At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense, I tell you that the Nazi movement will go on for a thousand years.

Don't forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I would govern Germany.

They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in power.

Adolf Hitler quoted in Time magazine July 2nd, 1934.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music century. Episode 285. The Night of the Long Knives

Adolf Hitler was Chancellor of Germany for a mere 52 days when the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act that effectively made him Germany's dictator.

Within months after that, Hitler's political party, the NSDAP, was the only political party in Germany, all the others had disbanded or were forcibly dissolved by the government.

We covered these events in episode 270. Today I want to look at Hitler's further efforts to

secure power in Germany, but before we begin, I want to say a few words about the concept of

dictator. If you're familiar with the history of ancient Rome,

you know that the Roman Republic included the institution of dictator. The word comes from Latin

and literally means the one who gives orders. The Roman Republic allowed for the elevation of a

dictator in extreme circumstances and granted

that person extraordinary powers for a limited term of six months to deal with the emergency.

The word dictator did not have the same connotations in ancient Rome that it has today.

Indeed, it didn't even have all those connotations in Hitler's time.

When the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act and gave Hitler and his cabinet extraordinary

powers, they were more or less doing what the ancient Romans did when they appointed a dictator.

In our time, the word dictator carries some pretty specific negative connotations,

including abandonment of the principle of rule by law, harsh repression of political dissent,

and a cult of personality around the dictator.

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