1933,+Communists+to+be+interned+in+Dachau,+Guardian+archive



From the archive


 * Communists to be interned in Dachau**

The President of the Munich police has informed the press that the first concentration camp holding 5,000 political prisoners is to be organised within the next few days near the town of Dachau in Bavaria. Here, he said, Communists, "Marxists" and Reichsbanner leaders who endangered the security of the State would be kept in custody. It was impossible to find room for them in the State prisons, nor was it possible to release them. Experience had shown, he said, that the moment they were released, they started their agitation again.
 * The Guardian, Manchester, Tuesday March 21, 1933

If the safety and order of the State were to be guaranteed, measures were inevitable, and they would be carried out without any petty consideration. This is the first clear statement hitherto made regarding concentration camps. The extent of the terror may be measured from the size of this Bavarian camp which - one may gather - will be only one of many. The Munich police president's statement leaves no more doubt whatever that the Socialists and Republicans will be given exactly the same sort of "civic education" as the Communists.

It is widely held that the drive against the Socialists will reach its height after the adjournment of the Reichstag next week.


 * Absolute power for Hitler:** The Cabinet at its meeting this afternoon decided on the text of the Enabling Bill which it will submit to the Reichstag. If this bill is passed, the Hitler Government will be endowed with absolute dictatorial powers. The Act will enable the Cabinet to legislate and to make laws even if these "mark a deviation from the Constitution", except that the Reichstag and the Reichsrat must not he abolished. But as these will be put out of action for four years, this provision will not inconvenience the Government, which will even have full powers at the end of four years to alter the electoral system by decree.

The rights of the President formally remain unaltered, but the laws will be promulgated on the Cabinet's initiative alone. The President would lose all his functions except that of Chief of the Army, but this function, too could probably be abolished by a decree, which would place the army, the last potential opponent of the dictatorship, under the Cabinet's control.

In that case the President would simply become a figurehead.


 * Military expenditure:** As the Budget would be settled by decree, and as the figures would not need to be made public, there would be no extra-Governmental control of public finances, and the Government would be free to increase military and naval expenditure without the least publicity.


 * From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1735794,00.html**

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