Quote:
Originally Posted by icenine
to say Hitler was not elected to the Reichstag would be like saying Cameron is not the Prime Minister of England. Both men made coalition governments via elections to a unicameral (not counting the House of Lords) legislature. As head of a significant portion of the Reichstag Hitler was able to convince Hindenberg to select him as Chancellor. The German constitution at the time gave Hindenburg much power.
Hindenburg also was the originator of the Lebenstraum idea according to wikipedia.
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On paper the Nazis gained the government 'legally,' in the usual manner of parties without a majority forming governments in a parliamentary system.
But to leave it at that ignores Nazi criminal subversion of the Wiemar Republic. In the streets, the SA and SS destabilized the republic with ever-escalating political violence. Meanwhile, inside the Reichstag the Nazi delegates, forming a regimented bloc under Goering, rendered the legislature non-functional with riotous, vulgar behavior.
In contract law, an agreement that is the product of fraud and coercion is no contract. I hold that similarly, calling the Nazi accession the result of election and law is to mock the ideas of democracy and legitimacy.