As Hitler attempted to turn Germany from a democracy to a dictatorship, one crucial factor continually hindered his attempts - his resistance. Hitler realized that in order to successfully obtain power, he needed to eliminate his opponents, because it was the other political parties and individuals who opposed his political goals that meant he couldn't receive a majority of votes in the Reichstag and so couldn't lawfully take power. However, Hitler was able to efficiently accomplish this task through the Reichstag Fire, the Enabling Act, the Emergency Decree, and the Night of the Long Knives, all of which swiftly enabled Germany to become a one-party state between 1933 and 1934. The cause for Hitler's eradication of opposition, particularly communists, came on February 27, 1933, when the Reichstag Building (Germany's political center) was discovered extensively burned and a Dutch communist, Van der Lubbe, was caught red handed within the building. The fact that the Reichstag building was assaulted so soon after Hitler was appointed Chancellor gave him justification to suspect the Communists of planning against his administration, and he ordered the Goering Prussian Police to detain nearly 4000 Communist opponents. This basically meant that Hitler was able to remove the communist party of authoritative responsibilities in the space of one night, leaving them without leadership and support and allowing Hitler to exploit their weaknesses further. Furthermore, because the Communist Party had been so closely associated with the offence, it caused a decrease in support for the Communists, allowing the Nazis to gain more votes and support for their own party; in fact, evidence that the Nazis were becoming increasingly popular did exist, as Nazi votes increased from 196 to 288 seats in the next election. Not only that, but the fact that the Reichstag Fire had been such an important political symbol in Germany and was now destroyed created a sense of panic among Germans, which Hitler was able to exploit by presenting himself as having an answer to their problems, allowing him to appear as a strong leader, a'saviour for the Germans,' and allowing him to improve his political profile to the rest of the country. This practically means that people's faith in the Nazi party would grow as a result of Hitler demonstrating such excellent leadership qualities in dealing with a crisis. Although the Reichstag Fire ultimately removed Hitler's major opposition (the Communist Party), he also exploited it to further abuse his authority over others during the Emergency Decree, which was eventually extended into the Enabling Act.