Is it 2021 or 1933?
On February 27, 1933, four weeks after Adolph Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, the Reichstag (Germany’s capitol building where national government meets) was purposefully set ablaze. Hitler reportedly arrived within 20 minutes of the fire’s start, declaring:
“This is a God-given signal! If this fire, as I believe, turns out to be the handiwork of Communists, then there is nothing that shall stop us now from crushing out this murderous pest with an iron fist.“
Fascism had moved to Germany and would not leave her soil before millions had been captured and killed by the national thought police. Innocent citizens of targeted nations were either outright slaughtered or literally worked to death for committing the crime of not declaring unfailing fealty to the Nazi Party. The successful ascension of the Third Reich can be found in the Reichstag blaze. Hitler et al ensured themselves a position of unchallenged tyranny by using the fire, immediately outlawing the opposition via what is commonly called the Reichstag Fire Decree.
Two decrees, actually, signed by German President Hindenburg, For the Defense of Nation and State and To Combat Treason against the German Nation and Treasonable Activities, were enacted on February 28, 1933, the day after the Reichstag fire. Both laws made political dissent a criminal act. Hitler’s iron fist would eventually pound down upon the heads of stunned and frightened citizens throughout the regions of Germany, Poland and Sudetenland (modern Czechoslovakia.)
Outlawing challenging political entities was a good first step toward eliminating influences that might hinder the Nazi quest to create a “national community.” To really pull recalcitrantly conquered peoples in line, the Reich passed their Malicious Practices Act on March 21, 1933, officially making political dissent a crime. Dissent included gossiping about or making fun of the government. The Reich established special courts to try those the Party accused of “malicious attacks.” Guilty offenders were sentenced to prison or concentration camp. Language in, “For the Defense Against Malicious Attacks against the Government” includes:
1 Whoever purposely makes or circulates a statement of a factual nature which is untrue or grossly exaggerated or which may seriously harm the welfare of the Reich or of a state, or the reputation of the National government or of a state government or of parties or organizations supporting these governments, is to be punished, provided that no more severe punishment is decreed in other regulations, with imprisonment of up to two years and, if he makes or spreads the statement publicly, with imprisonment of not less than three months.
2 If serious damage to the Reich or a state has resulted from this deed, penal servitude may be imposed.
3 Whoever commits an act through negligence will be punished with imprisonment of up to three months, or by a fine.
Furthering the criminalisation of dissent, the Third Reich upgraded/replaced the Malicious Practices Act with the Law against Malicious Attacks on State and Party decree, December 1934. This expanded decree now made criminals out of citizens who engaged in “malicious, rabble-rousing remarks or those indicating a base mentality.” It was now illegal to criticise the Nazi Party, as well as important figures in the Party and government.
March 24, 1933 the Reichstag passes their Enabling Act, nullifying the constitution, turning Germany into a nation governed by the Nazi Party. “Laws passed by the government” are declared to override the constitution and Chancellor Hitler is given power to punish people he deems enemies of the state. Punish them without benefit of trial or recorded judgement.
On this same date the police commissioner for Munich, Heinrich Himmler, announced the opening of Dachau’s first concentration camp with a capacity to hold 5,000 political prisoners. Social Democrats and Communists soon filled the camp.
By May of 1933, all of the nations labor unions had been dissolved; workers of all sort were now members of one union, the German Labor Front.
Continuing his power hungry craze for totalitarian control, Hitler wholly eliminated the political opposition in June; Germany’s Social Democratic Party was formally outlawed. The Nazi Party was the only political party permitted in the nation by mid-July of 1933.
Alfons Heck, author of A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days When God Wore a Swastika and The Burden of Hitler’s Legacy, was a member of the Hitler Youth. He reflects back upon a visit from his grandparents in 1938:
In retrospect, I think it was the last time my father railed against the regime in front of me. . . . He wasn’t much of a drinker, but when he had a few too many, he had a tendency to shout down everyone else, not a small feat among the men of my family. “You mark my words, Mother,” he yelled, “that goddamned Austrian housepainter is going to kill us all before he’s through conquering the world.” And then his baleful eye fell on me. “They are going to bury you in this goddamned monkey suit [his Hitler Youth uniform], my boy,” he chuckled, but that was too much for my grandmother.
“Why don’t you leave him alone, Du dummer Narr [you stupid fool],” she said sharply, “and watch your mouth; you want to end up in the KZ [the German abbreviation for concentration camp]?”
He laughed bitterly and added: “So, it has come that far already, your own son turning you in?” My grandmother told me to leave the kitchen, but the last thing I heard was my father’s sarcastic voice. “Are you people all blind? This thing with the Jews is just the beginning.”
My grandmother had every reason to warn him about talking loosely, for his classification as “politically unreliable” surely would have sent him to a KZ had anyone reported his remarks, even within the family. But there were also two of our farmhands at the table, and Hans, the younger of the two, had recently announced his decision to apply for party membership. He had ambitions to attend an agricultural school and knew full well [that] party membership would help him get in. Perhaps luckily for my father, Hans was getting pretty drunk himself, although I doubt he would have reported my father had he been stone sober. Despite the fact that I later attained a high rank in the Hitler Youth, which required me to be especially vigilant, I never considered my father to be dangerous to our new order. I merely thought him a fool who had long since been left behind.
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February 27, 1933 and January 6, 2021 bear alarming similarities in construct and result.