Search

The Online Encyclopedia and Dictionary

 
     
 

Encyclopedia

Dictionary

Quotes

 

Reichstag fire

The Reichstag fire was a pivotal event in the establishment of .
Enlarge
The Reichstag fire was a pivotal event in the establishment of Nazi Germany.

The Reichstag fire, a pivotal event in the establishment of Nazi Germany, began at 9:14 PM on the night of February 27, 1933, when a Berlin fire station received an alarm that the Reichstag building, assembly location of the German Parliament, was ablaze. The fire seemed to have been started in several places, and by the time the police and firemen arrived a huge explosion had set the main Chamber of Deputies in flames. Looking for clues, the police quickly found Marinus van der Lubbe, half-naked, cowering behind the building.

Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring arrived soon after, and when they were shown Van der Lubbe, a known Communist agitator, Göring immediately declared the fire was set by the Communists and had the party leaders arrested. Hitler took advantage of the situation to declare a state of emergency and encouraged the aging president Paul von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, abolishing most of the human rights provisions of the 1919 Weimar Republic constitution.

The Nazi leaders were determined to demonstrate the Reichstag Fire was a deed of the International Communist society, and in early March 1933, three men were arrested who were to play pivotal roles during the Leipzig Trial, known also as "Reichstag Fire Trial," namely Georgi Dimitrov, Vasil Tanev and Blagoi Popov.

According to the police, Van der Lubbe claimed to have set the fire as a protest against the rising power of the Nazis. Under torture, he confessed again and was brought to trial, along with the leaders of the opposition Communist Party. With their leaders in jail and denied access to the press, the Communists were badly defeated in the next election, and those Communist (and some Social Democratic) deputies that were elected to the Reichstag were not permitted by the SA to take their seats. Hitler was swept to power with 44 percent of the vote and coerced the remaining minor parties to give him the two-thirds majority for his Enabling Act, which gave him the right to rule by decree and suspended many civil liberties.

At his trial, Van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was beheaded on January 10, 1934, three days before his 25th birthday.

On the other hand, in one of the last twitches of a constitutional state, the Reichsgericht court acquitted the Communist Party leadership. This infuriated Hitler, who decreed that henceforth treason – among many other offenses – would only be tried by a newly established Volksgerichtshof ("People's Court"), which became infamous for the enormous number of death sentences it handed down while led by Roland Freisler.

Historians generally agree that Van der Lubbe, sometimes described as a half-wit, was involved in the Reichstag fire. The extent of the damage, however, has led to considerable debate over whether he acted alone. Considering the speed with which the fire engulfed the building, Van der Lubbe's reputation as a fool hungry for fame, and cryptic comments by leading Nazi officials, it is generally believed the Nazi hierarchy was involved in order to reap political gain—and it obviously did.

At Nuremberg, General Franz Halder claimed Göring had confessed to setting the fire: "At a luncheon on the birthday of Hitler in 1942, the conversation turned to the topic of the Reichstag building [fire] and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears when Göring interrupted the conversation and shouted: 'The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!' With that he slapped his thigh with the flat of his hand."

Göring denied he had any involvement in the fire. "I had nothing to do with it. I deny this absolutely. I can tell you in all honesty, the Reichstag fire proved very inconvenient to us. After the fire I had to use the Kroll Opera House as the new Reichstag, and the opera seemed to me much more important than the Reichstag. I must repeat, no pretext was needed for taking measures against the Communists. I already had a number of perfectly good reasons in the forms of murders, etc."

During the summer of 1933, a counter-trial was organized in London by a group of lawyers, democrats and other anti-Nazi propagandists. The countertrial lasted one week and ended with the conclusion the defendants were innocent, and the true initiators of the fire are found amid the leading NSDAP elite. The counter-trial served as a workshop during which all possible scenarios were tested and all speeches of the defendants were prepared.

The Leipzig Trial took part from September 21 to December 23,1933, and was presided over by the old German Imperial Court. The Leipzig Trial was widely publicized and was broadcast on the radio. It was expected the court would find the communists guilty on all counts and approve the repression and terror exercised by the Nazis against all opposition forces in the country. It was clear the first time Georgi Dimitrov spoke that would not happen. Dimitrov had given up his right to a court appointed lawyer and defended himself successfully. He proved his innocence and the innocence of his communist comrades and was set free. In addition, he presented evidence that the organizers of the fire were senior members of the Nazi Party.

The defendants of the Leipzig Trial were acquitted only because the trial was held under the old Imperial Court . There would have been no chance of survival under the later People's Court .

Notable Defendants in the Reichstag Fire Trial:

The contents of this article are licensed from Wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. How to see transparent copy