Reichstag fire

The Reichstag fire (German: Reichstagsbrand, listen ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Hitler's government stated that Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch council communist, was the culprit, and it attributed the fire to communist agitators. A German court decided later that year that Van der Lubbe had acted alone, as he had claimed. The day after the fire, the Reichstag Fire Decree was passed. The Nazi Party used the fire as a pretext to claim that communists were plotting against the German government, which made the fire pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany.

Reichstag fire
Firefighters struggle to extinguish the fire.
Native name Reichstagsbrand
Date27 February 1933 (1933-02-27)
LocationReichstag building, Berlin, Germany
TypeArson
ParticipantsMarinus van der Lubbe
Outcome
  • Van der Lubbe executed
  • Civil liberties suspended
  • Nazi control of government entrenched

The first report of the fire came shortly after 9:00 p.m., when a Berlin fire station received an alarm call.[1]:26–28 By the time police and firefighters arrived, the lower house 'Chamber of Deputies' was engulfed in flames. The police conducted a thorough search inside the building and accused Van der Lubbe. He was arrested, as were four communist leaders soon after. Hitler urged President Paul von Hindenburg to issue an emergency decree to suspend civil liberties and pursue a "ruthless confrontation" with the Communist Party of Germany.[2] After the decree was issued, the government instituted mass arrests of communists, including all of the Communist Party's parliamentary delegates. With their bitter rival communists gone and their seats empty, the Nazi Party went from having a plurality to a majority, thus enabling Hitler to consolidate his power.

In February 1933, Bulgarians Georgi Dimitrov, Vasil Tanev, and Blagoy Popov were arrested, and they played pivotal roles during the Leipzig Trial, also known as the "Reichstag Fire Trial". They were known to the Prussian police as senior Comintern operatives, but the police had no idea how senior they were. Dimitrov was the head of all Comintern operations in Western Europe. The responsibility for the Reichstag fire remains a topic of debate and research.[3][4] The Nazis accused the Comintern of the act. However, some historians believe, based on archive evidence, that the arson had been planned and ordered by the Nazis as a false flag operation.[5][6] The building remained in its damaged state until it was partially repaired from 1961 to 1964 and completely restored from 1995 to 1999. In 2008, Germany posthumously pardoned Van der Lubbe under a law introduced in 1998 to lift unjust verdicts dating from the Nazi era.

Prelude

After the November 1932 German federal election, the Nazi Party had a plurality, not a majority; the Communists posted gains. Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor and head of the coalition government on 30 January 1933. As Chancellor, Hitler asked German President Paul von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and call for a new parliamentary election. The date set for the elections was 5 March 1933. Hitler's aim was first to acquire a Nazi majority, to secure his position and to remove the communist opposition. If prompted or desired, the President could remove the Chancellor.

Hitler hoped to abolish democracy in a more or less legal fashion, by passing the Enabling Act. The Enabling Act was a special law that gave the Chancellor the power to pass laws by decree, without the involvement of the Reichstag. These special powers would remain in effect for four years, after which time they were eligible to be renewed. Under the Weimar Constitution, the President could rule by decree in times of emergency using Article 48.[7] The unprecedented element of the Enabling Act was that the Chancellor was to be given these powers rather than the President. An Enabling Act was only supposed to be passed in times of extreme emergency and had only been used once, in 1923–24 when the government used an Enabling Act to end hyperinflation. To pass an Enabling Act required a two-thirds majority vote in the Reichstag. In January 1933, the Nazis had only 32% of the seats.

During the election campaign, the Nazis alleged that Germany was on the verge of a Communist revolution and that the only way to stop the Communists was to pass the Enabling Act. The message of the campaign was simple: increase the number of Nazi seats so that the Enabling Act could be passed. To decrease the number of opposition members of parliament who could vote against the Enabling Act, Hitler planned to ban the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (the Communist Party of Germany or KPD), which at the time held 17% of the seats, after the elections and before the new Reichstag convened.

At the time of the fire, the German parliament was not in session. It had been dissolved by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, and elections were scheduled for the next month.

