Article 48 (Weimar Constitution)

Article 48 of the constitution of the Weimar Republic of Germany (1919–1933) allowed the Reich president, under certain circumstances, to take emergency measures without the prior consent of the Reichstag. This power came to be understood to include the promulgation of emergency decrees. It was used frequently by Reich President Friedrich Ebert of the Social Democratic Party to deal with both political unrest and economic emergencies. Later, under President Paul von Hindenburg and the presidential cabinets, Article 48 was called on more and more often to bypass a politically fractured parliament and to rule without its consent. After the Nazi Party's rise to power in the early 1930s, the law allowed Chancellor Adolf Hitler, with decrees issued by Hindenburg, to create a totalitarian dictatorship by seemingly legal means.