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Reichstag building
ON THE LEFT BANK of Berlin’s River Spree, resting on the east end of the Konigsplatz, stood the magnificent Reichstag building, home to Germany’s parliament.
A neobaroque rectangular structure, the building featured a dome of steel and glass with towers at each of the four corners, representing the four kingdoms of Germany.
Fires set throughout the building had traveled with little resistance past the dry wooden paneling, upholstered furniture, and heavy curtains that dominated the old building.
The police found and detained one man inside, attempting to light a fire under an old leather couch. He was dirty and sweaty, seemingly disoriented even once subdued. From his pockets, police recovered a knife, a passport, and numerous brochures from the local Communist Party.
His name was Marinus van der Lubbe, a twenty-four-year-old unemployed Dutch immigrant—and, most important, a documented Communist sympathizer.
Chancellor Adolf Hitler arrived at the scene along with Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goring after the fire had been largely contained and the damage irreversible.
Hitler and Goebbels had been dining, they explained, at Goebbels’s Berlin flat on Reichskanzlerplatz with other luminaries, celebrating the Führer’s one-month anniversary as chancellor, when they got word of the tragedy.
Rudolf Diels, chief of the Prussian political police, arrived at nearly the same time.
He climbed over the bulging hoses of the Berlin Fire Brigade and entered the building.
A police captain directed him to the area where the suspect was detained.
He had been moved to one of the few areas of the building not under threat, the conference room for the Federal Council in the southeast corner.
Diels was in the midst of a briefing from the responding officers when Martin Bormann, secretary to Chancellor Hitler, approached him.
“The chancellor would like to speak with you,” he said.
Bormann led Diels to one of the balconies overlooking the legislative chamber, where the fire brigade was still spraying out remnants of flames.
Hitler was there with Goebbels and Goring, who cried out in a voice heavy with emotion, “This is the beginning of the Communist revolt! They will start their attack now! Not a moment must be lost!”
Hitler turned away from the fire and approached Diels, his jaw set tight.
“There will be no mercy now,” he said. “Anyone who stands in our way will be cut down. The German people will not tolerate leniency. Every Communist official will be shot where he is found. The Communist deputies must be hanged this very night. Everybody in league with the Communists must be arrested. There will no longer be any leniency for Social Democrats, either!”
“Herr Reichskanzler,” said Diels, hands clasped behind his back, “it is our preliminary observation that one man alone set this fire.”
“Nonsense!” Hitler shooed away the notion with a hand slicing the air. “This is something quite cunning, prepared a long time ago. The criminals have thought all this out beautifully!”
As Hitler continued his rant, Diels pulled Goring aside. “The man we have detained appears mentally unstable. It is unlikely this was a coordinated—”
But Goring cut him off. “This is clearly an attempt by the enemies of the National Socialists—the Communists and Social Democrats—to undermine the leadership of this country. I want the police on an emergency footing,” he said.
“Shoot to kill, and any other emergency regulations that might be appropriate in such a case. On my order!”
Diels was skeptical, but one of Hitler’s first moves as chancellor had been to appoint Hermann Goring the Interior Minister of Prussia, making him Diels’s boss.
And if Diels knew nothing else, he knew how to follow orders.
“A radio message will be sent to all police stations in your name,” he said, “putting them in a state of alert and ordering the arrest of all Communist officials.”
“This is an attempted coup,” Goring said, putting his hands on Diels’s shoulder. “No Communist or Social Democrat traitor must be allowed to escape!”
Diels issued the order.
By daybreak, more than four thousand people had been arrested.
Most were leaders or members of the Communist Party, though other enemies of the Nazis, including many lawyers, journalists, and doctors, were likewise detained.
Most of the men taken into custody were roused from their beds in the dead of night.
The parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats voluntarily surrendered to the police to demonstrate the “untenable” nature of the charges.
Within only a few hours, the vast majority of the leadership of the Nazis’ rival political parties had been locked up and branded traitors.