The Reichstag fire (german: Reichstagsbrand, ) was an
arson
Arson is the crime of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, wat ...
attack on the
Reichstag building
The Reichstag (, ; officially: – ; en, Parliament) is a historic government building in Berlin which houses the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany's parliament.
It was constructed to house the Imperial Diet (german: Reichstag) of the ...
, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
leader
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
was sworn in as
Chancellor of Germany
The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the Ge ...
.
Marinus van der Lubbe
Marinus van der Lubbe (13 January 1909 – 10 January 1934) was a Dutch communist who was tried, convicted, and executed by the Nazis for setting fire to the German Reichstag building on 27 February 1933. During his trial, the prosecution a ...
, a Dutch
"council communist", was the apparent culprit; however, Hitler attributed the fire to
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
agitators. He used it as a pretext to claim that Communists were plotting against the German government, and induced President
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (; abbreviated ; 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany fro ...
to issue the
Reichstag Fire Decree
The Reichstag Fire Decree (german: Reichstagsbrandverordnung) is the common name of the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State (german: Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat) issued by Germ ...
suspending civil liberties, and pursue a "ruthless confrontation" with the Communists. This made the fire pivotal in the establishment of
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
.
The first report of the fire came shortly after 9:00p.m., when a Berlin fire station received an alarm call. By the time police and firefighters arrived, the
Chamber of Deputies
The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures.
Description
Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...
(the lower house) was engulfed in flames. The police conducted a thorough search inside the building and found Van der Lubbe, who was arrested.
After the Fire Decree was issued, the Nazi-controlled police made mass arrests of communists, including all of the communist Reichstag delegates. This severely crippled communist participation in
the 5 March elections. After the 5 March elections, the absence of the communists gave the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
a majority in the Reichstag, greatly assisting the Nazi seizure of total power.
As part of the effort to blame the Fire on the communists, on 9 March the Prussian state police arrested
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
ns
Georgi Dimitrov
Georgi Dimitrov Mihaylov (; bg, Гео̀рги Димитро̀в Миха̀йлов), also known as Georgiy Mihaylovich Dimitrov (russian: Гео́ргий Миха́йлович Дими́тров; 18 June 1882 – 2 July 1949), was a Bulgarian ...
,
Vasil Tanev
Vasil Konstantionov Tanev ( bg, Васил Константинов Танев; 9 October 1897 – 21 November 1941) was a Bulgarian Communist, one of the three Bulgarian Comintern operatives arrested and tried for complicity in the Reichstag ...
, and
Blagoy Popov
Blagoi Simeonov Popov ( bg, Благой Симеонов Попов) (22 November 1902 – 28 December 1968) was a Bulgarian Communist activist and Comintern executive who was one of the co-defendants along with Georgi Dimitrov and Vasil T ...
, who were known
Comintern
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...
operatives (though the police did not know it, Dimitrov was head of all Comintern operations in Western Europe).
Ernst Torgler
Ernst Torgler (25 April 1893 – 19 January 1963) was the last chairman of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) faction in the German Reichstag before he worked for the Nazis.
Early life
Torgler was born the son of an urban resident in Berlin. ...
, head of the Communist Party, had surrendered himself to police on 28 February.
They and Van Der Lubbe were the defendants in the
Leipzig Trial
The Reichstag fire (german: Reichstagsbrand, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of ...
. All four communists were acquitted. The responsibility for the Reichstag fire remains a topic of debate and research. The Nazis accused the Comintern of the act. However, some historians believe, based on archive evidence, that the arson had been planned and ordered by the Nazis as a
false flag operation
A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party. The term "false flag" originated in the 16th century as an expression meaning an intentional misr ...
.
The building remained in its damaged state until it was partially repaired from 1961 to 1964 and completely restored from 1995 to 1999. In 2008, Germany posthumously pardoned Van der Lubbe under a law introduced in 1998 to lift unjust verdicts dating from the Nazi era.
Prelude
After the
November 1932 German federal election
Federal elections were held in Germany on 6 November 1932.Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p762 The Nazi Party saw its vote share fall by four percentage points, while there were slight increases f ...
