Re:Germany, in a First, Shuts Down Left-Wing Extremist Website
by elcapitan on Saturday August 26, 2017 @03:02PM
(#15106850)
If you read your history book, you may also remember that that vote was by no means an actual vote. Opposing parties were threatened and the parliament was filled with stormtrooper thugs. Using that vote to deduce any kind of acceptance of the violent new ruler is just absurd.
However, we both might want to reread our history books a bit. One crucial step in the Nazi coup was the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave the NSDAP or rather Hitlers Cabinet - despite not having a majority in the parliament - the right to pass laws. The communists had been suppressed before and could not vote and I remembered that the SPD abstained. That's where I'm wrong - they voted against, at least those present. Some were not present at the vote. The rest of the parliament, including the Zentrum and the Liberals (which had 5 seats) voted in favor, granting the required 2/3 majority. Many Zentrum members, including the head of the party at that time were strict nationalist. Other members voted under duress. So yes, the Zentrum had a part in the dealing that brought Hitler to power. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933 and https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erm%C3%A4chtigungsgesetz_vom_2...
There's a fairly interesting list of Ex-NSDAP members that after the war joined other parties. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_ehemaliger_NSDAP-Mitglie... (among them Filbinger, and, notably, Hans Furler, President of the European Parliament and Genscher, the Exterior Minister at the time of the Reuinion)