Background
After being appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, Hitler asked President von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag. A general election was scheduled for March 5, 1933.
The burning of the Reichstag six days before the election, depicted by the Nazis as the beginning of a communist revolution, resulted in the Reichstag Fire Decree, which (among other things) suspended civil liberties and habeas corpus rights. Hitler used the decree to have the Communist Party's offices raided and its representatives arrested, effectively eliminating them as a political force.
Although receiving five million more votes than in the previous election, the NSDAP had failed to gain an absolute majority in parliament, depending on the 52 seats won by its coalition partner, the German National People's Party, for a slim majority.
To free himself from this dependency, Hitler had the cabinet, in its first post-election meeting on March 15, draw up plans for an Enabling Act which would give the cabinet legislative power for four years. The Nazis devised the Enabling Act to gain complete political power without the need of the support of a majority in the Reichstag and without the need to bargain with their coalition partners.
Read more about this topic: Enabling Act Of 1933
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