Fire

Shortly after 9:00 p.m. on 27 February 1933, the Berlin Fire Department received a message that the Reichstag was on fire. Despite the best efforts of the firefighters, most of the building was gutted by the blaze. By 11:30, the fire was put out. The firefighters and police inspected the ruins and found 20 bundles of flammable material (firelighters) unburned lying about. At the time the fire was reported, Hitler was having dinner with Joseph Goebbels at Goebbels' apartment in Berlin. When Goebbels received an urgent phone call informing him of the fire, he regarded it as a "tall tale" at first and hung up. Only after the second call did he report the news to Hitler.[8] Both left Goebbels' apartment and arrived by car at the Reichstag, just as the fire was being put out. They were met at the site by Hermann Göring, Interior Minister of Prussia, who told Hitler, "This is Communist outrage! One of the Communist culprits has been arrested." Hitler called the fire a "sign from God" and claimed it was a Fanal (signal) meant to mark the beginning of a Communist Putsch (revolt). The next day, the Preussische Pressedienst (Prussian Press Service) reported that "this act of incendiarism is the most monstrous act of terrorism carried out by Bolshevism in Germany". The Vossische Zeitung newspaper warned its readers that "the government is of the opinion that the situation is such that a danger to the state and nation existed and still exists".[9]

Walter Gempp was head of the Berlin fire department at the time of the Reichstag fire on 27 February 1933, personally directing the operations at the incident.[10] On 25 March he was dismissed for presenting evidence that suggested Nazi involvement in the fire.[11] Gempp asserted that there had been a delay in notifying the fire brigade and that he had been forbidden from making full use of the resources at his disposal.

In 1937, he was arrested for abuse of office. Despite his appeal, he was imprisoned. He was strangled and killed in prison on 2 May 1939.[12]

Political consequences

The day after the fire, at Hitler's request, President Hindenburg signed the Reichstag Fire Decree into law by using Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. The Reichstag Fire Decree suspended most civil liberties in Germany, including habeas corpus, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right of free association and public assembly, and the secrecy of the post and telephone.[13] These rights were not reinstated during Nazi reign. The decree was used by the Nazis to ban publications not considered "friendly" to the Nazi cause. Despite the fact that Marinus van der Lubbe claimed to have acted alone in the Reichstag fire, Hitler, after having obtained his emergency powers, announced that it was the start of a Communist plot to take over Germany. Nazi Party newspapers then published this fabricated "news".[13] This sent the German population into a panic and isolated the Communists further among the civilians; additionally, thousands of Communists were imprisoned in the days following the fire (including leaders of the Communist Party of Germany) on the charge that the Party was preparing to stage a putsch. Speaking to Rudolph Diels about Communists during the Reichstag fire, Hitler said "These sub-humans do not understand how the people stand at our side. In their mouse-holes, out of which they now want to come, of course they hear nothing of the cheering of the masses."[14] With Communist electoral participation also suppressed (the Communists previously polled 17% of the vote), the Nazis were able to increase their share of the vote in the 5 March 1933 Reichstag elections from 33% to 44%.[15] This gave the Nazis and their allies, the German National People's Party (who won 8% of the vote), a majority of 52% in the Reichstag.[15]

While the Nazis emerged with a majority, they fell short of their goal, which was to win 50–55% of the vote that year.[15] The Nazis thought that this would make it difficult to achieve their next goal, passage of the Enabling Act giving Hitler the right to rule by decree, which required a two-thirds majority.[15] However, several important factors weighed in the Nazis' favour, mainly the continued suppression of the Communist Party and the Nazis' ability to capitalize on national security concerns. Moreover, some deputies of the Social Democratic Party (the only party that would vote against the Enabling Act) were prevented from taking their seats in the Reichstag, due to arrests and intimidation by the Nazi SA. As a result, the Social Democratic Party would be under-represented in the final vote tally. The Enabling Act passed easily on 23 March 1933, with the support of the right-wing German National People's Party, the Centre Party, and several fragmented middle-class parties. The measure went into force on 27 March, effectively making Hitler dictator of Germany.

The Kroll Opera House, sitting across the Königsplatz from the burned-out Reichstag building, functioned as the Reichstag's venue for the remaining 12 years of the Third Reich's existence.

Dimitrov on an East German stamp

Trial
"Leipzig Trial" redirects here. For the post-World War I trials, see Leipzig War Crimes Trials.

