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31-539: Sole legal party (from Jul 1933) The Hitler cabinet was the government of Nazi Germany between 30 January 1933 and 30 April 1945 upon the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of the German Reich by President Paul von Hindenburg . It was contrived by the national conservative politician Franz von Papen , who reserved the office of the Vice-Chancellor for himself. Originally, Hitler's first cabinet

62-555: A US military court in the subsequent Ministries Trial ; all but Meissner were convicted and imprisoned. One (Schlegelberger) was tried in the Judges' Trial and imprisoned. One (Karl Hermann Frank) was tried by a Czech court and sentenced to death. Another five (Backe, von Blomberg, von Brauchitsch, Seldte, & Thierack) died in Allied custody before being brought to trial. Finally, the remaining cabinet members, including some of those acquitted in

93-529: A local official is performing poorly in the eyes of the residents.  This gives locals the opportunity to monitor local officials and communicate satisfaction with the local government. Throughout the country, members of the one party hold key political positions.  In doing so, the party avoids committing outright fraud and rather sustains their power at the local level with strategic appointment of elites.  Data on one-party regimes can be difficult to gather given their lack of transparency. As of 2024,

124-543: A lower rate than dominant-party dictatorships. While one-party states prohibit opposition parties, some allow for elections at the smallest local level. One-party states lack any legitimate competition. Therefore, they place elites and sympathetic candidates in key administrative races.  For example, the Chinese Communist Party exercises political control by infiltrating village administrations.  They view these positions as crucial for gathering information on

155-530: A minister of a different country, such as a Danish rigsminister or a Dutch rijksminister . In 1848, the first parliament for all of Germany, the National Assembly (or Frankfurt parliament in English), voted for a provisional constitutional order. It also installed a Reichsverweser as a kind of provisional head of state. The Reichsverweser had the task of installing the ministers. The Reichsverweser and

186-437: A single political party controls the ruling system. In a one-party state, all opposition parties are either outlawed or enjoy limited and controlled participation in elections . The term " de facto one-party state" is sometimes used to describe a dominant-party system that, unlike a one-party state, allows (at least nominally) multiparty elections, but the existing practices or balance of political power effectively prevent

217-437: Is translated to "empire" (for the period with an Emperor), and often left untranslated for the time after. A Reichsminister was a member of the national government, not to be confused with a member of a government of one of the many Länder (states) of Germany. The Holy Roman Empire that existed until 1806 did not have a modern government and thus no ministers. In German, the word Reichsminister may refer in rare cases to

248-554: The African continent is marked by this political system. Below are just a few examples of governments that have been claimed to have single party rule due to political manipulation. establishment 1993 (Recognized state) Scientific socialism , Somali nationalism [REDACTED] Yemeni Socialist Party Reichsminister " Reich " was the name of the German federal state from 1871 to 1945: Deutsches Reich . In English, it

279-435: The Allied trials, were brought before special German denazification courts which categorised their level of guilt and determined whether punishment was warranted. Among those convicted under this process were Hierl, von Papen, and Schacht. Informational notes Citations One-party state A one-party state , single-party state , one-party system or single-party system is a governance structure in which only

310-665: The Cabinet were individually indicted and tried for war crimes by the IMT along with Martin Bormann who was tried in absentia as he was thought to be still alive. Eight were sentenced to death (Bormann, Hans Frank, Frick, Göring, Keitel, von Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, & Seyss-Inquart) six were imprisoned (Dönitz, Funk, Hess, von Neurath, Raeder, & Speer) and two (Schacht & von Papen) were acquitted. An additional four Cabinet members (Darré, Lammers, Meissner, & Schwerin von Krosigk) were tried by

341-599: The Catholic Centre Party or the Social Democratic Party , which had been the mainstays of earlier parliamentary cabinets. Hindenburg turned to Papen, a former Chancellor himself, to bring such a body together, but blanched at appointing Hitler as Chancellor. Papen was certain that Hitler and the Nazi Party had to be included, but Hitler had previously turned down the position of Vice Chancellor. So Papen, with

