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Communists set the Reichstag fire

From bullshitopedia
Communists set the Reichstag fire
FALSE
"The fire that destroyed the chamber of the German parliament, the Reichstag, on February 27, 1933, was the signal for a Communist uprising planned by the Communist Party of Germany."
Domain Politics & Elections
Tactic Propaganda Technique
Conspiracy Theory
Era Historical
First seen 1933
Origin Statements by Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring and the Nazi government on the night of the fire and in the days that followed
Last reviewed 2026-10-27
Further reading: books on Politics & Elections

The claim that Communists set the Reichstag fire was used by the Nazi government to destroy civil liberties in Germany within weeks of Adolf Hitler becoming chancellor. On the night of February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building in Berlin was set ablaze. A young Dutch radical, Marinus van der Lubbe, was arrested inside. Hitler and Hermann Göring immediately declared the fire the beginning of a Communist revolution. The next day President Paul von Hindenburg signed an emergency decree suspending basic rights, and thousands of Communists and other opponents were arrested. A German court later acquitted the Communist leaders charged with conspiracy. No evidence of a Communist plot has ever been found. Historians still debate whether van der Lubbe acted alone or whether Nazis were involved, but the claim of a Communist conspiracy was false.

The claim

Arriving at the burning building, Göring, then Prussian interior minister, and Hitler declared it a Communist crime and the signal for an uprising. Nazi newspapers and officials announced that the Communist Party had planned arson, terrorism and civil war. The government said it had uncovered evidence of a plot, but never produced it.

Origin

Hitler had been appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933, heading a coalition government with only a minority of Nazi ministers. New elections were scheduled for March 5. The Communist Party was one of the largest parties in the Reichstag, and the Nazis sought a pretext to suppress it.

What the evidence shows

  • Van der Lubbe. Van der Lubbe, a 24-year-old former member of the Dutch Communist youth movement who had broken with the party, confessed to setting the fire and said he had acted alone as a protest. He had set smaller fires in Berlin in the preceding days.
  • The Leipzig trial. In late 1933 the government put van der Lubbe on trial together with the leader of the Communist parliamentary group, Ernst Torgler, and three Bulgarian Communists, including Georgi Dimitrov, later leader of Bulgaria. Dimitrov defended himself skillfully and confronted Göring in court. In December 1933 the court acquitted all four Communists for lack of evidence, while convicting van der Lubbe, who was beheaded in January 1934. In 2008 German federal prosecutors confirmed that his conviction had been overturned under a law annulling Nazi-era unjust verdicts.
  • Who did it. Some historians, notably Fritz Tobias in 1959, argued that van der Lubbe acted alone. Others, including Benjamin Carter Hett in Burning the Reichstag (2014), argue that evidence points to Nazi involvement, perhaps by members of the SA. The question remains contested, but no serious historian supports the claim of a Communist conspiracy.

Consequences

On February 28, 1933, the Reichstag Fire Decree suspended freedom of speech, assembly and the press, the secrecy of communications and protections against arbitrary arrest. It remained in force throughout the Nazi era and was used to imprison political opponents without trial in early concentration camps. The Communist Party was effectively banned. In the March 23 Enabling Act, passed in the absence of arrested Communist deputies and under intimidation, the Reichstag gave Hitler's government power to make laws without parliament, completing the destruction of German democracy.

Why it persists

The Reichstag fire has become a byword for a crisis exploited, or manufactured, to justify seizing emergency powers. Its lesson is not only about who set the fire, but about how quickly a government can use fear of an internal enemy to dismantle constitutional protections.

Lessons for readers

  • Be wary when leaders blame a political enemy for an attack before any investigation.
  • Ask whether promised evidence of a plot is ever produced.
  • Emergency measures adopted in a crisis can become permanent.
  • Courts and trials can expose weak claims, even under authoritarian pressure.
  • Distinguish between who committed an act and who benefited from it.

See also

Sources

  • Benjamin Carter Hett, Burning the Reichstag: An Investigation into the Third Reich's Enduring Mystery (Oxford University Press, 2014).
  • Fritz Tobias, The Reichstag Fire: Legend and Truth (English ed., Secker & Warburg, 1963).
  • Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (Penguin, 2003).
  • Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State (Reichstag Fire Decree), February 28, 1933.
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