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Potsdam Day, also known as the Tag von Potsdam or Potsdam Celebration, was a ceremony for the re-opening of the Reichstag following the Reichstag fire, held on 21 March 1933, shortly after that month's German federal election.
Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels selected the site of Potsdam, as it was the centre of the old Kingdom of Prussia of Frederick the Great, as well as the German Empire of Otto von Bismarck. The date was chosen because 21 March 1871 was when the first Reichstag of Imperial Germany opened. [1] [2]
Among the attendees were Crown Prince Wilhelm, guest of honour and representative of the Hohenzollern dynasty, and his three surviving brothers Prince Eitel Friedrich and Prince Oskar, both Der Stahlhelm members, and Prince August Wilhelm, an Oberführer in the SA, the Nazi stormtroopers. Prince Adalbert was the only brother who did not attend the ceremony. [3]
Broadcast in its entirety on radio, the festivities began with religious services. Protestant members of the Reichstag, including Chairman Hermann Göring, held services at the Church of Saint Nicholas presided over by Otto Dibelius. Catholics held services in Peter and Paul Church. Neither Hitler nor Goebbels attended the religious services, instead placing wreaths on the graves of various Nazi "martyrs", including Horst Wessel, [4] but attended a later state ceremony at the Garrison Church. Speeches were made by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg and Hitler, the new Reich Chancellor, who had been in office less than two months, after which the two had a solemn handshake, symbolizing the "marriage of the old grandeur and new power". Famously, Hitler, who was dressed in civilian clothes, bowed his head deeply during the handshake with Hindenburg, who was wearing his full military uniform. Hindenburg laid a wreath at the tomb of Frederick the Great.
Afterwards, parades were held with the participation of the Reichswehr, SA, SS, Stahlhelm, and others. Finally the deputies convened the new Reichstag at the Kroll Opera House, as the original Reichstag Building had been rendered unusable by the fire. [1] That evening, celebrations ended with a torchlight parade and a performance of Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Berlin State Opera with Hitler in attendance. [3]
A year later, two- and five-Reichsmark coins showing the church and the date "21 März 1933" were minted. They are not rare, but larger numbers of both denominations were also issued in 1934–1935 without the commemorative date. [5]
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German philologist and Nazi politician who was the Gauleiter of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945. He was one of Adolf Hitler's closest and most devoted followers, known for his skills in public speaking and his deeply virulent antisemitism which was evident in his publicly voiced views. He advocated progressively harsher discrimination, including the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust.
The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was a historical period of Germany from 9 November 1918 to 23 March 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic. The period's informal name is derived from the city of Weimar, which hosted the constituent assembly that established its government. In English, the republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" not commonly used until the 1930s.
Wilhelm Frick was a convicted war criminal and prominent German politician of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as Minister of the Interior in Adolf Hitler's cabinet from 1933 to 1943 and as the last governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
The Enabling Act of 1933, officially titled Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich, was a law that gave the German Cabinet – most importantly, the Chancellor – the power to make and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or Weimar President Paul von Hindenburg, leading to the rise of Nazi Germany. Critically, the Enabling Act allowed the Chancellor to bypass the system of checks and balances in the government.
Reichswehr was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first years of the Third Reich. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army was dissolved in order to be reshaped into a peacetime army. From it a provisional Reichswehr was formed in March 1919. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the rebuilt German Army was subject to severe limitations in size, structure and armament. The official formation of the Reichswehr took place on 1 January 1921 after the limitations had been met. The German armed forces kept the name Reichswehr until Adolf Hitler's 1935 proclamation of the "restoration of military sovereignty", at which point it became part of the new Wehrmacht.
Alfred Ernst Christian Alexander Hugenberg was an influential German businessman and politician. An important figure in nationalist politics in Germany during the first three decades of the twentieth century, Hugenberg became the country's leading media proprietor during the 1920s. As leader of the German National People's Party, he played a part in helping Adolf Hitler become chancellor of Germany and served in his first cabinet in 1933, hoping to control Hitler and use him as his tool. The plan failed, and by the end of 1933 Hugenberg had been pushed to the sidelines. Although he continued to serve as a guest member of the Reichstag until 1945, he wielded no political influence. Following World War II, he was interned by the British in 1946 and classified as "exonerated" in 1951 after undergoing denazification.
The President of the Reich was the German head of state under the Weimar constitution, which was officially in force from 1919 to 1945. In English he was usually simply referred to as the President of Germany.
The early timeline of Nazism begins with its origins and continues until Hitler's rise to power.
