Did Hitler ever invoke emergency powers?

submitted by kiwiheretic from self.history

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[–]magnora7 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

I think after the burning of the Reichstag (The national congress building in Germany) he invoked the emergency powers that basically made him dictator for life.

But I'm sure there likely were earlier attempts at him trying to grab power through emergency acts, I would be curious to learn about them too.

[–]Antarchomachus 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I think after the burning of the Reichstag (The national congress building in Germany) he invoked the emergency powers that basically made him dictator for life.

Interesting, but I guess not surprising that the legacy of using 'Emergency Powers' for tyrannical purposes goes back this far.

[–]kiwiheretic[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Yes and even more interesting that he got it passed as a minority government.

[–]Antarchomachus 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Looked up the history of this particular arrangement, it goes back a long ways.

"The need for powers that exceed ordinary limits emerged along with the concept of limited republican, or constitutional, government in ancient Rome. When confronted with a direct threat to the constitutional system itself, the Roman Senate could decide to appoint a dictator for a period of no more than six months. During that time, however, the dictator exercised unrestrained power, limited only by that individual’s own commitment to the republic itself."

This provision was revived in the modern era first by Niccolò Machiavelli, who defended the assignment of extraordinary power to a ruler to make it possible to save a society as well as its political institutions.

The conviction that a constitutional system required the ability to cope with unexpected and immediate threats was embraced by John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

This practice was particularly essential in the constitution of Weimar Germany, which came into effect after World War I. The emergency provisions in the Weimar constitution were invoked more than 200 times, initially to combat violent insurrection and direct threats to the maintenance of the constitutional system itself. In the early 1930s, however, these provisions were invoked with increasing frequency to combat a wide range of social and domestic problems, including economic failure. Although these provisions probably allowed Weimar Germany to survive, ultimately, these provisions also allowed Adolf Hitler to seize and consolidate his power, formally exercising the constitution’s emergency powers as chancellor in 1933. Hitler’s exercise of power found intellectual support in the writing of the jurist Carl Schmitt, who insisted that no constitution can possibly provide for all contingencies and that the executive must be able to act beyond the limits of ordinary law if liberal democracy itself is to survive.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/emergency-powers

[–]Markimus 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Hitler’s exercise of power found intellectual support in the writing of the jurist Carl Schmitt, who insisted that no constitution can possibly provide for all contingencies and that the executive must be able to act beyond the limits of ordinary law if liberal democracy itself is to survive.

“The exception is more interesting than the rule. The rule proves nothing; the exception proves everything. In the exception the power of real life breaks through the crust of a mechanism that has become torpid by repetition.”

“Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.”

Schmitt is a fantastic read for anyone serious about political and legal philosophy. The Concept of the Political and Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy are must reads for people with brains.