Reichstag Fire

Reichstag fire
Reichstagsbrand

Firemen struggle to extinguish the fire.
Date	27 February 1933
Location	Reichstag building, Berlin, Germany
Participants	Marinus van der Lubbe
Outcome	Van der Lubbe executed Civil liberties suspended Nazi control of government entrenched

The Reichstag fire (German: Reichstagsbrand,  listen ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building (German parliament) in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The Nazis stated that Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch council communist, had been caught at the scene of the fire, and he was arrested for the crime. Van der Lubbe was an unemployed bricklayer who had recently arrived in Germany. The Nazis stated that van der Lubbe had declared that he had started the fire. Van der Lubbe was tried and sentenced to death. The fire was used as evidence by the Nazi Party that communists were plotting against the German government. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany.

The fire started in the Reichstag building, the assembly location of the German Parliament. A Berlin fire station received an alarm call that the building was on fire at 00:59. By the time the police and firemen arrived, the main Chamber of Deputies was engulfed in flames. The police conducted a thorough search inside the building and found van der Lubbe. He was arrested, as were four communist leaders soon after.

Adolf Hitler, who had been sworn in as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January, urged President Paul von Hindenburg to pass an emergency decree to suspend civil liberties and pursue a "ruthless confrontation" with the Communist Party of Germany. After passing the decree, the government instituted mass arrests of communists, including all of the Communist Party parliamentary delegates. With their bitter rival communists gone and their seats empty, the Nazi Party went from being a plurality party to the majority, thus enabling Hitler to consolidate his power.