Growth of the Nazi Party: The Reichstag Fire Edexcel History 2A

• February 27th 1933
• Marius van der Lubbe.
• Communist.
• Rule by decree.
• Police force controlled.
• Emergency powers

·         The Reichstag building was destroyed by a massive fire in February 27th.

·         A young Dutchman- Lubbe- was caught on the site with matches and firelighters. He was a known communist with mental health problems-schizoprenia. He claimed he had acted alone.

·         He and four others were arrested but only he was found guilty in trial. He was executed.

·         Hitler saw the fire as an opportunity to attack the communists.

·         Nazi chief of police Herman Goering claimed that the fire was part of a communist conspiracy against the government.

• Afterwards, Hitler issued a decree giving him the power to suspend civil rights of German citizens, imprison political opponents and ban communist newspapers.
• In the electrion afterwards, Nazi seats rose to 288; Hitler had used his emergency powers to ban 81 communist seats. Now he had two-thirds majority, enough to change the constitution with support of other nationalist parties.
• Hitler used the fire to persuade Hindenburg to decree a state of emergency, giing Hitler the power to rule by decree.
• Now he controlled the police force, he could get them to turn a blind eye to SA activity. There were violent clashes during elections which resulted in 70 deaths.
• The fire was used as an excuse to arrest many members of the communist party including Ernst Thalmann, the leader of the communist party.
• He also persuaded Krupp and other industrialists to finance the Nazi campaign- 3 millions marks were donated in just one meeting.