In July 1933, Marinus van der Lubbe, Ernst Torgler, Georgi Dimitrov, Blagoi Popov, and Vasil Tanev were indicted on charges of setting the Reichstag on fire. From 21 September to 23 December 1933, the Leipzig Trial took place and was presided over by judges from the German Supreme Court, the Reichsgericht. This was Germany's highest court. The presiding judge was Judge Dr. Wilhelm Bünger of the Fourth Criminal Court of the Fourth Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court.[16] The accused were charged with arson and with attempting to overthrow the government.

The window through which Marinus van der Lubbe supposedly entered the building

The Leipzig Trial was widely publicized and was broadcast on the radio. It was expected that the court would find the Communists guilty on all counts. At the end of the trial, however, only Van der Lubbe was convicted, while his fellow defendants were found not guilty. In 1934, Van der Lubbe was beheaded in a German prison yard. In 1967, a court in West Berlin overturned the 1933 verdict, and posthumously changed Van der Lubbe's sentence to eight years in prison. In 1980, another court overturned the verdict, but was overruled. In 1981, a West German court posthumously overturned Van der Lubbe's 1933 conviction and found him not guilty by reason of insanity. This ruling was subsequently overturned. However, in January 2008, he was pardoned under a 1998 law for the crime on the grounds that anyone convicted under Nazi Germany is officially not guilty. The law allows pardons for people convicted of crimes under the Nazis, based on the idea that the laws of Nazi Germany "went against the basic ideas of justice".[17]

The trial began at 8:45 on the morning of 21 September, with Van der Lubbe testifying. Van der Lubbe's testimony was very hard to follow as he spoke of losing his sight in one eye and wandering around Europe as a drifter and that he had been a member of the Dutch Communist Party, which he quit in 1931, but still considered himself a communist. Georgi Dimitrov began his testimony on the third day of the trial. He gave up his right to a court-appointed lawyer and defended himself successfully. When warned by Judge Bünger to behave himself in court, Dimitrov stated: "Herr President, if you were a man as innocent as myself and you had passed seven months in prison, five of them in chains night and day, you would understand it if one perhaps becomes a little strained." During the course of his defence, Dimitrov claimed that the organizers of the fire were senior members of the Nazi Party and frequently verbally clashed with Göring at the trial. The highpoint of the trial occurred on 4 November 1933, when Göring took the stand and was cross-examined by Dimitrov.[18] The following exchange took place:

Dimitrov: Herr Prime Minister Göring stated on February 28 that, when arrested, the "Dutch Communist Van der Lubbe had on his person his passport and a membership card of the Communist Party". From whom was this information taken?

Göring: The police search all common criminals, and report the result to me.

Dimitrov: The three officials who arrested and examined Van der Lubbe all agreed that no membership card of the Communist Party was found on him. I should like to know where the report that such a card had been found came from.

Göring: I was told by an official. Things which were reported to me on the night of the fire...could not be tested or proven. The report was made to me by a responsible official, and was accepted as a fact, and as it could not be tested immediately it was announced as a fact. When I issued the first report to the press on the morning after the fire the interrogation of Van der Lubbe had not been concluded. In any case I do not see that anyone has any right to complain because it seems proved in this trial that Van der Lubbe had no such card on him.

Dimitrov: I would like to ask the Minister of the Interior what steps he took to make sure that Van der Lubbe's route to Hennigsdorf, his stay and his meetings with other people there were investigated by the police to assist them in tracking down Van der Lubbe's accomplices?

Göring: As I am not an official myself, but a responsible Minister it was not important that I should trouble myself with such petty, minor matters. It was my task to expose the Party, and the mentality, which was responsible for the crime.

Dimitrov: Is the Reichsminister aware of the fact that those that possess this alleged criminal mentality today control the destiny of a sixth part of the world – the Soviet Union?

Göring: I don't care what happens in Russia! I know that the Russians pay with bills, and I should prefer to know that their bills are paid! I care about the Communist Party here in Germany and about Communist crooks who come here to set the Reichstag on fire!

Dimitrov: This criminal mentality rules the Soviet Union, the greatest and best country in the world. Is Herr Prime Minister aware of that?

