On the evening that Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January 1933 huge crowds filed past the Chancellory building in Berlin. Carrying lighted torches and shouting 'Heil, Heil, Sleg Heil' they marched (hundreds of thousands of them) until the early hours of the morning. Hitler, standing on the balcony taking the salute, must have felt that the hour for which he had been waiting for so many years had at last come. That same evening many other Berliners stayed in their homes, depressed, anxious and frightened about the future.

Hitler had come to power with the support of the President, the army and many conservative politicians. They all hoped to be able to use him for their own purposes. Hitler, however, was determined that this would not happen. His aim was complete power for himself. His first step was to announce new elections for the Reichstag, hoping this time to gain an overall Nazi majority.

Now that he was in control of the government, he was able to use new ways of influencing people: censoring the press, dismissing civil servants who opposed the Nazis, giving police duties to the SA. The whole election campaign was marked by extreme Nazi violence against political opponents, especially against the communists. A week before the election, the Reichstag building in Berlin went up in flames. Blamed on the communists, the Reichstag Fire provided Hitler with the excuse to issue an emergency decree suspending all liberties guaranteed by the Weimar Constitution. The Fire was almost certainly started by the Nazis but most German people did not suspect this at the time.