Hitler used the provisions of the Enabling Act to pre-empt possible opposition to his dictatorship from other sources, in which he was mostly successful: in the months following the passage of the Enabling Act, all German parties aside the NSDAP were banned or force to disband themselves, all trade unions were dissolved and all media were brought under the control of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (with the partial exception of the Frankfurter Zeitung). The Reichstag was then dissolved by Hindenburg and a snap one-party election was called in November 1933, giving the NSDAP full control of the chamber. The constitution of 1919 was never formally repealed, but the Enabling Act meant that it was a dead letter. The Reichstag was effectively eliminated as an active player in German politics. It only met sporadically until the end of World War II, held no debates and enacted only a few laws; for all purposes, it was reduced to a mere stage for Hitler's speeches. The other chamber of the German parliament (the Reichsrat) was officially abolished in February 1934; this decision was in clear violation of the Enabling Act, which stipulated that any laws passed under its authority could not affect the institutions of either chamber. By this time, however, the Nazis had become law unto themselves, and these actions were never challenged in court. On 2 August 1934, Hindenburg died from lung cancer, thus eliminating any remaining obstacle to Nazi full dominance; the day after his death, the Hitler Cabinet passed a "Law Concerning the Highest State Office of the Reich", transferring the President's powers to the new post of "Führer and Reich chancellor", giving him complete power on all the Reich without any possibility of check and balance. Such move was later ratified by a highly non-democratic referendum. This, along with the remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936 shed the last remains of the Weimar Republic. Reasons for failure The reasons for the Weimar Republic's collapse are the subject of continuing debate. It may have been doomed from the beginning since even moderates disliked it and extremists on both the left and right loathed it, a situation often referred to as a "democracy without democrats". Germany had limited democratic traditions, and Weimar democracy was widely seen as chaotic. Since Weimar politicians had been blamed for the Dolchstoß ("stab-in-the-back"), a widely believed theory that Germany's surrender in