The main lawful mean was the Enabling act of March 1933 shown in source A.
This was an extremely powerful act that broke down most political barriers to Hitler’s dictatorship. It allowed Hitler to pass laws and legislation without the official consent of the president. It allowed him to change the Weimar constitution and therefore take away peoples civil liberties. It seriously reduced the effect of the opposition and began the spate of a series of acts, which further consolidated Hitler’s power.
After banning the KPD and SPD on the 14 of July 1933 he passed the law Against the Formation of New Parties. And to reduce threat from the church on the 20th of July he passed the Concordant Agreement Between State and Vatican. Along with the Law of Reconstruction of the State on the 15 January 1934 all these were made possible due to the Enabling Act. In fact most of the things he did would have been illegal without it. The only other truly lawful mean that gave Hitler power was the death of president Hindenburg in august 1934.
This allowed Hitler to become president as well as chancellor and therefore overall Fuhrer. The way Hitler used unlawful means, as a way to consolidate his power was very clever, he had many ways of hiding the law breaking under a blanket of good. As is shown between sources B to D the night of the long knives was one of them. In source D and from my own knowledge it is shown that Hitler ordered the night of the long knives so that he could murder his opposition and therefore strengthen his power. This is strictly evil and illegal.
But when we compare it with sources B and C we can see that he not only got away with organised murder but that he was praised for it even by Hindenburg himself “ I express to you my deeply felt gratitude and my sincere appreciation. ” In source C Hitler makes a speech, which underlines the reason the country thanked him for his unlawful act “ I was responsible for the fate of the people, and thereby became supreme judge of the people. The night of the long knives consolidated Hitler’s power in many ways it weekend the socially radical SA; it intimidated anyone who would be against Hitler’s rule; it satisfied the right wing and the army by decreasing power of the SA and it gained great public support. Yet this was not the only unlawful consolidation of power previous to the 30th of June 1934 there had been two other main ones. The Reichstag fire of February 1933 although not proven and subject to much personal view from historians, evidence points to the fact that Hitler ordered the fire so he could blame it on the communists and therefore ban the KPD, Improving the nazi standing in the Reichstag. In this occasion by hiding the truth from the people and blaming an enemy of his power he managed to keep public support and eliminate his communist opposition.
It was not difficult to do this to the communists as they had little public support due to the fact that people were afraid of them. During the period of 1933 the SA had been overthrowing local governments with violence so that Hitler had more centralised control over them. Then in January 1934 the Law for the Reconstruction of the State was passed, this made what had previously been illegally happening the law. Another way of hiding unlawfulness: making it legal so that people forget it was ever illegal.
So in order after Hitler came into power on the 30th January 1933 the Reichstag fire happened persuading Hindenburg to pass the decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the Nation and State. This suppressed the communists and banned The KPD party. After this the Enabling Act was passed which made almost everything Hitler do up until the night of the long knives legal. By slowly getting rid of the opposition parties or making them dissolve into his own Hitler eventual gained a majority in the Reichstag.
During this time he had taken care of the trade unions by creating the German labour front and the church with a concordant agreement. Industrialists were pleased due to the eradication of TU’s. He then took care of local governments and finally his own SA. His last obstacle was president Hindenburg who died in August 1934 and left it clear for Hitler to rule as a dictator.
