Adolf Hitler's 'God-given signal' - The Reichstag Fire, 1933 http://www.historytimes.com/fresh-perspectives-in-history/20th-century-history/563-a-god-given-signal-the-reichstag-fire-1933Monday, 01 March 2010 12:56
9 p.m. February 27, 1933, the German Reichstag building is set ablaze. By the time firefighters had arrived, the parliament building was already gutted.
A communist outrage Only four weeks earlier, Adolf Hitler had been appointed German Chancellor. On hearing the news of the fire, Hitler rushed to the site and there was met by Hermann Goring, who declared, "This is a communist outrage! One of the communist culprits has been arrested." Hitler saw it as a "God-given signal", and yelled that "All Communists must be hanged this very night." The communist culprit was 24-year-old Marinus van der Lubbe, an unemployed Dutch bricklayer, found half naked, having used his shirt to start the fire. Van der Lubbe readily confessed to the crime, stating, "I considered arson a suitable method. I did not wish to harm private people but something belonging to the system itself. I decided on the Reichstag." But he denied any involvement with the communists.
For the protection of the people and state The following day 86-year-old Paul von Hindenburg, the increasingly senile German president, accepted Hitler's request for a decree suspending all political and civil liberties as a 'temporary' measure for the 'protection of the people and state'. The communists, according to Hitler, were attempting a putsch, a revolt, and thousands of known communists were arrested, tortured and either murdered or placed in the newly-opened concentration camps for 'protective custody'. The exact events causing the fire have never been properly established but it seems unlikely whether van der Lubbe could have acted alone. Van der Lubbe was of limited intelligence and in his desire for attention had, more than once, persuaded the German press that he would swim the English Channel. With photographers and reporters poised, he coated himself in grease, swam out a few yards, only to return declaring unfavourable currents. On another occasion van der Lubbe, following a strike at his workplace, offered to accept responsibility and take any reprimand as long as no one else was punished. It was obvious however to his employers that van der Lubbe had no or little involvement in stirring up the workers.
A bloody liar So was the fire the work of communists, as Hitler claimed? Although once associated with the Communist Party, van der Lubbe insisted he acted alone. Rumours persisted even at the time that the Nazis were implicated, if not the government, then the party.
When the head of the Berlin SA (The SA was the Nazis pre-SS...they were the commoners who were seduced by revolutionary propaganda spread by the same international banksters who caused Germany's depression. When Hitler consolidated power, they were exterminated in the Night of the Long Knives), Karl Ernst, was asked of his involvement, he replied, "If I said yes, I'd be a bloody fool, if I said no I'd be a bloody liar." But whoever egged van der Lubbe into his misadventure, the fire helped Hitler consolidate his power. The temporary suspension of liberties was never revoked and any active opposition to the Nazis was stifled. When, the following month, the last parliamentary elections took place, only Hitler, it was claimed, could save Germany from the Jews and communists. The SA intimidated all other parties into silence and the Nazis polled 44% of the vote, not enough for a majority but enough to squash any future political resistance. The Enabling Act, passed in late March 1933, effectively did away with the constitution altogether. There would be no more elections nor a constitution to keep Hitler in check.
Van der Lubbe on trialVan der Lubbe and four others were put on trial, including Ernst Torgler, chairman of the German Communist Party. Tried by the German High Court, van der Lubbe was found guilty but Torgler and companions were acquitted for the lack of evidence. Hitler was furious with the outcome and decreed that future cases of treason should be facilitated, not by the High Court, but by the People's Court, where the guilty verdict was virtually a forgone conclusion. On January 10, 1934, three days short of his twenty-fifth birthday, van der Lubbe was beheaded. Seventy-four years later, in January 2008, the German state overturned the verdict against van der Lubbe and officially pardoned him.
We also now know that the SA Nazis were the ones who made a possible tiny fire into an all engulfing blaze. They facilitated the complete destruction of the Reichtag, the parallels to 9/11, 7/7, and now Norway are undeniable.
