Reichstag fire (German: Reichstagsbrand [ˈʁaɪ̯çstaːksˌbʁant] Reichstagsbrand[*], English: Reichstag fire) was a key event that occurred during the establishment of the Nazi German regime. It took place on 27 February 1933 at 9:14 p.m. The first witness was a university student who was passing near the Reichstag building. While passing the building, he saw windows break and flames shoot up. The witness immediately reported the fire, and when the Berlin fire brigade arrived at the building, the Reichstag was burning fiercely. The Police, who arrived almost at the same time as the fire brigade, found that flames were rising vertically from many places and had ignited simultaneously. The police found Marinus van der Lubbe (Dutch: Marinus van der Lubbe), who was hiding naked and crouched behind the building. Van der Lubbe was a Dutch-born communist and unemployed bricklayer who had recently moved to Germany at that time. At the time of his discovery, van der Lubbe was carrying tools for arson.
Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring (then president of the Reichstag), Joseph Goebbels and others soon arrived at the scene. As soon as he saw the fire scene, Göring immediately declared that the fire had been committed by communists, and shouted for the arrest of the communist political leaders. The fire was still being extinguished, and Göring's declaration meant that the fire was settled as a communist act of arson even before any investigation had been conducted. Goebbels, who had rushed to the scene from attending an Opera performance with Hitler, also wrote in his diary that it was a gift from heaven. Hitler seized the opportunity to declare a State of emergency, and forced Paul von Hindenburg, the President, to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree (Emergency Decree), which abolished most of the Human rights provisions of the Constitution of the Weimar Republic (1919).
Nazi leaders claimed that the Reichstag fire had been revealed to be an act of the Comintern, and presented three men arrested in early March 1933 as the culprits. They played the leading roles in the Leipzig trial, later known as the "Reichstag Fire Trial." Their names were Georgi Dimitrov, Vasil Tanev, and Blagoy Popov, all Bulgarian communists. In fact, the Prussian Police who arrested these Bulgarians did not know who they were. They had been arrested only because they were reported to be suspected communists, and the police did not know specifically what kind of people they were. Only after arresting them did they learn that they were important figures in the Comintern. At that time, Dimitrov was in charge of Comintern activities in Western Europe. The Nazi Party claimed that the fire was a signal planned by the Communist Party to incite an uprising, and launched a large-scale crackdown on communists. This repression was justified as a crusade against communist terror and a war to protect democratic institutions.1
February 1933, immediately after Hitler became chancellor
Hitler became chancellor of a coalition cabinet on 30 January 1933. The first action Hitler took after becoming chancellor was to ask President Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag. The purpose was to increase the Nazi Party's seats in the government through new elections after the dissolution. Hitler's demand was accepted, and a general election was set for 5 March 1933. Hitler's aim was to destroy Democracy while creating a legal appearance within the bounds of the law. The Enabling Act was a special power permitted by the Weimar Constitution that allowed the chancellor to pass laws without the consent of the parliament. The Enabling Act was originally meant to be used in extreme states of emergency, and was in fact used only once, in 1923–1924, when the government had to end Hyperinflation to save Germany. Two-thirds or more of the parliamentary seats were required to activate this law. In January 1933, the Nazis held only 32% of the seats, and with that number of seats they could not pass the Enabling Act by vote.
Pretext for fabrication: a law that would give the National Socialist German Workers' Party power over all authority
During the election campaign, the Nazis advocated a hysterical Anti-communism platform, claiming that a communist Revolution was imminent in Germany and that the only way to stop it was to pass the Enabling Act. Hitler's election platform was to demand that voters increase the number of Nazi seats so that the Enabling Act could be passed. To reduce the number of opponents who could vote against the Enabling Act, Hitler planned to expel the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). At that time, the Communist Party of Germany held 17% of the seats after the election, before the new parliament convened. The Reichstag fire gave Hitler the means to speed up the expulsion of the communists, and was used to show the public the truth of the Nazi claim that a communist revolution was imminent. The Nazis argued that the Reichstag fire was a warning signal that a revolution was beginning, and propagandized to the German people that if they did not hand power over to the Nazis, the communists would start a revolution and turn Germany into a communist state, and that the people would not only be subjected to communism but to Soviet-style rule, living in misery.
Torturing van der Lubbe and banning the Communist Party
After torture, van der Lubbe said that he had set fire to the Reichstag alone. He was brought to trial by the executive branch together with the Communist Party leaders. At that time, according to the Berlin police, van der Lubbe insisted that he had set the fire and confessed in resistance to the Nazi regime. Under the Decree for the Protection of the People and State, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was denied the right to enter the Reichstag on 1 March 1933, on the grounds that it had been preparing an uprising. Subsequently, the police and the Nazi paramilitary SA took over all communist party buildings across Germany, and claimed that the communists had obtained weapons to use in a coup. The Communist Party became the first party to be banned by the Nazis.
Results of the operation: the National Socialist German Workers' Party takes control of the Reichstag
With access to the Press blocked and its leaders imprisoned, communists who were attacked by police and the SA became disorganized and were arrested or went into hiding underground. Communists elected to the Reichstag and some SPD members were unable to attend the Reichstag because the SA blocked them.
