The Reich government passes laws to strengthen the dictatorship and the “Aryan race”
By passing the Enabling Act on 24 March 1933, the Reichstag had effectively ceded legislative power to Adolf Hitler’s new government. Having abrogated the separation of powers, neutered the Reichstag and authorized the government to pass laws that ignored the republican constitution, Germany was well on its way to becoming a dictatorship. The following months saw the state apply further pressure on the institutions of what had been a pluralistic society, banning opposition parties such as the SPD and forcing the Catholic Centre Party to disband. With only Hitler’s NSDAP left standing, the Law against the Formation of New Parties – passed on 14 July 1933 – meant that Germany was now a one-party state.
On the same day, the government passed the Law on the Revocation of Naturalizations and the Deprivation of German Citizenship to provide the legal basis on which to expel individuals who had acquired German citizenship. This meant that the government could not only remove Jews who had come to Germany from Eastern Europe since 1918, but also prevent the return of opponents who had fled the Third Reich. 14 July 1933 also saw the announcement of the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, which authorized doctors to effect the forcible sterilization of alcoholics and individuals deemed to harbour a “hereditary illness”. This marked the beginning of a long campaign of “racial hygiene” designed to “purify” and “improve” the German race.
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