The Hitler cabinet was the government of Nazi Germany between 30 January 1933 and 30 April 1945 upon the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of the German Reich by President Paul von Hindenburg. It was contrived by the national conservative politician Franz von Papen, who reserved the office of the Vice-Chancellor for himself. Originally, Hitler's first cabinet was called the Reich Cabinet of National Salvation, which was a coalition of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and the national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP). The formation of a Nazi dominated government marked the beginning of Hitler's dictatorship, which lasted until his suicide during the defeat of Nazi Germany. Hitler's cabinet was succeeded by the short-lived Goebbels cabinet, with Karl Dönitz appointed by Hitler as the new Reichspräsident.
Presidential elections were held in Germany on 13 March 1932, with a runoff on 10 April. Independent incumbent Paul von Hindenburg won a second seven-year term against Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Communist Party (KPD) leader Ernst Thälmann also ran and received more than ten percent of the vote in the runoff. Theodor Duesterberg, the deputy leader of the World War I veterans' organization Der Stahlhelm, ran in the first round but dropped out of the runoff. This was the second and final direct election to the office of President of the Reich, Germany's head of state under the Weimar Republic.
Prince August Wilhelm Heinrich Günther Viktor of Prussia, nicknamed "Auwi", was the fourth son of German Emperor Wilhelm II by his first wife, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. He was a vocal supporter of Nazism and of Adolf Hitler.
Federal elections were held in Germany on 5 March 1933, after the Nazi seizure of power on 30 January 1933 and just six days after the Reichstag fire. The election saw Nazi stormtroopers unleash a widespread campaign of violence against the Communist Party (KPD), left-wingers, trade unionists, the Social Democratic Party, and the Centre Party. They were the last multi-party all-German elections until 1990.
The Harzburg Front was a short-lived radical right-wing, anti-democratic political alliance in Weimar Germany, formed in 1931 as an attempt to present a unified opposition to the government of Chancellor Heinrich Brüning. It was a coalition of the national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP) under millionaire press-baron Alfred Hugenberg with Adolf Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), the leadership of Der Stahlhelm paramilitary veterans' association, the Agricultural League and the Pan-German League organizations.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Being one of its most popular speakers, he was made the party leader after he threatened to otherwise leave.
The government of Nazi Germany was a totalitarian dictatorship governed by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party according to the Führerprinzip. Nazi Germany was established in January 1933 with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, followed by suspension of basic rights with the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act which gave Hitler's regime the power to pass and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or German president, and de facto ended with Germany's surrender in World War II on 8 May 1945 and de jure ended with the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945.
The Secret Meeting of 20 February 1933 was a secret meeting held by Adolf Hitler and 20 to 25 industrialists at the official residence of the President of the Reichstag Hermann Göring in Berlin. Its purpose was to raise funds for the election campaign of the Nazi Party.
Events in the year 1933 in Germany.
The Garrison Church was a Protestant church in the historic centre of Potsdam. Built by order of King Frederick William I of Prussia according to plans by Philipp Gerlach from 1730 to 1735, it was considered as a major work of Prussian Baroque architecture. With a height of almost 90 metres, it was Potsdam's tallest building and shaped its cityscape. In addition, the Garrison Church was part of the city's famous "Three Churches View" together with the St. Nicholas Church and the Holy Spirit Church. After it was damaged during the British bombing in World War II, the East German authorities demolished the church in 1968. After the German reunification, the Garrison Church is currently being rebuilt as a centre for remembrance and reconciliation.
The 1929 German Referendum was an attempt during the Weimar Republic to use popular legislation to annul the agreement in the Young Plan between the German government and the World War I opponents of the German Reich regarding the amount and conditions of reparations payments. The referendum was the result of the initiative "Against the Enslavement of the German People " launched in 1929 by right-wing parties and organizations. It called for an overall revision of the Treaty of Versailles and stipulated that government officials who accepted new reparation obligations would be committing treason.
The abdication of Wilhelm II as German Emperor and King of Prussia was declared by Chancellor Maximilian of Baden on 9 November 1918; it was formally affirmed by a written statement of Wilhelm on 28 November, made while in exile in Amerongen, the Netherlands. The abdication caused the German Empire to dissolve and concluded the House of Hohenzollern's 500-year rule over Prussia and its predecessor state, Brandenburg. Wilhelm reigned from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. As a result of the abdication and the German Revolution of 1918–19, the nobility as a legally-defined class was abolished. Following the proclamation of the Weimar Constitution on 11 August 1919, all Germans were declared equal before the law. The rulers of the twenty-two constituent states of the Empire also had to relinquish their monarchical titles and domains.
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