The Nazis were able to raise their vote share to 44%, and those votes, combined with 8% from the German National People's Party, a Nazi-friendly party, gave them a majority with 52%. However, the March election was the last election the Nazis won, but it was not as successful as they had expected. The Nazis had expected 50–55% of the vote on their own. In the end, the Nazis threatened or cajoled the remaining parties into voting in favor in order to secure the two-thirds majority needed to pass the Enabling Act, and as a result, most civil liberties and rights were suspended. Despite continued threats, only the social democrats voted against the Enabling Act. The Centre Party, which had raised the banner of political Catholicism, cast its votes in favor, so the Enabling Act passed and Hitler took full power. In April 1933, all non-Nazi parties were outlawed or, to avoid arrest and internment in concentration camps, were forced to dissolve.
Execution of van der Lubbe
At trial, van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was beheaded on 10 January 1934, three days before his 25th birthday. The Nazis claimed that van der Lubbe was part of a communist conspiracy group. This conspiracy group, they said, had burned the Reichstag building and tried to seize power by starting an uprising. The Nazis claimed that from the dawn of the day after the fire, they used police and SA to search communist party headquarters across the country, and that in this process they secured many documents proving the uprising plot. However, these "secured documents" were never submitted to the court as evidence, nor were they ever made public.
On the other hand, the communists argued that van der Lubbe was a member of a Nazi conspiracy group that intended to frame them. Van der Lubbe continued to insist that he acted alone, saying that some voice had told him to burn the Reichstag building to protest the situation of the German Working class under the Nazi system.
The communist leaders are not guilty
The Leipzig trial was held from 2 September to 23 December 1933, and was presided over by judges from the former German Reich court called the Reichsgericht. The Leipzig trial was widely publicized and broadcast on the radio. The Hitler regime naturally expected that all investigations would confirm the guilt of the communists and that the public would approve of the Nazi-led suppression of all anti-state forces and the terror created by it.
Georgi Dimitrov, the main suspect in the crime, was convinced that this would not happen. Dimitrov fought against the prosecutors through argument in court, and successfully defended himself. The courtroom soon became a battlefield between communism and Nazism. In the end, he proved that he and his communist comrades were innocent, and they were released. In addition, Dimitrov also proved that the arsonist was a major member of the Nazi Party.
Göring and Goebbels and others claimed on the radio that the communists had committed the act, and announced that the Gestapo and the Kripo (criminal police) had raided the Karl Liebknecht House, the communist party headquarters, and seized documents related to a violent uprising plan amounting to 100 pounds. However, these evidence items were not submitted to the court as evidence during the trial. Only the claim of seizure was presented.
Hitler was furious at the trial's outcome. He ordered that from then on, treason cases were to be handled only by the newly established People's Court (Volksgerichtshof). Later, this court, while led by Roland Freisler, left behind many notorious records.
Debate over van der Lubbe's role in the Reichstag fire
Historians generally agree that van der Lubbe was involved in the Reichstag fire. However, they doubt that he acted alone given the extent of the damage. Considering the speed at which the fire spread through the building, van der Lubbe's reputation as an arsonist with mental instability who hungered for fame, together with the ambiguous remarks of senior Nazi Party officials, leads people to believe that Nazi leaders were involved for political gain. The idea is that the Nazis planned and carried out the fire, then pinned it on van der Lubbe in order to suppress the communist party.
Some argue that neither the Nazis nor the communists were involved, and that the crime was committed by van der Lubbe alone. According to this view, the Reichstag fire was a great stroke of luck for the Nazis. The idea that van der Lubbe was a "fool" or a "mentally unstable person" was propaganda by the communist party, which wanted to distance itself from violent antifascists. The historian Hans Mommsen concluded that on the day of the incident the Nazi leaders were in a state of panic, and that they regarded it as confirmation of their propaganda that a communist revolution would actually happen immediately.
Göring's possible role
At the Nuremberg trials, General Franz Halder testified that Göring had joked about the fire incident:
It was at lunch on the Führer's birthday in 1942. The people gathered around the Führer that day were chatting about the artistic value of the Reichstag building. I clearly heard with my own ears Göring interrupt the conversation and shout: "I am the only one who really knows the Reichstag, because I set fire to the Reichstag." As he said this, he slapped his thigh.
At the confrontation in Nuremberg, Göring heard Halder's testimony but denied that he had been involved in the fire. Calling Halder's testimony nonsense, Göring testified as follows:
I had no motive or reason to set fire to the Reichstag. From an artistic point of view, I do not regret that the parliament burned. I wanted to build a more magnificent building. But I was deeply upset. I had to find a new place for the Reichstag and had to give up the Kroll Opera House (which was used as the parliament after the fire). The opera seemed to me more important than the Reichstag.
