3 Transfer of Power and »National Revolution«
The »seizure of power« on 30 January 1933 is linked with images of the torchlight procession of Hitler’s followers through the Brandenburg Gate. However, what was portrayed as the breakthrough of a revolutionary mass uprising was in fact primarily a transfer of power to the government under Hitler. It was based on an alliance between the NSDAP and the German National People’s Party. The revolutionary dynamics of the Nazi movement soon transformed Hitler’s authoritarian presidential government into a totalitarian dictatorship which, borne aloft by propaganda and mass approval, destroyed the constitutional and legal system and persecuted their political opponents.
