How was Hitler able to establish his dictatorship in less than six months after being elected chancellor?
First, he used the Enabling Act (Ermaechtigungsgesetz) to grant himself vast emergency powers. Second, he relied on the SS and SA to spread terror and to intimidate his opponents. Finally, during the so-called Gleichschaltung in spring and summer of 1933, he effectively established a single-party regime; crushed the trade unions; purged the courts, universities, and other administrative bodies from communists, Jews, and anti-Nazi personnel; outlawed the socialists; and developed an effective and huge propaganda machine through the use of print-media, radio, film, and gigantic mass spectacles.