The communist party's "counter-trial"
In the summer of 1933, a group composed of German communist exiles, democrats, anti-Nazi propagandists and lawyers held a preliminary hearing of a counter-trial in London. The judge of the counter-trial was Stafford Cripps, a politician of the British Labour Party, while the chairman of the organization behind the counter-trial was Willi Münzenberg of the German Communist Party. The counter-trial lasted one week, and its conclusion was that the accused were innocent and that the real arsonists were the leading Nazi Party elites. Göring was found guilty in this preliminary hearing. During the counter-trial preliminary hearing, all possible scenarios were examined, it became a collective workshop, and all statements of the defendants were prepared. The "counter-trial" was intended for German communists. Münzenberg wrote the "Brown Book on the Reichstag Fire," which became a bestseller under his name. Its content was that it was a plot by the Nazis to accuse and suppress the communists (in fact, Münzenberg's books were written by one of his staff members, as if he were the actual author, and in this case it was Czechoslovak communist Otto Katz). Today, this book is widely referenced by historians.
A Stormtrooper's disclosure and the reconstruction of the incident
According to police reports after the fire, the police and fire brigade who arrived shortly after the fire broke out at 9:14 were surprised that there were 60 to 65 points of ignition scattered throughout the entire building. There were also columns of fire rising without producing smoke. The police and fire brigade believed that these flames were caused by an incendiary material. This made people doubt the Nazi claim that van der Lubbe alone committed the crime. Furthermore, the surrounding circumstances also made people doubt the Nazi claim.
On 22 February, five days before the fire, Göring elevated the SA to auxiliary police. The SA and SS (which was still a subordinate organization of the SA), which had always been in a state of confrontation with the police, became semi-state organizations that supported the police. Also, the fire occurred during the election campaign, exactly one week before the election. On 10 February, Goebbels drew up a detailed plan for campaign activities during the election period. According to this plan, Hitler was to tour various places and conduct campaign activities, even using aircraft. However, this plan had no scheduled events from 25 to 27 February. In particular, it was officially stated that there would be no speeches on the 27th at all.
In March 1933, after the incident, an SA member named "Lahr" was arrested in Neuruppin on charges of robbery. Lahr told the judge that he would avoid the robbery charge in exchange for disclosing the Reichstag fire of the previous February. At that time, the recording clerk Reineking recorded this fact and reported it to his superiors, and the matter was notified to the Gestapo. The Gestapo immediately arrested Lahr, and a few days later Lahr was reportedly found dead in a field.
The account of events claimed by this person is as follows. One night in February, ten members were selected from the bodyguard led by Karl Ernst, the loyal follower of SA commander Ernst Röhm. Lahr was one of them. On 27 February they went to the residence of the Reichstag president and waited. At that time the president of the Reichstag was Hermann Göring. At 9 p.m., Ernst led them into the parliament building through the passage leading to it. Each was given two or three barrels of incendiary fuel, and at 9 p.m. that night, at Ernst's signal, they set fire all at once. Having finished the work in ten minutes, they returned the way they had come, and then van der Lubbe was sent into the parliament building with matches and ignition materials in his pockets. According to this account, Joseph Goebbels conceived the idea, Hermann Göring cooperated, and the practical command was carried out by Ernst, who was Röhm's subordinate.
Reineking, the clerk who heard this, quickly informed the Gestapo and was rapidly promoted, but was later secretly shot dead. Karl Ernst was shot during the Night of the Long Knives, and the other members, except Lahr, were also reportedly assassinated during the purge.
Episodes after the trial
- Göring, summoned as a witness in his capacity as Minister of the Interior, got into a heated argument with Dimitrov. In this argument, however, Göring was completely defeated by Dimitrov. Moreover, it is said that Göring was dumbfounded when he saw the prosecutor searching through documents related to the anti-Nazi counter-trial, which Göring had destroyed wherever he saw them.
- The three Bulgarians were acquitted, but were kept in detention until the following year. In court, Göring shouted at Dimitrov that he would keep him detained regardless of the trial's outcome.
- The van der Lubbe family requested his body, but in the end the body was not sent to the family.
- The Nazis never again staged a political show like the Leipzig trial. However, in the trial of the perpetrators of the assassination attempt on Hitler, they staged a show by filming the defendants dying from beginning to end and making it public.
- Ernst Thälmann's second-in-command, Torgler, later defected to the Nazis (on that condition he was released).
- Except for Lahr, who was eliminated early, the SA members believed to have participated in the plot, including the leader of the operation Ernst, were quietly eliminated during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934.
Notes
References from the English edition
- Kershaw, Ian Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris, London, 1998.
- Mommsen, Hans "The Reichstag Fire and Its Political Consequences" pages 129-222 from Republic to Reich The Making of the Nazi Revolution edited by Hajo Holborn, New York: Pantheon Books, 1972: originally published as "Der Reichstagsbrand und seine politischen Folgen" pages 351-413 from Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 12, 1964.
- Synder, Louis Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976.
- Tobias, Fritz The Reichstag Fire, translated From the German by Arnold J. Pomerans with an introduction by A.J.P. Taylor, New York, Putnam 1964, 1963.
Additional references consulted for the Korean edition
- 게슈타포, 광기의 역사 (Gestapo, A History of Madness), by Jacques Delarue, translated by Seo Seok-yeon (Gaya Publishing, Seoul, 1987).
Notes