Reichstag fire — arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933
The arson attack on Germany's parliament building enabled Hitler to suspend civil liberties and accelerate the Nazi seizure of total power in 1933.
Key Facts
- Date of fire
- 27 February 1933
- Weeks after Hitler became Chancellor
- 4 weeks
- Arsonist convicted
- Marinus van der Lubbe, Dutch council communist
- Van der Lubbe pardoned
- 2008, posthumously under 1998 Nazi-era law
- Communists acquitted at trial
- 4 (Dimitrov, Tanev, Popov, Torgler)
- Trial start date
- September 1933
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor on 30 January 1933, political tensions between the Nazi government and the Communist Party were high. The Nazis were seeking a pretext to suppress communist opposition ahead of the scheduled 5 March elections, and the vulnerability of the Reichstag building provided the opportunity.
On the evening of 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building in Berlin was set ablaze in an arson attack. Firefighters and police arrived to find the structure engulfed in flames. Dutch council communist Marinus van der Lubbe was discovered inside and arrested. The Nazis immediately attributed the attack to a Communist conspiracy against the German government.
President Paul von Hindenburg was induced to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending civil liberties. Mass arrests of communists followed, crippling their participation in the 5 March elections. The resulting absence of communist delegates in the Reichstag expanded the Nazi plurality, directly facilitating the Nazi seizure of total power and the establishment of authoritarian rule in Germany.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
1 belligerent
Adolf Hitler, Paul von Hindenburg.
Side B
1 belligerent
Ernst Torgler, Georgi Dimitrov.