Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Times

Step Into History

The Reichstag Fire

The Motive

German Parliament, Nov. 1932

Communists: 100 seats

Social Dems: 121 seats

Center Party: 70 seats

Nazi Party: 196 seats

Other: 98 seats

When Adolf Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor in January 1933, he led the largest political party in Germany. But he did not yet control parliament. Social Democrats, Centrists, and Communists challenged their policies; sessions degraded into shouting matches, deadlocks, and mass walk-outs. It ceased to be a legislating body and became a ideological battlefield instead.

This was a tactic to prevent the Reichstag from doing anything productive.

President Hindenburg dissolved parliament and called for new elections set for March 5. Article 48 of the German Constitution gave him that right when the government ceased to function.

The Crime

On the night of February 27, 1933, German parliament burned to the ground. The first alarm came around 9:00 p.m. By the time police and firefighters arrived the building was already engulfed in flames and eventually destroy its gilded cupola and main chamber causing roughly $1 million in damage.

Police arrested a young unemployed communist from the Netherlands on the scene. Twenty-four year old Marinus van der Lubbe was apprehended “naked from the waist upwards. Smeared with dirt and sweating,” according to police reports. While in custody, he claimed to have set the fire to encourage a worker’s uprising and acted alone.

The Official Story

Marinus van der Lubbe, a known arsonist, broke into the Reichstag. Once inside the dark and unfamiliar building, he found his way into the main legislature chamber, and used his own shirt to set a fire. Two minutes following his entry, the entire building was engulfed in flames.

Police apprehended him at the scene at took him into custody where he quickly confessed.

The fire was to signal the beginning of a communist revolution against the government. Families of police and other civilians would be used for human shields in their attempt to seize control of Germany and turn it into a Soviet republic.

The Plausible Story

We will never know what really happened that night. Most with firsthand knowledge of the fire were killed in the months that followed.

What we know for sure is van der Lubbe had already attempted to set fire to several government buildings but was unsuccessful. He was seen and overheard by numerous credible witnesses at a bar boasting how he planned to burn down the Reichstag building next.

Coincidentally, the Nazis themselves were planning on doing this deed themselves. Hermann Goering, head Party boss in Prussia at the time, planned the operation and made a list of people to be arrested immediately following.

A squad of Brownshirts ran from the Reich President’s Palace down an underground tunnel connected to the Reichstag. They doused the main chamber in gasoline and other chemicals before departing to wait for their patsy to finish the job for them.

Van der Lubbe had matches and only his own shirt as kindling (hence, being arrested “naked from the waist up”).

Emergency Powers

Under the advisement of the chancellor, President Hindenburg declared a national emergency and signed the Reichstag Fire Decree on February 28. It stripped away civil liberties at the stroke of a pen. Freedoms of speech, the press, assembly were revoked. Phone lines were tapped. Mail was intercepted and read by the brownshirts or police.

The United States has a right called habeus corpus; that is the idea that the State must justify holding you under arrest and your ability challenge your arrest in a legal court in front of a judge. Weimar Germany had the same concept guaranteeing an individual’s personal liberty against wrongful incarceration. That was suspended indefinitely after the fire. This means if you are arrested by Nazi authorities, you had to hope they find a reason to let you go because with the privilege to an attorney, you have no way to challenge the new system.

Its shadow stretched deep into daily life.

The Anti-Red Terror

The first wave of arrests came mere hours after the fire. Each city saw a wave of raids against homes and businesses. Tens of thousands of Nazi opponents were arrested or placed under ‘protective custody’.

Left-wing parties were forbidden from any further election campaigning in Germany. Political rallies and speeches were canceled. Left-wing newspapers were shut down. Campaign posters were painted over.

Mass surveillance, arbitrary arrests, and raids against pro-Communist unions, printing offices, and personal homes. Newspapers, meeting halls, bars, political organizations, particularly those on the Left, were shut down or banned with its staff under arrest.

Reichstag in 1970. It remained a ruin until Reunification in 1990.

Final Thoughts

The issue wasn’t people whole heartedly believed the ‘official’ story but it was plausible enough to temporarily suspend disbelief against our better judgement. We use it in court each day.

The KPD launched several inglorious and unsuccessful revolts in the fifteen years since the birth of the republic and had grown strong in recent years. At the time of the fire it was the largest minority party in parliament and generous donations from powerful figures. They used guns in street brawls and likely had a small arsenal of rifles. Though I have no sources to prove this but each paramilitary wing probably had their own weapon stockpiles.

Communist propaganda was too successful for their own good. It portrayed itself as an ultra-organized, armed revolutionary movement which already toppled one country. As the graph at the top of the page shows while the KPD was large, it was by no means a competing majority to the Nazi Party. But they wanted a revolution. Was it so far fetched burning down the government would ignite a civil war?

The mind didn’t see the timing of the arrests happened too quickly after the fire? Everyone had lists. But the government, now firmly in the hands of the Nazis, forbade any political opposition from advertising and campaigning right before a major election. The people were so afraid of the Communists

Most non-Nazi conservatives on the ballots were already waiting until after the election to switch parties at the behest of the National Socialists.

Image Credits: