Word: marched
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...their last free (or semifree) elections, held March 5, 1933, the Germans gave their new dictator 44% of their votes. Hitler never won a majority in an election, but that 44% brought the Nazis, along with their right-wing allies of the Nationalist Party, their first majority in the Reichstag. So Hitler presented the Reichstag with an "enabling act" that would surrender most of its powers to what was now very much his Cabinet. Some Communists and socialists -- those not already in jail -- protested, but while the Nazi delegates cheered and shouted, the Reichstag docilely voted itself out of business...
...dawn on March 7, 1936, Hitler made the first bold use of his growing Wehrmacht. Though his generals had warned him that the French would resist and that Germany was still too weak to fight, Hitler sent three battalions across the Rhine to occupy the supposedly demilitarized Rhineland. "We have no ) territorial demands to make in Europe," he proclaimed. "Germany will never break the peace!" It was all bluff. "If the French had then marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs," Hitler later said. "A retreat on our part would have...
...arrested Nazis to be amnestied, the ban on the party to be lifted, Nazis to be appointed to head the Police and War ministries and an economic merger of the two nations. When Schuschnigg balked, Hitler shouted, "Fulfill my demands within three days, or I will order the march into Austria...
Schuschnigg surrendered and returned home. But President Wilhelm Miklas, who had not experienced Hitler's persuasion, refused to accept the deal. When Hitler heard that, he ordered the Wehrmacht to mobilize, as publicly as possible. Schuschnigg tried to defend his regime by announcing a plebiscite in four days, on March 13, to decide whether Austrians wanted "a free, independent, social, Christian and united Austria." Hitler, apoplectic, ordered the Wehrmacht to invade Austria on March 12 unless Schuschnigg called off the plebiscite. Once again Schuschnigg surrendered, but Hitler kept increasing his demands. Now he insisted that Schuschnigg resign and be replaced...
...Nazi mobs had encircled the Chancellery, shrieking "Sieg Heil! Heil Hitler!" On the telephone from Berlin, Goring dictated a telegram to Seyss- Inquart in which "the provisional Austrian government" asked Germany to send troops to restore order. On March 12 the Wehrmacht came streaming across the border -- not only unopposed but warmly welcomed by thousands of Austrians who genuinely wanted union with Germany. Next day, Seyss-Inquart issued a decree that announced, "Austria is a province of the German Reich." Hitler returned in triumph to the Vienna where he had once lived as a virtual derelict. Papen described...