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372-556: The DNVP was dissolved and Gürtner stayed on without a party designation. There were originally several other independent politicians in the cabinet, mainly holdovers from previous governments. Gereke was the first of these to be dismissed when he was arrested for embezzlement on 23 March 1933. Papen was then dismissed in early August 1934. Then, on 30 January 1937, Hitler presented the Golden Party Badge to all remaining non-Nazi members of

403-735: The International Military Tribunal. It was ultimately adjudged at the conclusion of the Nuremberg trials not to be a criminal organisation. With regard to the individual members, by the fall of the Nazi regime in May 1945 five members of the Reich Cabinet had committed suicide (Hitler, Bormann, Himmler, Goebbels, & Rust). Six others had already died (von Eltz-Rübenach, von Fritsch, Gürtner, Kerrl, Röhm, & Todt). However, 15 surviving members of

434-591: The Nazi government was disintegrating at the end of the Second World War and following Hitler's death on 30 April 1945, it was succeeded by the short-lived Goebbels Cabinet , which was itself replaced on 2 May by the Cabinet of Schwerin von Krosigk commonly known as the Flensburg Government . As part of the Reichsregierung (Reich Government) the Reich Cabinet was indicted as a criminal organisation by

465-663: The Organisation for Germans Abroad, Ernst Wilhelm Bohle , were authorised to participate in Reich cabinet meetings when issues within their area of jurisdiction were under discussion. As the Nazis consolidated political power, other parties were outlawed or dissolved themselves. Of the three original DNVP ministers, Franz Seldte joined the Nazi Party in April 1933, Hugenberg departed the cabinet in June when

496-457: The Reich and Prussia, with the expectation that Hugenberg would be a counterweight to Hitler and would be useful in controlling him. Of the other significant ministers in the initial cabinet, Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath was a holdover from the previous administration, as were Finance Minister Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk , Post and Transport Minister Paul Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach , and Justice Minister Franz Gürtner . The cabinet

527-733: The Reichsminister together formed the Provisorische Zentralgewalt (provisional central power, also called imperial government). The Reichsminister together met as the Ministerrat or Gesamt-Reichsministerium . Although not mentioned in the constitutional order, usually one of the Reichsminister held the title of Ministerpräsident . When the North German Confederation (1867) and the German Empire (1871) were created,

558-600: The War Ministry was abolished and replaced by the OKW . The cabinet was further enlarged by the addition of several Reichsministers without Portfolio and by other officials, such as the commanders-in-chief of the armed services, who were granted the rank and authority of Reichsministers but without the title. In addition, various officials – though not formally Reichsministers – such as Reich Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach , Prussian Finance Minister Johannes Popitz , and Chief of

589-450: The appointment of Hitler as Reich Chancellor, Papen had sought to control Hitler by limiting the number of Nazi ministers in the cabinet; initially Hermann Göring (without portfolio) and Wilhelm Frick (Interior) were the only Nazi ministers. Further, Alfred Hugenberg , the head of the DNVP, was enticed into joining the cabinet by being given the Economic and Agricultural portfolios for both

620-633: The cabinet (Blomberg, Eltz-Rübenach, Fritsch, Gürtner, Neurath, Raeder & Schacht) and enrolled them in the Party. Only Eltz-Rübenach, a devout Roman Catholic, refused and resigned. Similarly, on 20 April 1939, Brauchitsh and Keitel were presented with the Golden Party Badge. Dorpmüller received it in December 1940 and formally joined the Party on 1 February 1941. Dönitz followed on 30 January 1944. Thus, no independent politicians or military leaders were left in

