Sen. DeMint's mistaken statements about Hitler's Germany

Dear Jim DeMint:

The following is a recent quote you made regarding German history:

Part of what we’re trying to do in “Saving Freedom” is just show that where we are, we’re about where Germany was before World War II where they became a social democracy.

Given your interest in the subject, I'm sure you'll appreciate this brief lesson.

In 1933, after the parliamentary building burned down under suspicious circumstances, the German Reichstag formalized Adolf Hitler's totalitarian rule as the Führer by passing the Ermächtigungsgesetz, or Enabling Act. The law was an amazing relinquishment of authority by an elected body and it has since become the foremost example of failed democracy.

What was most disturbing was that Hitler's party, the national socialists or "Nazis," held only 45% of the Reichstag's seats. The rest of the seats were held by a collection of smaller parties with varying political views. Nonetheless, every single party voted to abandon their mandates to Hitler's tyranny, with the exception of just one.

Who were these brave souls, who stood firm in their defense of democratic legitimacy and whose leader, Otto Wels, used his last speech in a free Germany to welcome people being "repressed and oppressed" by the nascent regime?

The Social Democrats.

I don't mean to be nitpicky, Senator, but it's just that history is a stubborn thing...

Signed,
Packherd

P.s.: No Communists voted against the Enabling Act because all the Communists had already been imprisoned or murdered by the Nazis.