The bigwigs of German business, who brought Adolf Hitler to power in Germany, rightly hoped that their protégé would be able to suppress the growing communist movement in the country. And the new German chancellor more than justified their hopes by staging the greatest provocation in world political history - the arson of the Reichstag.
The burning of the Reichstag building on February 27, 1933 by Nazi official propaganda was called "the most monstrous Bolshevik terrorist attack in history." In fact, as it turned out a little later, this arson turned out to be the most monstrous Nazi provocation in history.
Prerequisites for arson
The confrontation between the Nazis and the Communists reached its climax by the time Hitler came to power in Germany. Both parties had fairly strong support in society and a fairly solid representation in the Reichstag. In terms of the number of seats in parliament, the Nazis, however, had a significant advantage. But if the communists were united with the social democrats, this advantage would be easily lost.
Realizing this perfectly, Hitler, almost immediately after his appointment as head of government, turned to German President Hindenburg with a request to dissolve the current composition of the Reichstag deputies and announce early elections. He received this permission. New elections were scheduled for March 5th. But there was no guarantee that the National Socialists would get a majority of the seats in parliament. Therefore, the closest of Hitler's associates, Dr. Goebbels, decided to discredit the main opponents of the NSDAP on the eve of the elections.
The burning of the Reichstag and its consequences
Late in the evening of February 27, 1933, all German radio stations made an emergency message that at about 21-30 in the Reichstag building, as a result of arson, a severe fire broke out and the Dutch communist Van der Lubbe was detained at the scene by the police, who had already confessed to the crime. …
As it turned out later, Van der Lubbe had never been a member of the Communist Party of the Netherlands, but then very few people were interested in this.
In addition, it became known that a fire of such force could not have been started by one person. Upon examination of the burnt building, it was established that flammable materials were laid in various places, which were subsequently set on fire with torches. This circumstance played into the hands of the Nazis. That same night, the first wave of arrests of members of the left-wing parties swept through Berlin. And the next day, documents fabricated by the Goebbels department were published, which allegedly indicated the preparation of a Bolshevik coup in the country and the outbreak of a civil war. They prompted the aged President Hindenburg to issue a special decree "On the protection of the state and the population of Germany", which completely untied the hands of the punitive authorities.
As a result, the Communist Party was banned, all left-wing newspapers were closed and thousands of innocent people were arrested. And in order to impart an international character to the "preparing conspiracy", the Bulgarian communists who were then in Germany were thrown into prisons.
Despite the presence of irrefutable evidence of innocence of all the defendants in this case, with the exception of Van der Lubbe, in December 1933, a high-profile trial took place in Leipzig.
The German court at that time was not yet completely subordinate to the Nazis. Therefore, at the Leipzig trial, only one death sentence was passed to Van der Lubbe, and some of the accused were even acquitted.
The Nazis again did not gain a majority in parliament in the elections on March 5, but, using a presidential decree, they simply expelled deputies from left-wing parties from parliament.
