The Nazis did not yet control the judicial apparatus. So far the facts as verified by Evans, but they, in this story, as in all imaginary conspiracies, hardly matter. Hitler had assumed power in a weak position and feared a coup d'état by the communists who still retained considerable strength. In the 1931 elections the German Communist Party (PC) won six million votes and one hundred parliamentary seats, while the Nazis had lost some positions. The Reichstag fire provided them with the perfect excuse to order an offensive against their enemies. Hermann Göring, then president of the parliament, launched the police against the activism of the CP and the rest of the left.
Since he did not trust the institution, which he considered south africa phone number list controlled by the Social Democracy, he relied on the SA troops to intensify the hunt. The conservative government headed by the aging President Paul von Hindenburg—who had appointed Hitler Chancellor—decreed the suppression of constitutional liberties and outlawed political parties; Nazism kept this decree in force until its collapse in 1945. On March 23, Hitler managed to invest himself with full powers in the Reichstag before dissolving it in the absence of the communist deputies.
As Evans writes: "The Third Reich, therefore, was built on the basis of a conspiracy theory: the theory that the communists had burned down the Reichstag as the first step in a coup to overthrow the Weimar Republic." Hitler managed to invest himself with full powers in the Reichstag before dissolving it in the absence of the communist deputies. As Evans writes: "The Third Reich, therefore, was built on the basis of a conspiracy theory: the theory that the communists had burned down the Reichstag as the first step in a coup to overthrow the Weimar Republic." Hitler managed to invest himself with full powers in the Reichstag before dissolving it in the absence of the communist deputies.