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The Reichstag fire, a pivotal event in the establishment of Nazi Germany, began at 9.14 p.m. 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 that 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 provided for by the 1919 constitution of the Weimar Republic.
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 July 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
that it imposed under the later lead of 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 that the Nazi hierarchy was involved in order to reap political gain—and it obviously
did.
At Nuremberg, captured General Franz Halder, claimed that 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 that 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, that 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 that 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."
Notable Defendants in the Reichstag Fire Trial:
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