, the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
had a plurality, not a majority; the communists posted gains. Adolf Hitler was sworn in as
Chancellor
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
and head of the coalition government on 30 January 1933. As chancellor, Hitler asked President
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (; abbreviated ; 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany fro ...
to dissolve the
Reichstag and call for a new parliamentary election. The date set for the elections was 5 March 1933.
Hitler hoped to abolish democracy in a quasi-legal fashion, by passing the
Enabling Act
An enabling act is a piece of legislation by which a legislative body grants an entity which depends on it (for authorization or legitimacy) the power to take certain actions. For example, enabling acts often establish government agencies to car ...
. The Enabling Act was a special law that gave the Chancellor the power to pass laws by decree, without the involvement of the ''Reichstag''. These special powers would remain in effect for four years, after which time they were eligible to be renewed. Under the
Weimar Constitution
The Constitution of the German Reich (german: Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs), usually known as the Weimar Constitution (''Weimarer Verfassung''), was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic era (1919–1933). The c ...
, the President could rule by decree in times of emergency using
Article 48.
During the election campaign, the Nazis alleged that Germany was on the verge of a communist revolution and that the only way to stop the communists was to put the Nazis securely in power. The message of the campaign was simple: increase the number of Nazi seats.
Fire
Shortly after 9p.m. on 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was reported as on fire, and firefighters were dispatched. Despite their efforts, most of the building was gutted.
By 11:30 p.m., the fire was put out. The firefighters and police inspected the ruins and found 20 bundles of flammable material (firelighters) unburned lying about. At the time the fire was reported, Hitler was having dinner with
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
at Goebbels' apartment in Berlin. When Goebbels received an urgent phone call informing him of the fire, he regarded it as a "tall tale" at first and hung up. Only after the second call did he report the news to Hitler. Both left Goebbels' apartment and arrived by car at the ''Reichstag'', just as the fire was being put out. They were met at the site by
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
,
Interior Minister of Prussia
This page lists Prussian Ministers of the Interior.
Prussian Ministers of the Interior, 1808–1934
* Count Alexander von Dohna-Schlobitten 1808–1810
* Count Karl August von Hardenberg 1810–1814
* Count Friedrich von Schuckmann 1814–1819
* ...
, who told Hitler, "This is communist outrage! One of the communist culprits has been arrested." Hitler called the fire a "sign from God" and claimed it was a signal meant to mark the beginning of a communist revolt. The next day, the Prussian Press Service reported that "this act of incendiarism is the most monstrous act of terrorism carried out by Bolshevism in Germany". The ''
Vossische Zeitung
The (''Voss's Newspaper'') was a nationally-known Berlin newspaper that represented the interests of the liberal middle class. It was also generally regarded as Germany's national newspaper of record. In the Berlin press it held a special role d ...
'' newspaper warned its readers that "the government is of the opinion that the situation is such that a danger to the state and nation existed and still exists".
Walter Gempp
Walter Gempp (13 September 1878 – 2 May 1939) was a German engineer. From 1922 to 1933 he was the sixth head of the Berlin Fire Brigade.
After studying mechanical engineering, Gempp joined the Berlin Fire Department in 1908. He was given the p ...
was head of the Berlin fire department at the time of the Reichstag fire on 27 February 1933, personally directing the operations at the incident. On 25 March he was dismissed for presenting evidence that suggested Nazi involvement in the fire. Gempp asserted that there had been a delay in notifying the fire brigade and that he had been forbidden from making full use of the resources at his disposal. In 1937, Gempp was arrested for abuse of office. Despite his appeal, he was imprisoned. Gempp was strangled and killed in prison on 2 May 1939.
Political consequences
The day after the fire, at Hitler's request, President Hindenburg signed the
Reichstag Fire Decree
The Reichstag Fire Decree (german: Reichstagsbrandverordnung) is the common name of the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State (german: Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat) issued by Germ ...
into law by using
Article 48 of the
Weimar Constitution
The Constitution of the German Reich (german: Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs), usually known as the Weimar Constitution (''Weimarer Verfassung''), was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic era (1919–1933). The c ...
