Nazi deputies break up a Reichstag committee as farm foreclosures are halted

Politics and power

Government, terror and persecution

1. Parliament midday, Berlin, Reichstag

   Nazi members seize the chair of the Reichstag watchdog committee

   When the committee’s chairman, Paul Löbe, opened the sitting at midday, Nazi members shouted him down for several minutes. The Nazi deputy Hans Frank (“Frank II”) then declared that the largest party would not tolerate “a Marxist and slanderer” in the chair, took over the chairman’s seat as deputy chairman, opened the sitting with a tribute to the dead of Neunkirchen and closed it at once. Social Democrats and Communists walked out under abuse. At the door the German People’s Party deputy Morath was struck in the back and in the face by the Nazi deputy Julius Streicher, who claimed Morath had smoked during the tribute; Morath denied it. The Social Democratic members protested that Reichstag President Göring had known of threats to prevent the committee meeting and had done nothing.^2,3

2. Persecution evening, Berlin, Reichstag

   Police search Communist rooms inside the Reichstag

   In the evening, while the Communist deputy Ernst Torgler was giving a talk to about 100 people in the Reichstag building, criminal police appeared, made everyone present prove their identity and searched the Communist group’s room. The political police said they had acted, with the approval of the Reichstag’s director, on urgent suspicion of preparations for high treason, and that a large quantity of material had been seized and was being examined.^3,4

3. The states Berlin

   Göring’s men to speak for Prussia in the Reichsrat

   The Reich Commissioners governing Prussia named themselves as Prussia’s plenipotentiaries in the Reichsrat: Papen, Göring, Popitz, Hugenberg, Rust and Hölscher, with senior civil servants as deputies. At the same time three ministerial directors, Badt, Brecht and Cossmann, were sent into provisional retirement; Arnold Brecht had until then spoken in the Reichsrat for the deposed Prussian government of Otto Braun.^5,1

4. The states Rhineland and Westphalia

   One police chief for the Rhineland and Westphalia

   By a decree of 14 February Göring made the senior police commander in the west, Stieler von Heydekampf, special police commissioner for the provinces of Westphalia and the Rhineland, answerable to Göring alone and in charge of all state and municipal police and of the rural gendarmerie there, until after the elections.^1,4

5. Propaganda evening, Berlin, Reich Chancellery

   Hitler briefs the Nazi press, then the SA and SS leaders

   In the evening Hitler received editors of the Nazi press from across Germany and told them that the press must stop chasing sensation and popularity and become a “faithful mirror” of German life and spirit. Afterwards the leaders of the SA and SS, under their chief of staff Ernst Röhm, gathered in the Reich Chancellery to receive their orders for deployment in the election campaign.⁴

6. Government 11:00, Berlin, Reich Chancellery

   Cabinet backs the farmers and talks about war pensions

   At 11:00 the cabinet approved the farm enforcement decree. Göring, outside the agenda, pressed for higher war pensions and for abolishing the 50-pfennig fee that insured workers paid for a sickness certificate; the matter was put off to a meeting on 16 February. Frick reported that Hindenburg had given money from his own fund for the victims of Neunkirchen, where a public appeal had also been opened.¹