Göring: I shall tell you what the German people already know. They know that you are behaving in a disgraceful manner! They know that you are a Communist crook who came to Germany to set the Reichstag on fire! In my eyes you are nothing, but a scoundrel, a crook who belongs on the gallows!".[19]

In his verdict, Judge Bünger was careful to underline his belief that there had in fact been a Communist conspiracy to burn down the Reichstag, but declared, with the exception of Van der Lubbe, there was insufficient evidence to connect the accused to the fire or the alleged conspiracy. Only Van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death. The rest were acquitted and were expelled to the Soviet Union, where they received a heroic welcome. The one exception was Torgler, who was taken into "protective custody" by the police until 1935. After being released, he assumed a pseudonym and moved away from Berlin.

Hitler was furious with the outcome of this trial. He decreed that henceforth treason—among many other offenses—would only be tried by a newly established People's Court (Volksgerichtshof). The People's Court later became associated with the number of death sentences it handed down, including those following the 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler, which were presided over by then Judge-President Roland Freisler.

Execution of Van der Lubbe

At his trial, Van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was beheaded by guillotine (the customary form of execution in Saxony at the time) on 10 January 1934, three days before his 25th birthday. The Nazis alleged that Van der Lubbe was part of a Communist conspiracy to burn down the Reichstag and seize power, while the Communists alleged that Van der Lubbe was part of the Nazi conspiracy to blame the crime on them. Van der Lubbe, for his part, maintained that he acted alone to protest the condition of the German working class.[20]

Dispute about Van der Lubbe's role
Memorial at the Südfriedhof in Leipzig

According to Ian Kershaw, in Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, written in 1998, nearly all historians at the time of the book thought that Van der Lubbe had set the Reichstag on fire and acted alone and that it was merely a stroke of good luck for the Nazis.[21] However, in the days following the incident, major newspapers in the US and London were immediately skeptical of the good fortune of the Nazis in finding a Communist scapegoat.[22] [23]

It is alleged that the idea that Van der Lubbe was a "half-wit" or "mentally disturbed" was propaganda spread by the Dutch Communist Party, to distance itself from an insurrectionist antifascist, who had been a member and took action after it had failed to do so.[24] John Gunther, who covered the trial, described him as "an obvious victim of manic-depressive psychosis" and said that the Nazis would not have chosen "an agent so inept and witless". Citing a letter that was allegedly written by Karl Ernst before his death during the Night of Long Knives, Gunther believed that Nazis who heard Van der Lubbe boast of planning to attack the Reichstag started a second simultaneous fire they blamed on him.[25] Hans Mommsen concluded that the Nazi leadership was in a state of panic on the night of the Reichstag fire and seemed to regard the fire as confirmation that a communist revolution was as imminent as it had said.[26]

The British reporter Sefton Delmer witnessed that night's events. He reported Hitler arriving at the Reichstag, appearing uncertain how it began, and concerned that a communist coup was about to be launched. Delmer viewed Van der Lubbe as being solely responsible but that the Nazis sought to make it appear to be a "Communist gang" that set the fire, but the communists sought to make it appear that Van der Lubbe was working for the Nazis, each side constructing a conspiracy theory in which the other was the villain.[27]

In private, Hitler said of the chairman of the Communist Party, Ernst Torgler: "I'm convinced he was responsible for the burning of the Reichstag, but I can't prove it".[28]

In 1960, Fritz Tobias, a West German SPD public servant and part-time historian, published a series of articles in Der Spiegel, later turned into a book, in which he argued that Vаn der Lubbe had acted alone.[29][30]Tobias was widely attacked for his articles, which showed that Van der Lubbe was a pyromaniac, with a long history of burning down buildings or attempting to burn down buildings. Tobias established that Van der Lubbe attempted to burn down several buildings in the days prior to 27 February. In March 1973, the Swiss historian Walter Hofer organized a conference intended to rebut the claims made by Tobias. At the conference, Hofer claimed to have found evidence that some of the detectives who investigated the fire had been Nazis. Mommsen commented on Hofer's claims by stating, "Professor Hofer's rather helpless statement that the accomplices of Van der Lubbe 'could only have been Nazis' is tacit admission that the committee did not actually obtain any positive evidence in regard to the alleged accomplices' identity". Mommsen also had a theory supporting Hofer, which was suppressed for political reasons, an act that he admitted was a serious breach of ethics.[31]