. The Reichstag Fire Decree suspended most civil liberties in Germany, including ''
habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
'',
freedom of expression
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
,
freedom of the press
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic News media, media, especially publication, published materials, should be conside ...
, the
right of free association
Freedom of association encompasses both an individual's right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline memb ...
and
public assembly, and the
secrecy of the post and telephone.
[.] These rights were not reinstated during Nazi reign. The decree was used by the Nazis to ban publications not considered "friendly" to the Nazi cause. Despite the fact that Marinus van der Lubbe claimed to have acted alone in the Reichstag fire, Hitler, after having obtained his emergency powers, announced that it was the start of a wider communist effort to take over Germany. Nazi Party newspapers then published this fabricated "news".
This sent the German population into a panic and isolated the communists further among the civilians; additionally, thousands of communists were imprisoned in the days following the fire (including leaders of the
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...
) on the charge that the Party was preparing to stage a ''
putsch''. Speaking to Rudolph Diels about communists during the Reichstag fire, Hitler said "These sub-humans do not understand how the people stand at our side. In their mouse-holes, out of which they now want to come, of course they hear nothing of the cheering of the masses."
With communist electoral participation also suppressed (the communists previously polled 17% of the vote), the Nazis were able to increase their share of the vote in the 5 March 1933 ''Reichstag'' elections from 33% to 44%.
[.] This gave the Nazis and their allies, the
German National People's Party
The German National People's Party (german: Deutschnationale Volkspartei, DNVP) was a national-conservative party in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Before the rise of the Nazi Party, it was the major conservative and nationalist party in Wei ...
(who won 8% of the vote), a majority of 52% in the ''Reichstag''.
While the Nazis emerged with a majority, they fell short of their goal, which was to win 50–55% of the vote that year.
The Nazis thought that this would make it difficult to achieve their next goal, passage of the
Enabling Act
An enabling act is a piece of legislation by which a legislative body grants an entity which depends on it (for authorization or legitimacy) the power to take certain actions. For example, enabling acts often establish government agencies to car ...
giving Hitler the right to rule by decree, which required a two-thirds majority.
However, several important factors weighed in the Nazis' favour, mainly the continued suppression of the Communist Party and the Nazis' ability to capitalize on national security concerns. Moreover, some deputies of the Social Democratic Party (the only party that would vote against the Enabling Act) were prevented from taking their seats in the ''Reichstag'', due to arrests and intimidation by the Nazi SA. As a result, the Social Democratic Party would be under-represented in the final vote tally. The Enabling Act passed easily on 23 March 1933, with the support of the right-wing German National People's Party, the
Centre Party, and several fragmented middle-class parties. The measure went into force on 24 March, effectively making Hitler dictator of Germany.
The
Kroll Opera House
The Kroll Opera House (german: Krolloper, Kroll-Oper) in Berlin, Germany, was in the Tiergarten district on the western edge of the '' Königsplatz'' square (today ''Platz der Republik''), facing the Reichstag building. It was built in 1844 as ...
, sitting across the ''
Königsplatz'' from the burned-out Reichstag building, functioned as the Reichstag's venue for the remaining 12 years of the Third Reich's existence.
Trial
In July 1933,
Marinus van der Lubbe
Marinus van der Lubbe (13 January 1909 – 10 January 1934) was a Dutch communist who was tried, convicted, and executed by the Nazis for setting fire to the German Reichstag building on 27 February 1933. During his trial, the prosecution a ...
,
Ernst Torgler
Ernst Torgler (25 April 1893 – 19 January 1963) was the last chairman of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) faction in the German Reichstag before he worked for the Nazis.
Early life
Torgler was born the son of an urban resident in Berlin. ...
,
Georgi Dimitrov
Georgi Dimitrov Mihaylov (; bg, Гео̀рги Димитро̀в Миха̀йлов), also known as Georgiy Mihaylovich Dimitrov (russian: Гео́ргий Миха́йлович Дими́тров; 18 June 1882 – 2 July 1949), was a Bulgarian ...
