On the 27 of febuary 1927, the German parlement (Reichstag) burned down, this essay is to help people decide
for themselves who did it as historians cannot decide who did it for us.
One account says that Goering and Goebbels, with the approval of Hitler, looking to smash the Communist Party, set
fire to the building. A small group of S.A men, led by Karl Ernst ( Leader of the Berlin S.A. ) entered through a
passage linking to Goering's palace. They scattered chemicals in order to burn down the building. After they left, a
young Dutchman, ( Van der Lubbe) who had previously been seized for arson by the S.A, and had been hand picked
for the plan, entered the building, and began to start fires at strategic points around the building. He was to be used as
a scapegoat. The fire soon engulfed the building.
The background to this is as follows :- Hitler had secured the chancellorship after the elections of November 1932,
but his Nazi Party had not won an overall majority.
Firemen work on the burning Reichstag
Gedenkteken Van der Lubbe op het Südfriedhof in L...
English: own scan from 1934 archive materialHe therefore obtained Cabinet consent to fix new elections for
March 5, 1933. Meanwhile, his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, is supposed to have devised the scheme
whereby 10 agents led by Karl Ernst were to gain access to the Reichstag through a tunnel leading from the official
residence of Hermann Goring, Reichstag president and Hitler's chief minister, who was then to conduct an official
investigation, which would fix responsibility for the fire on the Communists. The supposed arsonist was a Dutchman,
Marinus van der Lubbe, whom some have claimed was brought to the scene of the crime by Nazi agents. Others have
contended that there was no proof of Nazi complicity in the crime, but that Hitler merely capitalized on van...