The Reichstag Fire, the 'Border Crisis' and the Establishment of Dictatorship

By Steven Jonas

Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the then German President, Paul von Hindenburg, on January 30, 1933. The maximum percentage of the vote gained by the Nazi Party in previous free elections under the Weimar Republic was in the 37% range. Nevertheless, in part because the two major opposition parties to the Nazis, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Socialist Party of Germany (SPD) were at each other's throats, the capitalist ruling class of Germany was able to persuade Hindenburg to give Hitler "a turn," promising that they would "keep him under control." 

As it happened, Hitler, in part using his private army, the "Sturmabteliung" (SA), immediately began rounding up certain Communists and Socialists and imprisoning them, while others quickly left the country. However, at that point there were limits as to what Hitler could do to impose the Nazi will, under the law as it stood in Germany. Besides the parliament, the Reichstag, there were still the independent judiciary and the free press. (For years, Hitler and the Nazis had labelled the latter "Die Luegenpresse," "The Lying Press" [sound familiar?].) In order to impose the kind of dictatorial rule on Germany that the Nazis and their ruling class supporters --- led by such figures at Fritz Thyssen, the steel magnate, (who as early as 1923 was raising foreign money to support the Nazis, from such donors as a U.S. named George Herbert Walker) --- Hitler had to convince the Reichstag to give it to him. What better way to do that than to create a "national emergency?" To deal with it forcefully, of course, would require the granting of "emergency powers" to the Chancellor. And so, came the Reichstag Fire. 

On February 27, 1933 the grand, historic, German Parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, was hit by a fire that would make it unusable until it was eventually restored after the end of World War II. The story of "the cause" that was released almost immediately (within hours) by the Nazis was that the fire was set by a mentally-handicapped Dutch former Communist turned anarchist, acting entirely alone, one Marinus van der Lubbe. (The Reichstag conveniently happened to be decorated with highly flammable furniture, drapes, and wall-coverings. Apparently, a few matches did the trick.) Within hours, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, Interior Minister Hermann Goering, and Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels, et al, had proclaimed the fire to be the result of a KPD plot. (It happened that the KPD knew nothing of it and that the "incriminating documents" quickly produced by the Nazis were later proved to be forgeries. But that meant nothing at the time.) 

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Source: OpEdNews.com