Democracy Destroyed The First 100 Days of Nazi Rule

Day 8, Monday 6 February 1933: Presidential decree removes Prussia's elected government; Papen dissolves the Landtag

Day 8 of 100

Presidential decree removes Prussia’s elected government; Papen dissolves the Landtag

Hindenburg transferred the last powers of Otto Braun’s elected Prussian government to the Reich Commissioner, Papen, who then dissolved the Prussian Landtag together with its president, Kerrl, over the objection of Konrad Adenauer. The same day Hindenburg assured Bavaria that no one planned to override the states. In Staßfurt a headmaster told his school of the murdered mayor; in Berlin the flu began, briefly, to ebb.

An older man in a hat and tweed suit carrying a briefcase walks down stone steps
Otto Braun, Prussian Prime Minister, leaving the Reichstag building after its dissolution in July 1930. The two men behind him are not identified in the archive record. For context Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-10131 / CC-BY-SA 3.0. CC BY-SA 3.0 de, via Wikimedia Commons

Since the “Prussian coup” of 20 July 1932 Prussia had had two governments: Reich commissioners running the ministries, and Otto Braun’s cabinet, which the State Court had confirmed in its right to represent Prussia in the Reichsrat and towards the Landtag. The decree of 6 February simply handed those remaining rights to the Reich Commissioner, citing the confusion caused by two sets of instructions to officials. With Braun’s seat in the three-man body that could dissolve the Landtag now in Papen’s hands, Papen and the Landtag president Kerrl dissolved the parliament the same day, with effect from 4 March; the State Council president, Konrad Adenauer, refused to take part and declared the act invalid. Prussia would vote on 5 March together with the Reich.

Laws and decrees

Signed Decree, Reich President (under Article 48(1) of the constitution) RGBl. 1933 I S. 43

Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zur Herstellung geordneter Regierungsverhältnisse in Preußen

Decree of the Reich President for the Restoration of Orderly Government in Prussia

Declared that Prussia’s conduct towards the State Court judgment of 25 October 1932 had caused confusion endangering the public good, and transferred to the Reich Commissioner for Prussia the powers that judgment had left to the Prussian State Ministry; in force on promulgation.1

Read the full text in German and English

Signed Ordinance, Reich Minister of the Interior RGBl. 1933 I S. 49–51

Verordnung zur Reichstagswahl

Ordinance on the Reichstag election (voting while travelling)

Set up polling stations for travellers holding voting certificates in major railway stations for the election of 5 March, including the Anhalter, Friedrichstraße, Görlitzer, Lehrter, Potsdamer, Schlesischer and Stettiner stations and Zoologischer Garten in Berlin, with voting hours fitted to train traffic.8

Read the full text in German and English

Politics and power

Government, terror and persecution

  1. The states Berlin

    Braun government stripped of its remaining rights

    A decree issued under Article 48 transferred to the Reich Commissioner for Prussia and his appointees the powers that the State Court’s judgment of 25 October 1932 had left with the Prussian State Ministry. The official explanation said that government with divided authority had proved unworkable: rights such as pardons had gone unexercised, and officials could no more serve two masters than soldiers could. Hindenburg signed; Papen countersigned for the Chancellor.1,2,12

  2. Parliament Berlin

    Prussian Landtag dissolved over Adenauer’s protest

    Taking Braun’s place in the three-man college of Prime Minister, Landtag president and State Council president, Papen voted with Kerrl to dissolve the Prussian Landtag with effect from 4 March. Konrad Adenauer, president of the State Council, refused to take part in the vote and declared both the removal of the Braun government and the dissolution legally invalid.3,4

  3. The states

    Hindenburg reassures Bavaria

    Replying to Prime Minister Held, Hindenburg assured Bavaria that neither the Reich government nor he himself had plans to destroy the sovereignty of the states or to replace their governments with Reich commissioners. He saw no need to receive the Bavarian minister Schäffer, since Papen had reported on his talk with him the previous day.5

  4. Propaganda

    Newspaper bans spread

    The government’s decree for the “protection of the German people” was promulgated, coming into force the next day. In Silesia the district governor in Breslau banned the Waldenburg newspaper Schlesische Bergwacht from 6 to 8 February for printing the SPD’s election appeal. State secretary Lammers informed the President’s office that the press had been told Hitler had not broken off relations with the Centre Party, whose fifteen written questions he regarded as a delaying tactic.4,6,7

Everyday life

What else was happening in Germany

  1. Education Staßfurt

    A Staßfurt school mourns its mayor

    In the hall of the Staßfurt Reformrealgymnasium the headmaster, Heinrich Hawickhorst, gave an address of mourning for Hermann Kasten, recalling how the mayor had brought greenery, flowers and new housing to a grimy town. His closing wish that Kasten might rest in peace in a fatherland of peace was later quoted by the town’s historians against what followed.9