,
Blagoi Popov, and
Vasil Tanev
Vasil Konstantionov Tanev ( bg, Васил Константинов Танев; 9 October 1897 – 21 November 1941) was a Bulgarian Communist, one of the three Bulgarian Comintern operatives arrested and tried for complicity in the Reichstag ...
were indicted on charges of setting the ''Reichstag'' on fire. From 21 September to 23 December 1933, the Leipzig Trial took place and was presided over by judges from the German Supreme Court, the ''
Reichsgericht
The Reichsgericht (, ''Reich Court'') was the supreme criminal and civil court in the German Reich from 1879 to 1945. It was based in Leipzig, Germany. The Supreme Court was established when the Reichsjustizgesetze (Imperial Justice Laws) came in ...
''. This was Germany's highest court. The presiding judge was Judge Dr. Wilhelm Bünger of the Fourth Criminal Court of the Fourth Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court. The accused were charged with arson and with attempting to overthrow the government.
![Reichstagfire1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Reichstagfire1.jpg)
The Leipzig Trial was widely publicized and was broadcast on the radio. It was expected that the court would find the communists guilty on all counts.
The trial began at 8:45 on the morning of 21 September, with Van der Lubbe testifying. Van der Lubbe's testimony was very hard to follow as he spoke of losing his sight in one eye and wandering around Europe as a drifter and that he had been a member of the
Dutch Communist Party, which he quit in 1931, but still considered himself a communist. Georgi Dimitrov began his testimony on the third day of the trial. He gave up his right to a court-appointed lawyer and defended himself successfully. When warned by Judge Bünger to behave himself in court, Dimitrov stated: "Herr President, if you were a man as innocent as myself and you had passed seven months in prison, five of them in chains night and day, you would understand it if one perhaps becomes a little strained." During the course of his defence, Dimitrov claimed that the organizers of the fire were senior members of the Nazi Party and frequently verbally clashed with Göring at the trial. The high point of the trial occurred on 4 November 1933, when Göring took the stand and was cross-examined by Dimitrov. The following exchange took place:
In his verdict, Judge Bünger was careful to underline his belief that there had in fact been a communist conspiracy to burn down the ''Reichstag'', but declared, with the exception of Van der Lubbe, there was insufficient evidence to connect the accused to the fire or the alleged conspiracy. The Bulgarians were acquitted and were expelled to the Soviet Union.
[ Only Van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death.] Torgler was also acquitted and survived the war.[
The outcome of this trial caused Hitler to remove treason trials from the regular courts. He decreed that henceforth treasonamong many other offenseswould only be tried by a newly established People's Court (''Volksgerichtshof'').][ The People's Court later became associated with the number of death sentences it handed down, including those following the 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler, which were presided over by then Judge-President ]Roland Freisler
Roland Freisler (30 October 1893 – 3 February 1945), a German Nazi jurist, judge, and politician, served as the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice from 1934 to 1942 and as President of the People's Court from 1942 to 1945.
As ...
.
Execution of Van der Lubbe
At his trial, Van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
. He was beheaded by guillotine (the customary form of execution in Saxony
Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...
at the time) on 10 January 1934, three days before his 25th birthday. The Nazis alleged that Van der Lubbe was part of a communist conspiracy
A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...
to burn down the ''Reichstag'' and seize power, while the communists alleged that Van der Lubbe was part of the Nazi conspiracy to blame the crime on them. Van der Lubbe, for his part, maintained that he acted alone to protest the condition of the German working class.
In 1967, a court in West Berlin allowed the 1933 conviction to stand, but overturned the death sentence and posthumously changed Van der Lubbe's sentence to eight years in prison. In 1980, another court overturned the verdict, but was overruled. In 1981, a West German court posthumously overturned Van der Lubbe's 1933 conviction and found him not guilty by reason of insanity. This ruling was overturned. However, in January 2008, he was pardoned under a 1998 law for the crime on the grounds that anyone convicted under Nazi Germany is officially not guilty. The law allows pardons for people convicted of crimes under the Nazis, based on the idea that the laws of Nazi Germany "went against the basic ideas of justice".
