Manufacturing Crisis in Authoritarian States

The Reichstag Fire in 1933. Photo by Pictorial Press/Alamy

This module offers a chance to explore how political leaders can generate a sense of crisis to consolidate their power.

The setting is Germany in the early 1930s, after the German parliament building, the Reichstag, was destroyed by fire. The source is Adolf Hitler’s speech, the “Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and Reich.” Professor Lauren Stokes probes how Hitler used the Reichstag fire to suspend a wide range of civil liberties, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to assemble, and the privacy of the mail, telegraph, and telephone. Stokes transports students back to the crucial weeks after the fire, when Hitler manufactured a sense of crisis to expand his political powers. The teaching plan enables teachers to use Hitler’s speech as the basis of an extended lecture or to structure a focused analysis of the speech through small group discussions. Stokes ultimately asks students to put themselves in the shoes of a member of the German parliament in 1933:  would the speech and talk of national “crisis” have persuaded them to give up their own political power and suppress basic German civil liberties? As part of Authoritarianism 101, this module enables teachers to explore the theme of authoritarian practice by examining the tools of authoritarian control and the evolution of political repression in authoritarian regimes.