  2. Society Berlin

    Flu eases in Berlin’s hospitals

    By Monday morning Berlin’s hospitals reported 373 free beds, and admissions of flu patients had fallen sharply over the weekend. The AOK recorded only 338 new cases in the 48 hours from Saturday to Monday midday, against 1,055 in the single day before, and fewer school classes were being closed; the respite would last barely a day.4,10

Voices

Our First Mayor is dead. Dead! Not passed away after a long life, in contemplative old age ... but fallen by cowardly assassination.

Heinrich Hawickhorst, headmaster of the Reformrealgymnasium, Staßfurt Address of mourning for Hermann Kasten in the school hall, Monday 6 February 1933; a copy survives among the papers of Kasten’s family and is quoted by the town of Staßfurt. Translated by this site.9

In Berlin today

A long neo-Renaissance stone building with statues on its roofline, seen across an empty street with lamp posts
The Prussian Landtag building in the Prinz-Albrecht-Straße (today the Niederkirchnerstraße) in 1932. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R98038 / CC-BY-SA 3.0. CC BY-SA 3.0 de, via Wikimedia Commons

Former Prussian Landtag

Niederkirchnerstraße 5 (then Prinz-Albrecht-Straße), 10117 Berlin

Then
The Prussian parliament that met here was dissolved on 6 February by Papen and Kerrl, two days after it had refused to dissolve itself; it was elected anew on 5 March.3,11
Today
The building is the seat of the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin, which moved here in 1993 after a rapid conversion.

Open in OpenStreetMap

More pictures

A large neo-Renaissance stone parliament building behind a lawn
The former Prussian Landtag in the Niederkirchnerstraße, today the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin. For context Gunnar Klack / CC BY-SA 4.0. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sources

  1. Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zur Herstellung geordneter Regierungsverhältnisse in Preußen. Vom 6. Februar 1933 documentArchiv.de, RGBl. 1933 I S. 43
  2. Akten der Reichskanzlei. Regierung Hitler 1933–1945, Bd. I, Nr. 13: Chefbesprechung vom 4. Februar 1933, 13 Uhr Bundesarchiv / Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, note 5 (WTB report of 6 February 1933 on the reasons for the decree)
  3. Akten der Reichskanzlei. Regierung Hitler 1933–1945, Bd. I, Nr. 14: Sitzung der Kommissare des Reichs für Preußen, 4. Februar 1933 Bundesarchiv / Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, note 8 (dissolution of the Landtag on 6 February with effect from 4 March)
  4. Vorwärts, Morgenausgabe Nr. 59–63, 7 February 1933 Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, Zeitungsportal, p. 1, 'Ereignisse der letzten drei Tage'; p. 2, report from Waldenburg on the ban of the Schlesische Bergwacht; p. 3, 'Grippewelle geht zurück'
  5. Akten der Reichskanzlei. Regierung Hitler 1933–1945, Bd. I, Nr. 15: Der Bayerische Ministerpräsident Held an den Reichspräsidenten, München, 4. Februar 1933 Bundesarchiv / Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, note 3 (Hindenburg's reply of 6 February)
  6. Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutze des Deutschen Volkes. Vom 4. Februar 1933 documentArchiv.de, § 26 and note 3 (promulgated 6 February 1933)
  7. Akten der Reichskanzlei. Regierung Hitler 1933–1945, Bd. I, Nr. 16: Staatssekretär Lammers an das Büro des Reichspräsidenten, 6. Februar 1933 Bundesarchiv / Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, R 43 I/1310, S. 137–139
  8. Verordnung zur Reichstagswahl. Vom 6. Februar 1933 documentArchiv.de, RGBl. 1933 I S. 49–51, § 1
  9. »… gefallen durch feigen Meuchelmord«. Hermann Kasten Stadt Staßfurt (J. Kleemann, T.-A. Matzke, T. Hoffmann, 2013), pp. 2–3
  10. Vorwärts, Morgenausgabe Nr. 65, 8 February 1933 Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, Zeitungsportal, p. 3, 'Neue Grippewelle'
  11. Geschichte: Ein Haus mit Geschichte Abgeordnetenhaus von Berlin
  12. Akten der Reichskanzlei. Regierung Hitler 1933–1945, Bd. I, Nr. 2: Ministerbesprechung vom 31. Januar 1933, 16 Uhr Bundesarchiv / Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, note 7 (the State Court judgment of 25 October 1932 and the rights left to the Braun government)

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