Enabling Act of 1933
수권법 (1933)
The law passed by the German Reichstag on 23 March 1933 and promulgated the next day, which gave the cabinet, above all Chancellor Hitler, the power to make and enforce laws without the Reichstag or the president. It was the pivotal step from the Weimar Republic to the Nazi dictatorship.
In depth
Its official title was the Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich. Under the emergency decree that followed the Reichstag fire, the 81 Communist deputies had been arrested or driven into hiding and lost their seats, and the SA surrounded the Kroll Opera House where the Reichstag sat. The Catholic Centre Party voted in favour after being promised guarantees for religious freedom. With 26 Social Democrats also arrested or in hiding, and after Otto Wels spoke against it, the bill passed by 444 votes to 94, all the noes from the SPD. Limited to four years, it was renewed in 1937 and 1941 and made indefinite by Hitler’s decree in 1943.