#how hitler overturned a democracy in 53 days

[contemplatingoutlander]

"Hitler had campaigned on the promise of draining the 'parliamentarian swamp'—den parlamentarischen Sumpf."

--Timothy W. Ryback, The Atlantic, Jan. 8, 2025

Ninety-two years ago this month, on Monday morning, January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the 15th chancellor of the Weimar Republic. In one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy, Hitler set about destroying a constitutional republic through constitutional means. What follows is a step-by-step account of how Hitler systematically disabled and then dismantled his country’s democratic structures and processes in less than two months’ time—specifically, one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes. The minutes, as we will see, mattered. [...] Joseph Goebbels, who was present that day as a National Socialist Reichstag delegate [when the Reischstag voted to give Hitler dictatorial powers], would later marvel that the National Socialists had succeeded in dismantling a federated constitutional republic entirely through constitutional means. Seven years earlier, in 1926, after being elected to the Reichstag as one of the first 12 National Socialist delegates, Goebbels had been similarly struck: He was surprised to discover that he and these 11 other men (including Hermann Göring and Hans Frank), seated in a single row on the periphery of a plenary hall in their brown uniforms with swastika armbands, had—even as self-declared enemies of the Weimar Republic—been accorded free first-class train travel and subsidized meals, along with the capacity to disrupt, obstruct, and paralyze democratic structures and processes at will. “The big joke on democracy,” he observed, “is that it gives its mortal enemies the means to its own destruction.” [emphasis added]

Although I don't believe that Trump is a Hitler, he is a fascist, and he (as well as members of his future administration like Project 2025's Russell Voight) seem to be drawing lessons about how to quickly consolidate power for Trump's second administration from other countries' previous & current fascist/authoritarian governments.

This is a terrifying article, because there are so many echoes of Hitler in the strategies that Trump has suggested he might use here in America, including "draining the swamp" by replacing civil servants with partisans, viewing opposition parties as the "enemy" (and in Hitler's case declaring some of them illegal), using the legal system against political enemies, dismantling the opposition media, attacking academia, scapegoating certain groups of people, considering using the military against civilian protests/"unrest," giving immunity to police who use lethal force, and consolidating power in the executive branch.

This is a gift 🎁 link, so there is no paywall. I encourage you to read the entire article

[edited]