Reichstag and relied solely on the support of President von Hindenburg.

Its first acclearly

suggested its authoritarian sympathies. It lifted the ban on Nazi Storm Troopera:tivities, which
had been imposed two months earlier by the Brning government, and then, under the flimsy
excuse that the constant street clashes between Communists and National Socialists made
regular administration impossible, it went on to dissolve by plice action the Social Democratic
government of the key state of Prussia. Now, if ever, was the time for Hitler's opponents to stand up and fight. From this point on
it would be too late. But no one seemed prepared to take decisive action. The Democratic party
had nearly vanished; the Center was paralyzed by its own internal divo sions. The nationalist
Right was increasingly conniving with the Nazis. Perhaps most surprisingly, the Communists,
too, made common cause with the Nazi party against the Social Democrats, whom they
dismissed as social fascists, believing that a Hitler regime would pave the way for their own
rise to power after the final collapse of capitalism. This split in the ranks of the Left made
concerted opposition impossible. Even the Social Democrats, whose vigorous resistance had
halted the Kapp putsch in 1920, found no similar fighting spirit with which to oppose von Papen
in 1932. Electoral weakness, internecine struggles, opportunism, and weariness combined to
reduce to mute impotence the Ger. man political forces that might have challenged Hitler's rise.
One consequence of the Great Depression was a rash of bank failures in Europe. Here, bank customers in Berlin
wait to withdraw their savings in an atmosphere of tense expectation. (Courtesy AP/Wide World Photos)

198 The Great Depression, 19291935