Philosophers
have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the
point is to change it. (Karl Marx - Thesis on Feuerbach, 1845)
Description
The Reichstag fire, a pivotal event in the establishment of Nazi
Germany, began at 9:14 PM 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, shirtless, inside the building. Van
der Lubbe was a Dutch insurrectionary council communist and unemployed
bricklayer who had recently arrived in Germany.
Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring arrived soon after, and, when
they were shown van der Lubbe, Göring immediately declared the
fire was set by the Communists and had the party leaders arrested.
Hitler declared a state of emergency and encouraged aging president
Paul von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending
the basic rights provisions of the Weimar constitution.
The Nazi leaders were determined to demonstrate the Reichstag
Fire was a deed of the Comintern.