Dispute about Van der Lubbe's role
According to historian Ian Kershaw
Sir Ian Kershaw (born 29 April 1943) is an English historian whose work has chiefly focused on the social history of 20th-century Germany. He is regarded by many as one of the world's leading experts on Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, and is pa ...
, by 1998, nearly all historians agreed that Van der Lubbe had set the ''Reichstag'' on fire, that he had acted alone, and that the incident was merely a stroke of good luck for the Nazis. However, in the days following the incident, major newspapers in the US and London were immediately sceptical of the good fortune of the Nazis in finding a communist scapegoat.
It has been alleged that the idea that Van der Lubbe was a "half-wit" or "mentally disturbed" was propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
spread by the Dutch Communist Party, to distance itself from an insurrectionist antifascist
Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...
, who had once been a member. John Gunther
John Gunther (August 30, 1901 – May 29, 1970) was an American journalist and writer.
His success came primarily by a series of popular sociopolitical works, known as the "Inside" books (1936–1972), including the best-selling '' Insi ...
, who covered the trial, described Van der Lubbe as "an obvious victim of manic-depressive psychosis" and said that the Nazis would not have chosen "an agent so inept and witless". Citing a letter that was allegedly written by Karl Ernst
Karl Ernst (1 September 1904, Berlin – 30 June 1934, Berlin) was an SA-'' Gruppenführer'' who, in early 1933, was the SA leader in Berlin. Prior to joining the Nazi Party, he had been a hotel bellboy and a bouncer at a gay nightclub. He w ...
before his death during the Night of Long Knives, Gunther believed that Nazis, who heard Van der Lubbe boast of planning to attack the Reichstag, started a second simultaneous fire they blamed on him. Hans Mommsen
Hans Mommsen (5 November 1930 – 5 November 2015) was a German historian, known for his studies in German social history, and for his functionalist interpretation of the Third Reich, especially for arguing that Adolf Hitler was a weak dictator. ...
concluded that the Nazi leadership was in a state of panic on the night of the ''Reichstag'' fire, and seemed to regard the fire as confirmation that a communist revolution was as imminent as they had claimed.
The British reporter Sefton Delmer
Denis Sefton Delmer (24 May 1904, Berlin, Germany – 4 September 1979, Lamarsh, Essex) was a British journalist of Australian heritage and propagandist for the British government during the Second World War. Fluent in German, he became friendly ...
, criticised for being a Nazi sympathiser at the time, witnessed that night's events. He reported Hitler arriving at the ''Reichstag'', appearing uncertain how it began, and concerned that a communist coup was about to be launched. Delmer viewed Van der Lubbe as being solely responsible, but that the Nazis sought to make it appear to be a "communist gang" that set the fire. On the other hand, the communists sought to make it appear that Van der Lubbe was working for the Nazis, so each side constructed a conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
*
*
* The term has a nega ...
in which the other was the villain.
In private, according to ''Hitler's Table Talk
"Hitler's Table Talk" (German: ''Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier'') is the title given to a series of World War II monologues delivered by Adolf Hitler, which were transcribed from 1941 to 1944. Hitler's remarks were recorded by Heinrich ...
'', Hitler said of the chairman of the Communist Party, Ernst Torgler
Ernst Torgler (25 April 1893 – 19 January 1963) was the last chairman of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) faction in the German Reichstag before he worked for the Nazis.
Early life
Torgler was born the son of an urban resident in Berlin. ...
: "I'm convinced he was responsible for the burning of the Reichstag, but I can't prove it".
In 1960, Fritz Tobias, a West German SPD
The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany.
Saskia Esken has been the ...
public servant and part-time historian, published a series of articles in ''Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'', later turned into a book, in which he argued that Vаn der Lubbe had acted alone. Tobias showed that Van der Lubbe was a pyromaniac
Pyromania is an impulse control disorder in which individuals repeatedly fail to resist impulses to deliberately start fires, to relieve some tension or for instant gratification. The term ''pyromania'' comes from the Greek word (''pyr'', 'fi ...
