its own version, it awaits
President Bush's signature to become law. Bush has said he will
happily sign it.
2. The writ of habeas corpus in Article 1 Section 9 of
the U.S. Constitution, a section that pertains to the duties of
the U.S. Congress, says that the U.S. Congress cannot take away
the writ of habeas corpus except under circumstances of
rebellion or invasion.
The actual language reads:
"The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be
suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the
public safety may require it." No case of rebellion or invasion
exists and thus the U.S. Congress does not have the power to
suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus. A serious debate was held
over this part of the law in the Senate but an amendment to take
this out of the bill did not get enough votes to pass.
3. See for example, "Steve
Jonas: The US Enabling Act" and John Steinberg, "The
New Enabling Act."
Jonas describes fascism:
"Fascism in its simplest terms can be defined as: unitary
executive branch control of government; the abrogation of any
inherent human and personal rights; the repression and then
punishment of any dissent; in support of complete corporate
domination of the economy. Sort of like the Cheney dream of a
"Unitary Executive" in fact." |
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