Richard J. Evans summarized the position of the majority of contemporary academic historians on the 20th century dispute between Tobias and his detractors as having "succeeded in convincing the bulk of the historical profession that Tobias was right, and that the sole author of the Reichstag fire was Marinus van der Lubbe".[30]

1955 testimony of SA member Hans-Martin Lennings

In July 2019, more than 80 years after the event, Germany's Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung and the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland published a 1955 affidavit uncovered in the legacy of former investigator Fritz Tobias (see above), which was found in the archives of the Amtsgericht (court) in Hannover in which Hans-Martin Lennings (1904–1962), a former member of the Nazis' paramilitary SA unit, stated that on the night of the fire, he and his SA group drove Van der Lubbe from an infirmary to the Reichstag, where they noticed "a strange smell of burning and there were clouds of smoke billowing through the rooms". The statement suggests the fire had already started when they arrived and that the SA played a role in the arson which led to the issuance of the Reichstag Fire Decree.

Lennings, who died in 1962, further stated in his account that he and other members of his squad had protested the arrest of Van der Lubbe. "Because we were convinced that Van der Lubbe could not possibly have been the arsonist, because according to our observation, the Reichstag had already been burning when we dropped him off there", he said in the testimony. He claimed he and the other witnesses were detained and forced to sign a paper that denied any knowledge of the incident. Later, nearly all of those with knowledge of the Reichstag fire were executed. Lennings said that he had been warned and escaped to Czechoslovakia.

Lennings had asked that his account be certified in 1955, in the event the Reichstag fire case ever returned to trial.[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]

The uncovering of Lennings's affidavit led to the speculation that Tobias had ignored it to protect his single perpetrator theory on the arson and to protect the postwar career of former Nazis,[43] but it also fed more sober speculations on which unknown or forgotten documents might still be hidden in German archives and turn out to be valuable and spectacular historical sources, especially on the Nazi regime.[44]

Göring's commentary
Göring (first row, far left) at the Nuremberg trials

In The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer wrote that at the Nuremberg Trials, General Franz Halder stated in an affidavit that Hermann Göring had boasted about setting the fire: "On the occasion of a lunch on the Führer's birthday in 1943, the people around the Führer turned the conversation to the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears how Göring broke into the conversation and shouted: 'The only one who really knows about the Reichstag building is I, for I set fire to it.' And saying this he slapped his thigh".[45] Under cross-examination at the Nuremberg trial in 1945 and 1946, Halder's affidavit was read to Göring, who denied any involvement in the fire.[46]:433

"Countertrial" organised by German Communist Party
Willi Münzenberg

During the summer of 1933, a mock countertrial was organised in London by a group of lawyers, democrats and other anti-Nazis under the aegis of German Communist émigrés. The chairman of the mock trial was British Labour Party barrister D. N. Pritt KC and the chief organiser was the KPD propaganda chief Willi Münzenberg. The other "judges" were Piet Vermeylen of Belgium; George Branting of Sweden; Vincent de Moro-Giafferi and Gaston Bergery of France; Betsy Bakker-Nort, a lawyer and member of parliament of the Netherlands for the progressive liberal party Free-thinking Democratic League; Vald Hvidt of Denmark; and Arthur Garfield Hays of the United States.[1]:120

The mock trial began on 21 September 1933. It lasted one week and ended with the conclusion that the defendants were innocent and the true initiators of the fire were to be found amid the leading Nazi Party elite. The countertrial received much media attention, and Sir Stafford Cripps delivered the opening speech. Göring was found guilty at the mock trial, which served as a workshop that tested all possible scenarios, and all speeches of the defendants had been prepared. Most of the "judges", such as Hays and Moro-Giafferi, complained that the atmosphere at the "countertrial" was more like a show trial, with Münzenberg constantly applying pressure behind the scenes on the "judges" to deliver the "right" verdict, without any regard for the truth. One of the "witnesses", a supposed SA man, appeared in court wearing a mask and claimed that it was the SA that had really set the fire. In fact, the "SA man" was Albert Norden, the editor of the German communist newspaper Rote Fahne. Another masked witness, whom Hays described as "not very reliable", claimed that Van der Lubbe was a drug addict and a homosexual, who was the lover of Ernst Röhm and a Nazi dupe. When the lawyer for Ernst Torgler asked the mock trial organisers to turn over the "evidence" that exonerated his client, Münzenberg refused the request because he lacked any "evidence" to exonerate or to convict anyone of the crime.[1]:122–126 The countertrial was an enormously-successful publicity stunt for the German communists. Münzenberg followed the triumph with another by writing, under his name, the bestselling The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror, an exposé of what Münzenberg alleged to be the Nazi conspiracy to burn down the Reichstag and to blame the act on the communists. (As with all of Münzenberg's other books, the real author was one of his aides; in this case, the Czechoslovak communist Otto Katz.[47]) The success of The Brown Book was followed by another bestseller, published in 1934 and again ghostwritten by Katz, The Second Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and the Hitler Terror.

