The 23rd of March 1933, and the Reichstag was on the verge of passing the Enabling Act, which would effectively surrender its political powers to the Nazi dominated cabinet and Hitler. The Centre Party and National People's party capitulated, voting for the bill and thereby destroying the Weimar republic. The eighty-one Communist deputies were 'absent', on account of being imprisoned, assassinated, forced into hiding or exiled. Some of the Socialists had been taken into 'protective custody', but there were enough present to make the bill legal by the constitution, and not enough to oppose it effectively. Nevertheless the Socialists, who had been responsible in many ways for the collapse of the Weimar Republic, made a final gesture of defiance:
"We German Socialists pledge ourselves solemnly in this historic hour to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and socialism. No enabling act can give you the power to destroy such ideas which are eternal and indestructible" .
However well put this speech was, it did not fully represent the standpoint of the SPD (alias Socialists or Social Democrats), who had been the initiators of the doomed Weimar Republic. …
