Reichstag Fire
The Reichstag building burned on the night of 27 February 1933, four weeks after Hitler became chancellor and six days before an election. A Dutch council communist named Marinus van der Lubbe was found inside, half-undressed, and confessed immediately and consistently to having done it alone as a protest, having tried to burn other buildings the same week. Whether he acted alone has been argued ever since. The Nazis said it was a communist conspiracy; the exiled left said the Nazis had done it themselves through a tunnel from Göring's residence; and the current scholarly weight is on van der Lubbe acting alone, though it is not settled. What is not in doubt is the use made of it. The Reichstag Fire Decree was issued the next day under Article 48 of the constitution, suspending freedom of expression, assembly, the press, the privacy of post and telephone, and protection against arrest and search without warrant. It was never repealed, and it is the legal foundation on which the entire regime rested for twelve years. Some 4,000 communists were arrested within days, including the party's leadership and elected deputies, and the first concentration camps opened for them in March. The election on 5 March, held with the opposition imprisoned and the state's broadcasting in Nazi hands, gave the party 44 per cent. The Enabling Act followed three weeks later, and needed a two-thirds majority it obtained by excluding the communist deputies who had been elected. Van der Lubbe was beheaded in January 1934.
- Year: 1933 CE
- Category: Political