, with a long history of burning down buildings or attempting to burn them down. Tobias established that Van der Lubbe had committed a number of arson attacks on buildings in the days prior to 27 February.
In March 1973, the Swiss historian Walter Hofer organized a conference intended to rebut the claims made by Tobias. At the conference, Hofer claimed to have found evidence that some of the detectives who investigated the fire had been Nazis. Mommsen commented on Hofer's claims by stating: "Professor Hofer's rather helpless statement that the accomplices of Van der Lubbe 'could only have been Nazis' is tacit admission that the committee did not actually obtain any positive evidence in regard to the alleged accomplices' identity". Mommsen also had a theory supporting Hofer, which was suppressed for political reasons, an act that he admitted was a serious breach of ethics.
In 2014, Richard J. Evans
Sir Richard John Evans (born 29 September 1947) is a British historian of 19th- and 20th-century Europe with a focus on Germany. He is the author of eighteen books, including his three-volume ''The Third Reich Trilogy'' (2003–2008). Evans was ...
summarized: "the bulk of the historical profession greesthat Tobias was right, and that the sole author of the Reichstag fire was Marinus van der Lubbe".
More recently in 2019, mainstream German outle
Deutsche Welle (DW) reported
that according to an SA officer's sworn testimony, Van Der Lubbe could not have started the fire because the Reichstag was already on fire when he arrived with Van Der Lubbe, leading credence to the theory that this was a false flag operation Hitler used to seize power. The Enabling Act of 1933 was passed less than one month later and was the cornerstone of Hitler's rise to power. In 2008 Germany posthumously pardoned van der Lubbe.
Historian Benjamin Carter Hett laments that "Today the overwhelming consensus among historians who specialize in Nazi Germany remains that Marinus van der Lubbe burned the Reichstag all by himself. Hett argues that Tobias’ analysis is fundamentally flawed. Tobias’ undertook his study when tasked to defend West German police officials who had investigated the initial fire as SS members. In doing so, Tobias disregarded any information from persons who had been targeted by the Nazi regime as biased while accepting the testimony of former SS members as objective, even though their post-war testimony is clearly contradicted by records from 1933. Furthermore, Hett shows that Tobias used his access to secret archives to coerce historians with opposing views by threatening to reveal compromising personal information. Hett argues that the most recent evidence makes clear that the fire could not have been the work of an individual and Hett feels there is far more evidence of Nazi collaboration than there is of a communist plot.
1955 testimony of SA member Hans-Martin Lennings
In July 2019, more than 80 years after the event, Germany's ''Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung
''Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung'' (abbreviated HAZ) is a German newspaper with a circulation of 158,000 (as of 2009) and a widespread resonance all over Germany. It is distributed in Hanover and in all Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony (german: ...
'' and the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland
The (RND) () is the Hanover-based joint corporate newsroom of German . The biggest limited partner of Madsack is the , which is fully owned by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
Madsack has the majority in regional newspapers with ...
published a 1955 affidavit, uncovered in some papers of Fritz Tobias, which were found in the archives of the Amtsgericht (court) in Hannover
Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German States of Germany, state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germa ...
. The affidavit by Hans-Martin Lennings (1904–1962), a former member of the Nazis' paramilitary SA unit, stated that on the night of the fire, he and his SA group drove Van der Lubbe from an infirmary to the Reichstag, where they noticed "a strange smell of burning and there were clouds of smoke billowing through the rooms". The statement suggests the fire had already started when they arrived and that the SA played a role in the arson.
Lennings, who died in 1962, further stated in his account that he and other members of his squad had protested the arrest of Van der Lubbe, "because we were convinced that Van der Lubbe could not possibly have been the arsonist, because according to our observation, the Reichstag had already been burning when we dropped him off there". He claimed he and the other witnesses were detained and forced to sign a paper that denied any knowledge of the incident. Later, nearly all of those with knowledge of the Reichstag fire were executed. Lennings said that he had been warned and escaped to Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
.
