Reichstag fire (1933)
독일 국회의사당 화재 (1933)
The arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on the night of 27 February 1933, exactly four weeks after Hitler became chancellor. The Nazis blamed a Communist plot, secured an emergency decree suspending civil liberties and crushed the Communist Party.
In depth
Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch council communist, was arrested at the scene. The next day the Decree for the Protection of People and State was issued, and thousands, including Communist officials, were arrested overnight. On 9 March the Bulgarian Georgi Dimitrov, head of Comintern operations in Western Europe, and two comrades were arrested. At the Leipzig trial of September to December 1933 Dimitrov confronted Göring in court; only van der Lubbe was sentenced to death, while Dimitrov and the others were acquitted. Whether van der Lubbe acted alone or the Nazis staged the fire is still debated by historians.