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Seat of the German Bundestag and, before 1945, the eponymous parliament of the Weimar Republic
Hitler did make repeated public statements promising the “extermination” or “annihilation” of Jews long before and during World War II—most famously a 30 January 1939 Reichstag prophecy and later wart...
Historians reading the collapse of Weimar Germany identify a set of early warning signs that recur in democratic backsliding: the politicization and manipulation of emergencies, erosion of democratic ...
Adolf Hitler did not formally “rewrite” the Weimar Constitution into a new constitution; instead he used legal mechanisms—most importantly the Reichstag Fire Decree invoking Article 48 and the Enablin...
The United States avoided an Enabling‑Act style legal seizure of power largely because of the constitutional architecture—separation of powers, federalism and a written charter that dispersed authorit...
The passed the on 23 March 1933 in a tightly staged session at the that combined legal procedure with concerted political intimidation and the exclusion of deputies, producing a supermajority that tra...
In the immediate months after became chancellor in January 1933, civil servants and judges largely accommodated and enabled by implementing new laws, purging targeted colleagues, and reframing loyalty...
Article 48 was a constitutional emergency clause that allowed the Reich President to suspend civil liberties and issue binding decrees to restore public order; in practice it became a routine tool use...
The Enabling Act of March 23, 1933 legally transferred core legislative powers from Germany’s Reichstag to Hitler’s cabinet, allowing laws — even constitutional amendments — to be made by decree and e...
Adolf Hitler ordered the German invasion of Poland that began on 1 September 1939, an act that prompted Britain and France to declare war and is conventionally marked as the start of World War II in E...