Reply #17: There were about 440 votes for the act, about 30 of which came from Catholic Center [View All]

[struggle4progress]

The Nazis were already shutting down the Catholic press and sending stormtroops to disrupt Catholic Center rallies and beat up their speakers; some members of the Catholic Center thought they were receiving guarantees of non-interference in return for their vote; they soon learned that they had been played for fools, since the party was dissolved a few months later. You are of course correct to note that the Social Democrats and communists ended up in concentration camps, but so did thousands of Catholic Center activists in the 1933 wave of arrests of opponents to the Nazis

Catholic Center Party (Zentrum, or, Z)
... While it had a left-liberal trade union wing, and a right-conservative nationalist wing, the weight of its support placed the party at the center of the political spectrum. The Center Party was vital to the stability of the Republic, and it was a part of every Weimar government. Its leaders served as chancellors for nine administrations and were included in each of the twenty-one cabinets that ruled during the fourteen years of the Republic ... http://www2.facinghistory.org/Campus/weimar.nsf/FormPathDocuments/08C1D876685DEC6485256D17000198D2?opendocument#catholic