Provisional and Second Law on the Gleichschaltung of the Länder and the Reich
# Provisional and Second Law on the Gleichschaltung of the Länder and the Reich

The Provisional and Second Law on the Gleichschaltung of the Länder and the Reich (German: Vorläufiges Gesetz und Zweites Gesetz zur Gleichschaltung der Länder mit dem Reich) were a set of two laws which granted dictatorial powers to the state governments of the German Länder based on the election results of the March 1933 German federal election rather than the most recent local elections that had occurred within those states. The local Landtage (state diets) were dissolved by the Provisional (First) Law, while the Second Law established a Reichsstatthalter for the different Länder which had dictatorial powers through an Enabling Act similar to the one passed by the Reichstag on 23 March 1933. Adolf Hitler assumed these same dictatorial powers in the Free State of Prussia by being ex officio Reichskommissar of Prussia through his position as Chancellor of Germany. All Reichsstatthalter could name a cabinet and dissolve the Landtag of their state at their own discretion.

The laws served the purpose of undermining political parties other than the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP) and their coalition partner, the German National People's Party (DNVP).

## Background

Until 1918, the German municipalities had far-reaching autonomy comparable to those of the Swiss and French municipalities today. This autonomy of both the municipalities as well as the German states, the Länder, was eroded by the reforms of Finance Minister Matthias Erzberger. On 19 August 1919, Erzberger informed the delegates of the National Assembly about his structural reforms:

   "I am confident in my position and I want to make that position clear: The implementation of a unified tax organisation for the Reich will be a step towards the construction of a unitarian national state."

The states and municipalities lost their financial independence with the Landessteuergesetz (Land Tax Law) of 30 March 1920. Most political parties at this time still aspired to create a unitary state in Germany, some of them, such as the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP), with an authoritarian government. Additionally, several of these parties wished to accompany centralisation with an increase of power for the Reichspräsident, the President of Germany.

In 1928, the Federation for the Renewal of the ''Reich'' [de] proposed a solution for the question of the separate states: They suggested that, while the Southern states should remain autonomous, the states in Northern Germany should be transformed into a Reichsland directly governed by the Reich government. The BER as an organisation was made up several interest groups such as industrialists, bankers, farmers, other political parties, the scientific community and the worker's movement, which worked under the umbrella organisation to establish an authoritarian presidential government.

The first step towards the abolition of the German federal system in its entirety was taken on 20 July 1932 with the Preußenschlag, which ousted the Social Democratic government of the Free State of Prussia under Otto Braun and de facto made the German chancellor also the dictatorial governor of Prussia, officially styled Reichskommissar. In the aftermath of the coup, the government of Franz von Papen used this new position of power to oust several state officials who had been involved with political parties to the left of Papen's Zentrumspartei (such as the Social Democrats). The powergrab was aggravated by the fact that Prussia constituted by far the largest state in Germany, about two thirds of the entire Reich and three fifths of its population. As a result, the smaller German states were also affected.

Through this coup, the term Gleichschaltung first came into use, which is generally applied to mean the abolition of the autonomy of the German states by the Nazi government which followed soon after the dismissal of Papen's successor, Kurt von Schleicher. In 1932, other terms such as Verreichlichung (roughly "Reichification") as well as Unitarisierung ("Unitarisation") were used by the German public to describe this centralisation of power. After the abolition of state autonomy and the Reichsrat by the Nazis, the term Gleichschaltung also entered use to describe the various ways other institutions were centralised and put under state control.

## Implementation of the Laws

After the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act of 1933 on 23 March 1933, the Nazi Party decreed the Provisional Law on the Gleichschaltung of the Länder with the Reich on 31 March 1933, which dissolved the state legislatures of the German states and reassembled them based on the electoral results of the March 1933 German federal elections, a violation of the Weimar Constitution.

On 7 April 1933, the Reich government passed the Second Law on the Gleichschaltung of the Länder with the Reich which established the office of Reichsstatthalter. These had wide-ranging authority over the respective states they were appointed to, for example authority over the naming of cabinets of their respective state governments and authority to call elections of their respective state legislatures at their own discretion. The latter power became irrelevant once the Reich government dissolved all state legislatures through the Law regarding the Restructuring of the ''Reich'' [de]. The Second Law also abolished the position of Reichskommissar which Papen had established, as §5 of the law transferred the executive authority over Prussia from that office directly to the German chancellor, in this case Hitler. He would not hold this authority for long, however, as he transferred them to Hermann Göring on 10 April 1933 by naming him Prussian Minister President and Interior Minister of Prussia.

On 30 January 1934, the Reichstag passed the Law regarding the Restructuring of the Reich. This law dissolved all state legislatures indefinitely, granted all the authorities of the individual states to the Reich government and made the Reich government responsible for all matters pertaining to the states. The Reichsrat, the representation of the states in the Reich government, was also abolished. Federalism in Germany was de facto replaced with a unitary system, which was finalised with the unification of Prussian and Reich ministries in late 1934. Although the German states as constituted during the Weimar Republic would continue to exist de jure until the end of World War Two, they would in practise be replaced by the Reichsgaue.

