On the day of the vote on the so-called Enabling Act, the Nazi leadership sent SS troops into the makeshift Reichstag building, formerly the Kroll Opera, to intimidate other political parties. Berlin, Germany, March 23, 1933.

The Enabling Act allowed the Reich government to issue laws without the consent of Germany’s parliament, laying the foundation for the complete Nazification of German society. The full name of the law was the “Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich.”