Gleichschaltung

de:Gleichschaltung The German word Gleichschaltung (literally "Synchronising"; synchronization) is used in a political sense to describe the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of authoritarian control and tight coordination over all aspects of society. The term itself is a typical Nazi euphemism.

The Nazi party's desire for total societal control required the elimination of all other forms of influence. The period from 1933 to around 1937 was characterized by the systematic elimination of non-Nazi organizations that could potentially influence people, such as trade unions and political parties. The regime also assailed the influence of the churches, for example by instituting the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs under Hanns Kerrl. Organizations that the administration could not eliminate, such as the schools, came under its direct control.

In a more specific sense, Gleichschaltung refers to the legal measures taken by the government during the first months after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. In this sense, the term was used by the Nazis themselves.

1. One day after the Reichstag fire on February 27, 1933, the increasingly senile President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg, acting at Hitler's request, issued the Reichstag Fire Decree. This decree, of very questionable constitutionality, suspended most human rights provided for by the 1919 constitution of the Weimar Republic and thus allowed for the arrest of political adversaries, mostly Communists, and for general terrorizing by the SA to intimidate the voters before the upcoming elections.
2. In this atmosphere of terror, the Reichstag general elections of March 3, 1933 took place. Surprisingly, these yielded only a slim majority for Hitler's coalition government and no majority for Hitler's own Nazi party.
3. When the newly-elected Reichstag first convened on March 23, 1933, (not including the Communist delegates, since their party had already been banned by that time) it passed the Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz), transferring all legislative powers to the Hitler government and in effect abolishing the remainder of the Weimar constitution as a whole. Soon afterwards the government banned the Social Democratic party which had voted against the Act, while the other parties chose to dissolve themselves to avoid arrests and concentration camp imprisonment.
4. The "First Gleichschaltung Law" (Erstes Gleichschaltungsgesetz) (March 31, 1933) gave the governments of the Länder the same legislative powers that the Reich government had received through the Enabling Act.
5. A "Second Gleichschaltung Law" (Zweites Gleichschaltungsgesetz) (April 7, 1933) deployed one Reichsstatthalter (proconsul) in each state apart from Prussia, which had already been under Nazi control since the Preußenschlag of July 20, 1932. These officers were supposed to act as local presidents in each state, appointing the governments. For Prussia, which comprised the vast majority of Nazi Germany anyway, Hitler reserved these rights for himself.
6. The Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reiches ("Law concerning the reconstruction of the Reich") (January 30, 1934) abandoned this concept. Instead, the political institutions of the Länder were practically abolished altogether, passing all powers to the central government. Consequentially, another law dating February 14, 1934 dissolved the Reichsrat, the representation of the Länder at the federal level.
7. In the summer of 1934, Hitler instructed the SS to kill Ernst Röhm and other leaders of the Nazi party's SA, former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and several aides to former Chancellor Franz von Papen in the so-called Night of the Long Knives. These measures actually received retrospective sanction in a special one-article Law Regarding Measures of State Self-Defense (Gesetz über Maßnahmen der Staatsnotwehr) (3 July 1934).
8. At nine o'clock in the morning of August 2, 1934, Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg died at the age of 86. Three hours before, the government had issued a law to take effect the day of his death; this prescribed that the office of the Reichspräsident should be united with that of the Reichskanzler and that the competencies of the former should be transferred to the "Führer und Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler", as the law stated literally. Hitler henceforth demanded the use of that title. Thus the last feeble remains of separation of powers were abolished.

Legislation

• Reichstag Fire Decree
• Enabling Act
• Law Regarding Measures of State Self-Defense

Related articles

• Nazi Germany
• Adolf Hitler
• Totalitarianism

Philology

This compound word is better comprehended by those who speak other languages by listing its predecessory uses in German. The word gleich in German means like, or the same; schaltung means something like step. The word has three uses in German for physical, rather than political, meanings.

I.) A lock-step march, as some armies train their troops to perform.

II.) A locking clutch; manual clutches on cars usually do not press the plates one against each other, so they lose about three percent of power; some race cars use locking clutches in which the driven plate travels at the same speed as that connected to the engine; hence it wears out faster.

III.) A certain means of wiring an alternating-current electric generator, and AC electric motors, so that when the generator is made to turn at a given speed, or even turned a certain angle, each motor connected to it will also turn at that speed, or to the same angle. This is the meaning which is most commonly referred to to explain this word: the political party is considered the generator, and every member of a professional group or society is considered a motor wired to it.

Revival of the Word in American Politics

In the last fifth of the twentieth century, both the left and the right in the U.S.A. use this word, although it is quite uncommon, to describe each others' tactics in the so-called "culture wars". The classic example of its use is that all members of the American Legal Association succumbed to a proclamation that the ALA as a whole believed in the laws concerning abortion in the U.S. What could conservatives do to say that they had opinions of their own, when confronted with this diktat?

Similarly, the left uses it to decry the attempts of "stealth candidates" on the right to undo certain "progressive" issues which the left had gotten made law, habit, or accepted practice by means that the right considers unfair. But both the left and the right use any of various means other than outright plebiscite or grassroots program to make or attempt to unmake any such laws.

The word is not used for attempts of the right to silence the press, spy on the public, or overthrow regulatory agencies. Those actions are too blatant to require the revival of an obscure term that most Americans have never seen and which is difficult for them to pronounce.

Sources; further reading

• Karl Kroeschell, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte 3 (seit 1650), 2nd ed. 1989, ISBN 3-531-22139-6
• Karl Kroeschell, Rechtsgeschichte Deutschlands im 20. Jahrhundert, 1992, ISBN 3-8252-1681-0