Lennings had asked that his account be certified in 1955, in the event the Reichstag fire case ever returned to trial.
The uncovering of Lennings's affidavit led to the speculation that Tobias had ignored it to protect his single perpetrator theory on the arson, and to protect the post-war career of former Nazis. It also led to more sober speculation about whether unknown or forgotten documents might still be hidden in German archives, and which might be valuable and revealing historical sources, especially on the Nazi regime.
Göring's commentary
In ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany'' is a book by American journalist William L. Shirer in which the author chronicles the rise and fall of Nazi Germany from the birth of Adolf Hitler in 1889 to the end of World Wa ...
'', William L. Shirer
William Lawrence Shirer (; February 23, 1904 – December 28, 1993) was an American journalist and war correspondent. He wrote ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'', a history of Nazi Germany that has been read by many and cited in scholarly w ...
wrote that at the Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II.
Between 1939 and 1945 ...
, General Franz Halder
Franz Halder (30 June 1884 – 2 April 1972) was a German general and the chief of staff of the Oberkommando des Heeres, Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942. During World War II, he directed the planning and i ...
stated in an affidavit that Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
had boasted about setting the fire: "On the occasion of a lunch on the Führer's birthday in 1943, the people around the Führer turned the conversation to the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears how Göring broke into the conversation and shouted: 'The only one who really knows about the Reichstag building is I, for I set fire to it.' And saying this he slapped his thigh". Under cross-examination at the Nuremberg trial
The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II.
Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded m ...
in 1945 and 1946, Halder's affidavit was read to Göring, who denied any involvement in the fire.
"Countertrial" organised by the German Communist Party
During the summer of 1933, a mock countertrial was organised in London by a group of lawyers, democrats and other anti-Nazis under the aegis of German communist émigrés. The chairman of the mock trial was British Labour Party
The Labour Party is a List of political parties in the United Kingdom, political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of Social democracy, social democrats, Democratic socialism, democratic socialists and trade u ...
barrister
A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...
D. N. Pritt, and the chief organiser was the KPD propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
chief Willi Münzenberg
Wilhelm "Willi" Münzenberg (14 August 1889, Erfurt, Germany – June 1940, Saint-Marcellin, France) was a German Communist political activist and publisher. Münzenberg was the first head of the Young Communist International in 1919–20 and est ...
. The other "judges" were Piet Vermeylen Piet Vermeylen (8 April 1904 in Uccle – 30 December 1991 in Brussels, also called Pierre Vermeylen by some Belgian French sources), was a Belgian lawyer, and socialist politician and minister. He was the son of the Flemish politician August Vermey ...
of Belgium, George Branting of Sweden, Vincent de Moro-Giafferi
Vincent de Moro-Giafferi (6 June 1878 in Paris – 15 February 1956 or 22 November 1956) was a French criminal attorney.
Moro-Giafferi was the youngest person ever appointed to the Paris bar at the age of 24. Also active in politics, he was mad ...
and Gaston Bergery of France, Betsy Bakker-Nort
Bertha "Betsy" Bakker-Nort (8 May 187423 May 1946) was a Dutch lawyer and politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives for the Free-thinking Democratic League (VDB) from 1922 to 1942.
Born in Groningen, she became involve ...
, a lawyer and member of parliament of the Netherlands for the progressive liberal party Free-thinking Democratic League
The Free-thinking Democratic League ( nl, Vrijzinnig Democratische Bond, VDB) was a progressive liberal political party in the Netherlands. Established in 1901, it played a relatively large role in Dutch politics, supplying one Prime Minister, Wi ...
, Vald Hvidt of Denmark, and Arthur Garfield Hays
Arthur Garfield Hays (December 12, 1881 – December 14, 1954) was an American lawyer and champion of civil liberties issues, best known as a co-founder and general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union and for participating in notable ca ...
of the United States.
The mock trial began 21 September 1933. It lasted one week and ended with the conclusion that the defendants were innocent and the true initiators of the fire were to be found amid the leading Nazi Party elite. The countertrial received much media attention, and Sir Stafford Cripps
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps (24 April 1889 – 21 April 1952) was a British Labour Party politician, barrister, and diplomat.