The Brown Book was divided into three parts. The first part, which traced the rise of the Nazis (or "German Fascists" as Katz called them, in conformity with Comintern practice, which forbade the use of the term Nazi), portrayed the KPD as the only genuine antifascist force in Germany and featured a bitter attack on the SPD. Formed from dissidents within the SPD, the KPD led the communist uprisings in the early Weimar period, which the SPD later crushed. The Brown Book labelled the SPD "Social Fascists" and accused the leadership of the SPD of secretly working with the Nazis. The second section dealt with the Reichstag fire, which was described as a Nazi plot to frame the communists, who were represented as the most dedicated opponents of Nazism. The third section dealt with the supposed puppet masters behind the Nazis.

See also

References

Notes
  1. Tobias, Fritz (1964). The Reichstag Fire. Putnam.
  2. Holborn, Haljo (1973) Republic to Reich: the Making of the Nazi Revolution
  3. "The Reichstag Fire". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 31 July 2018. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  4. DW Staff (27 February 2008). "75 Years Ago, Reichstag Fire Sped Hitler's Power Grab". Deutsche Welle. Archived from the original on 5 May 2015. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  5. Paterson, Tony (15 April 2001). "Historians find 'proof' that Nazis burnt Reichstag". The Sunday Telegraph. Archived from the original on 9 March 2018. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
  6. Shirer, William (2011). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Simon and Schuster. p. 192. There is enough evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that it was the Nazis who planned the arson and carried it out for their own political ends.
  7. Botwinick, Rita (2004). A History of The Holocaust: From Ideology to Annihilation. New Jersey: Peason. pp. 90–92.
  8. Schirer, William L. (1991). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. London: Mandarin. pp. 191–192. ISBN 0-7493-0697-1.
  9. Snyder (1976), pp. 286–287.
  10. Pinkney, David H. (1964). A Festschrift for Frederick B. Artz. Duke University Press. pp. 194.
  11. Delp, Alfred (2006). Advent of the heart: seasonal sermons and prison writings, 1941-1944. Ignatius Press. p. 177.
  12. Lentz, Harris M. (1988). Assassinations and executions: an encyclopedia of political violence, 1865-1986. McFarland. pp. 74.
  13. Koonz (2003), p. 33.
  14. Gellately, Robert (2001). Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany. Oxford University Press. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-19-160452-2.
  15. Koonz (2003), p. 36.
  16. Snyder (1976), p. 288.
  17. Connolly, Kate (12 January 2008). "75 years on, executed Reichstag arsonist finally wins pardon". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 1 May 2008.
  18. Snyder (1976), pp. 288–289.
  19. Snyder (1976), p. 289.
  20. biography by Martin Schouten "Rinus van der Lubbe 1909-1934" (1989)
  21. Kershaw (1998), pp. 456–458, 731–732.
  22. "Caesar or Nerves". nytimes.com. New York Times. 2 March 1933.
  23. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/03/02/99295364.html?pageNumber=4
  24. "Dutch Council Communism and Van der Lubbe". Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 24 February 2007.
  25. Gunther, John (1940). Inside Europe. New York: Harper & Brothers. pp. 48–49.
  26. Mommsen (1972), p. 144.
  27. "Sefton Delmer's account of the Reichstag fire". Archived from the original on 5 December 2006.
  28. Hitler, Adolf (2008). Hitler's Table Talk, 1941–1944. His Private Conversations. New York: Enigma Books. p. 121.
  29. "The Arsonist; THE REICHSTAG FIRE. By Fritz Tobias. Translated by Arnold J. Pomerans from the German, "Der Reichstagsbrand." Introduction by A. J. P. Taylor. Illustrated. 348 pp. riew York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $5.95. (Published 1964)". The New York Times. 1 March 1964. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  30. Evans, Richard J. (7 May 2014). "The Conspiracists". London Review of Books. 36 (9). ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
