By the end of this period, little of substance remained in the election law. In an official volume published during the war there are reprinted the still effective provisions of the law of 1924. The majority of the substantive provisions have been marked “obsolete” (gegenstandslos) (2381-PS).
The comprehensive Nazi program for the centralization of German government included in its scope the whole system of regional and local elections, which soon ceased to exist. Article 17 of the Weimar Constitution had required a representative form of government and universal, secret elections in all Laender and municipalities (2050-PS). Yet in early 1934, the sovereign powers (Hoheitsrechte) of the Laender were transferred by law to the Reich and the Land governments were placed under the Reich control:
“The popular assemblies (Volksvertretungen) of the Laender shall be abolished.” (2006-PS)
Pursuant to the German Communal Ordinance of 30 January 1935, the mayors and executive officers of all municipalities received their appointments “through the confidence of Party and State” (Article 6 (2)). Appointments were made by Reich authorities from lists prepared by the Party delegates (Article 41). City councillors were selected by the Party delegates in agreement with the mayors (Article 51 (1)). (2008-PS)
C. The Nazi conspirators transformed the states, provinces, and municipalities into what were, in effect, mere administrative organs of the central government. Under the Weimar Constitution of the pre-Nazi regime, the states, provinces, and municipalities enjoyed considerable autonomy in the exercise of governmental functions—legislative, executive and judicial. (2050-PS)
Hitler, in Mein Kampf, stated the conspirators’ purpose to establish totalitarian control of local government:
“National Socialism, as a matter of principle, must claim the right to enforce its doctrines, without regard to present federal boundaries, upon the entire German nation and to educate it in its ideas and its thinking. * * * The National Socialist doctrine is not the servant of political interests of individual federal states but shall become the ruler of the German nation.” (2883-PS)
These views were echoed by Rosenberg:
“In the midst of the great power constellations of the globe there must be, for foreign as well as for internal political reasons, only one strong central national authority, if one wants Germany to regain a position which makes it fit for alliance with other countries.” (2882-PS)
By a series of laws and decrees, the Nazi conspirators reduced the powers of the regional and local governments and substantially transformed them into territorial subdivisions of the Reich government. The program of centralization began almost immediately after the Nazis acquired the chief executive posts of the government. On 31 March 1933, they promulgated the Provisional Law integrating the Laender with the Reich (2004-PS). This law called for the dissolution of all state and local self governing bodies and for their reconstitution according to the number of votes cast for each party in the Reichstag election of 5 March 1933. The Communists and their affiliates were expressly denied representation.