After the Reichstag Fire on 27 February 1933, elections took place that were neither free nor fair. Immediately afterwards, centrist and conservative parliamentarians signed the Enabling Act, making Hitler essentially a dictator by the end of March 1933. On 6 May 1933, members of the SA and the Hitler Youth stormed the library and archives of Hirschfeld’s Institute, brought the books and documents to a public square next to the State Opera in the centre of Berlin, and burned them.