  31. Snyder (1976), pp. 287–288.
  32. "Dokument in Hannover belegt: SA-Mann will beim Reichstagsbrand 1933 geholfen haben". Haz.de. 26 July 2019. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  33. "Dokument Aufgetaucht – SA-Mann will an Reichstagsbrand beteiligt gewesen sein" (in German). Frankfurter Rundschau. 26 July 2019. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  34. Conrad von Meding (26 July 2019). "Neues zum Reichstagsbrand – Die "Legende" vom Einzeltäter wackelt erheblich". Deutschlandfunkkultur.de. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  35. Kellerhoff, Sven Felix (26 July 2019). "Was die neue Eidesstattliche Erklärung eines SA-Manns bedeutet". Die Welt. Welt.de. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  36. Soukup, Uwe (27 July 2019). "Neue Indizien Aufgetaucht: Haben die Nazis den Reichstag abgefackelt?". Faz.net. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  37. "Neues Dokument zum Reichstagbrand 1933 – Waren die Nazis doch die Brandstifter? – Ein neues Dokument deutet auf eine Beteiligung der Nazis am Reichstagsbrand 1933 hin – und entlastet den zum Tode verurteilten Kommunisten van der Lubbe" (in German). Tagesspiegel.de. 27 July 2019. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  38. Frederike Müller (27 July 2019). "Ex-Nazi testimony sparks fresh mystery over 1933 Reichstag fire". Dw.com. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  39. "Statement Appeals Marinus van der Lubbe Free". Vaaju.com. 26 July 2019. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  40. "New Witness Account of 1933 Reichstag Fire Reignites Doubt Over Nazi Narrative – Nazi SA member recounted that Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe actually arrived at the Reichstag only after the blaze started". Haaretz.com. 26 July 2019. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  41. "Newly uncovered testimony casts doubt on Nazi Reichstag fire claims". The Times of Israel. AFP. 27 July 2019. Archived from the original on 28 July 2019. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  42. Winston, Alex (28 July 2019). "Newly found account of 1933 Reichstag fire casts doubt on Nazi narrative". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  43. "Reichstagsbrand – der Erklärung von SA-Mann legt NS-Beteiligung nahe" (in German). Ksta.de. 26 July 2019. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  44. "Wie konnte die Akte zum Reichstagsbrand vergessen werden?". Haz.de. 27 July 2019. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  45. Shirer, William (1959). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Touchstone. p. 193.
  46. "Nuremberg Trial Proceedings". 18 March 1946. Volume 9. Archived from the original on 15 April 2012. Retrieved 4 May 2011.
  47. Costello, John (1988). Mask of Treachery. London: William Collins & Sons. p. 296.

Bibliography
  • Bahar, Alexander & Kugel, Wilfried (2001). Der Reichstagbrand (in German) (q ed.).
  • Hett, Benjamin Carter (2014). Burning the Reichstag: An Investigation into the Third Reich's Enduring Mystery. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-932232-9.
  • Kershaw, Ian (1998). Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris. London: Allen Lane.
  • Koonz, Claudia (2003). The Nazi Conscience. Belknap Press. p. 33. ISBN 0-674-01172-4.
  • Mommsen, Hans (1972). "The Reichstag Fire and Its Political Consequences". In Holborn, Hajo (ed.). Republic to Reich The Making of the Nazi Revolution. New York: Pantheon Books. pp. 129–222. Originally published as: Mommsen, Hans (1964). "Der Reichstagsbrand und seine politischen Folgen" [The Reichstag fire and its political consequences]. Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (in German). 12 (4): 351–413. JSTOR 30197002.
  • Snyder, Louis (1976). Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. New York: McGraw-Hill.
  • Taylor, A. J. P. "Who Burned the Reichstag?: The Story of a Legend" History Today (Aug 1960) 10#8 pp 515-522.
  • Tobias, Fritz (1964). The Reichstag Fire. New York: Putnam.

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