A wealthy lawyer by background, he first entered Parliament at a by-election in 1931, and was one of a handful of La ...
delivered the opening speech. Göring was found guilty at the mock trial, which served as a workshop that tested all possible scenarios, and all speeches of the defendants had been prepared. Most of the "judges", such as Hays and Moro-Giafferi, complained that the atmosphere at the "countertrial" was more like a show trial
A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so th ...
, with Münzenberg constantly applying pressure behind the scenes on the "judges" to deliver the "right" verdict, without any regard for the truth. One of the "witnesses", a supposed SA man, appeared in court wearing a mask and claimed that it was the SA that had really set the fire. In fact, the "SA man" was Albert Norden, the editor of the German communist newspaper ''Rote Fahne
''Die Rote Fahne'' (, ''The Red Flag'') was a German newspaper originally founded in 1876 by Socialist Worker's party leader Wilhelm Hasselmann, and which has been since published on and off, at times underground, by German Socialists and Communis ...
''. Another masked witness, whom Hays described as "not very reliable", claimed that Van der Lubbe was a drug addict and a homosexual, who was the lover of Ernst Röhm
Ernst Julius Günther Röhm (; 28 November 1887 – 1 July 1934) was a German military officer and an early member of the Nazi Party. As one of the members of its predecessor, the German Workers' Party, he was a close friend and early ally ...
and a Nazi dupe. When the lawyer for Ernst Torgler
Ernst Torgler (25 April 1893 – 19 January 1963) was the last chairman of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) faction in the German Reichstag before he worked for the Nazis.
Early life
Torgler was born the son of an urban resident in Berlin. ...
asked the mock trial organisers to turn over the "evidence" that exonerated his client, Münzenberg refused the request because he lacked any "evidence" to exonerate or to convict anyone of the crime.
The countertrial was an enormously successful publicity stunt for the German communists. Münzenberg followed the triumph with another by writing, under his name, the bestselling ''The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror
''The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror'' (German: ''Braunbuch über Reichstagsbrand und Hitlerterror'') is a book published in Paris, France in August 1933 and written by an anti-fascist group including German communist Willi Mun ...
'', an exposé of what Münzenberg alleged to be the Nazi conspiracy to burn down the Reichstag and to blame the act on the communists. (As with all of Münzenberg's other books, the real author was one of his aides: in this case, the Czechoslovak
Czechoslovak may refer to:
*A demonym or adjective pertaining to Czechoslovakia (1918–93)
**First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–38)
**Second Czechoslovak Republic (1938–39)
**Third Czechoslovak Republic (1948–60)
**Fourth Czechoslovak Repub ...
communist Otto Katz.) The success of ''The Brown Book'' was followed by another, published in 1934, dealing with the trial.
See also
* ''A Lesson in History
''A Lesson in History'' (russian: link=no, Урок истории, bg, Урокът на историята) is a 1957 joint Soviet– Bulgarian historical drama film directed by Lev Arnshtam and Hristo Piskov about Georgi Dimitrov and the Lei ...
''
* List of attacks on legislatures
The following is a list of attacks on state or national legislature
A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to re ...
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Originally published as:
*
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*
*
External links
Review of Bahar and Kugel book
Documentary about Reichstag fire and Marinus van der Lubbe
Newsreel footage from UK about the fire
The Conspiracists
at London Review of Books
The Brown Book of the Hitler Terror and the Burning of the Reichstag
A HathiTrust
HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...
full text of the US edition held by the University of Michigan: Alfred A Knopf Inc, NY, 1933.
{{Authority control
1933 crimes in Germany
1933 fires in Europe
1930s in Berlin
Arson in Germany
Arson in the 1930s
Attacks on buildings and structures in Berlin
Attacks on buildings and structures in the 1930s
Attacks on legislatures
Conspiracy theories in Germany
False flag operations
February 1933 events
Fires at legislative buildings
Fires in Germany
Fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...
Urban fires in Europe
1930s crimes in Berlin