651-690: The cabinet. The actual power of the cabinet as a body was minimised when it stopped meeting in person and decrees were worked out between the ministries by sharing and marking-up draft proposals, which only went to Hitler for rejection, revision or signing when that process was completed. The cabinet was also overshadowed by the numerous ad hoc agencies – both of the state and of the Nazi Party – such as Supreme Reich Authorities and plenipotentiaries – that Hitler caused to be created to deal with specific problems and situations. Individual ministers, however, especially Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, Speer, and Bormann, held extensive power, at least until, in

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682-581: The case of Göring and Speer, Hitler came to distrust them. By the final years of World War II, Bormann had emerged as the most powerful minister, not because he was head of the Party Chancellery , which was the basis of his position in the cabinet, but because of his control of access to Hitler in his role as Secretary to the Führer . The Reich cabinet consisted of the following Ministers: The last meeting of Hitler's cabinet took place on 5 February 1938. As

713-567: The chancellor ( Bundeskanzler , then Reichskanzler ) was the only responsible member of government. The chancellor installed heads of the governmental departments with the title of a Staatssekretär . They developed into de facto ministers, but they were officially not colleagues of the chancellor. In the revolution of 1918/1919, the National Assembly of Weimar similarly agreed first on a provisional constitutional order (February 1919). A Reichspräsident installed ministers; one of them used

744-434: The following countries are legally constituted as one-party states: A de facto one-party system is one that, while not officially linking a single political party to governmental power, utilizes some means of political manipulation to ensure only one party stays in power. Many different countries have been claimed to be de facto one-party states, with differing levels of agreement between scholars, although most agree that

775-529: The help of Hindenburg's son Oskar , persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler Chancellor. Initially, the Hitler cabinet, like its immediate predecessors, ruled through Presidential decrees written by the cabinet and signed by Hindenburg. However, the Enabling Act of 1933 , passed two months after Hitler took office, gave the cabinet the power to make laws without legislative consent or Hindenburg's signature. In effect,

806-483: The opposition from winning power. Membership in the ruling party tends to be relatively small compared to the population. With such a small winning coalition, leaders in one-party states usually lack the incentive to care about the well-being of citizens.  Rather, they give out private goods to fellow elites to ensure continued support. One-party, compared to dominant-party dictatorships, structure themselves unlike democracies. They also turn into democracies at

837-466: The population and maintaining a presence in the far reaches of their borders. One-party states recognize the trade-off between election victory and gathering valuable data.  To account for this, the regimes have been observed placing local nobility in easy-to-win races.  One-party states have also been observed using elections to ensure that only the most popular elites get chosen to office.  They also gather data from elections to indicate if

868-645: The power to rule by decree was vested in Hitler, and for all intents and purposes it made him a dictator. After the Enabling Act's passage, serious deliberations more or less ended at cabinet meetings. It met only sporadically after 1934, and last met in full on 5 February 1938. When Hitler came to power, the cabinet consisted of the Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor and the heads of 10 Reich Ministries. Between 1933 and 1941 six new Reichsministries were established, but

899-512: The title Reichsministerpräsident in practice. The Weimar Constitution of August 1919 introduced the title of Reichskanzler again, now with Reichsminister (plural) as his colleague. The National Socialists did not change the titles after 1933, albeit the official cabinet government lost some of its significance due to Hitler installing numerous other office holders with similar tasks. The last Reichsminister (plural) were imprisoned by Allied forces in May 1945 (' Flensburg Government '). In

930-703: Was "presidential" and not "parliamentary", in that it governed on the basis of emergency powers granted to the President in Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution rather than through a majority vote in the Reichstag . This had been the basis for Weimar cabinets since Hindenburg's appointment of Heinrich Brüning as Chancellor in March 1930. Hindenburg specifically wanted a cabinet of the nationalist right, without participation by

961-520: Was called the Reich Cabinet of National Salvation , which was a coalition of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and the national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP). The Hitler cabinet lasted until his suicide during the defeat of Nazi Germany . Hitler's cabinet was succeeded by the short-lived Goebbels cabinet , with Karl Dönitz appointed by Hitler as the new Reichspräsident . In brokering

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