by Papen and Hindenburg had not been lawful, but that the result had to be accepted. Braun's government continued to retain its constitutional rights with respect to the Prussian Landtag, the Reichsrat – the upper house of the German Parliament that represented the interest of the states – and the Reich government. Talks with Papen and Hindenburg on 29 October brought no progress. Braun was legally still Minister President of Prussia, but his only power lay in presiding over meaningless meetings of his cabinet, now called a "sovereign government" (), and in representing Prussia in the Reichsrat, while Reich Commissioner Papen was rapidly erasing the reforms of the previous twelve years. The appointment of Kurt von Schleicher as Reichskommissar brought no significant changes. It was not until Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933 that Hermann Göring, with Papen's help, secured a new emergency decree from Hindenburg that officially deposed Braun's "sovereign government". His response was again limited to filing a complaint with the State Constitutional Court on 7 February 1933. The events following the 27 February 1933 Reichstag fire and warnings that his life was threatened induced Braun to flee Germany. On 4 March he set off by car across the border to Austria. The SPD party leadership did not forgive him for his flight, which became known before the polling stations closed for the March 5 election for the Prussian Parliament and the German Reichstag. It seemed to them to be a desertion, with perhaps disastrous consequences for the election results and a demoralizing effect on the defenders of the Republic. There was practically no contact between Braun and the party leadership in exile, the Sopade. Afterwards Braun was often reproached for surrendering without a fight and not calling a general strike or attempting to regain his powers with the help of the Prussian uniformed police, which at the time numbered 50,000 men. Braun's behavior during the Prussian coup d'état in particular symbolized the helplessness of the democratic forces in the face of an enemy that felt bound neither by order nor by existing law. He considered a more active approach futile in view of the political-military balance of power in 1932. In his opinion, it would only have caused unnecessary bloodshed. In exile After Braun had been warned by men close to the Reich President of a wave of arrests, he fled to Ascona in Switzerland, which he