It was the Center Party who voted for the Enabling Act of 1933
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933
because they didn’t want to buck party lines.
That Center Party was the Catholic party.
They voted in favor of their own destruction even though many of them argued against it.
Looks like they had a lot of Pelosi types
and in turn they gave him his power.
Lera:
Correct, that was the name of it, I couldn’t remember it but it was the party that the Catholics in Germany had been historically part of since Bismark made the German Republic in the 1870’s.
The Catholic Center party was very scared of a unified Germany and fought against and Bismark tried to keep Catholics out of the government. So there was a healthy anti-Catholicism still present among those Germans who suscribed to “a Radical form of German Nationalism”.
With the advent of “State Socialism”, the Catholics began to not oppose Bismark as much but still retained their own Catholic-Center Party.
In the 1933 elections, they were the staunchest opponents of Hitler but they did not put up a fight and with that contested election of 1933, the Catholics did not want to be seen as stoping Germany from being united and they sort of caved in, which was not to their ultimate good nor the good of the German people as a whole.
Lera:
I appreciate you providing objective evidence on the Hitler and Germany history and not rely on polemics. The link you provided was good. Here is an article from History Today that shows the same voting partern, the Catholic Center party and the Bavarian party [which was not listed in the wikipedia article] combined for over 15% of the vote and as the article showed, Hitler polled better in Protestant areas vs Catholic.
http://www.johndclare.net/Weimar6_Geary.htm
Unfortunately, the Catholic Center party caved in to allow for a President to take power and basically suspend parliament and then Hidenburg in an attempt to unite the factions appointed Hitler Chancellor without German parlimentary approval.
I don’t know the rules of the German government back then but the election of 1932, when Hidenburg won. However, he in 1933 appointed Hitler Chancellor, which is sort of like our VP, and then in 1934, Von Hildenburg dies and then Hitler came to power and immediately became a dictator.