Burning the Reichstag

In February 1933, Adolf Hitler had only a tenuous grasp on power. Chancellor of Germany for merely four weeks, he led a fragile coalition government. The Nazis had lost seats in the Reichstag in the recent election, and claimed only three of thirteen cabinet posts. Then on February 27th, arson sent the Reichstag, the home and symbol of German democracy, up in flames. Immediately blaming the Communists, Hitler's new government approved a decree that tore the heart out of the democratic constitution of the Weimar Republic and cancelled the rule of law. Five thousand people were immediately arrested. The Reichstag fire marked the true beginning of the Third Reich, which ruled for 12 more years. The controversy surrounding the fire's origins has endured for 80. In Burning the Reichstag, Benjamin Hett offers a gripping account of Hitler's rise to dictatorship-one that challenges orthodoxy and recovers the true significance of the part the fire played. At the scene the police arrested 23-year-old Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch Communist stonemason. Though he was initially dismissed abroad as a Nazi tool, post-war historians since the 1950s have largely judged him solely guilty-a lone arsonist exploited by Hitler. Hett's book reopens the case, providing vivid portraits of key figures, including Rudolf Diels, Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, and the historian Fritz Tobias, whose account of the fire has, until now, been the standard. Making use of a number of new sources and archives, Hett sets the Reichstag fire in a wider context, revealing how and why it has remained one of the last mysteries of the Nazi period, and one of the most controversial and contested events in the 20th century. Burning the Reichstag will stand as the landmark work on this subject. It is an impressive piece of work that presents fresh evidence ... It is well written and highly readable. London Review of Books Well written, most carefully researched, and presented in great detail, here is the real story that skeptics will find difficult to refute. Gerhard L. Weinberg, Scientific American Book Club It is an impressive piece of work that presents fresh evidence and puts its theses forward with far greater sophistication than earlier defenders of The Brown Book's arguments. It is well written and highly readable. Richard J. Evans, London Review of BooksPrologue I: Hannover, Sunday, July 20, 2008 ; Prologue II: Berlin, Monday, February 27, 1933 ; Chapter 1: <"Satanic Nose>": Rudolf Diels ; Chapter 2: <"SA + Me>": Joseph Goebbels ; Chapter 3: <"What Just Went On Here is an Absolute Outrage>": Rumors ; Chapter 4: <"Those Who Know Nothing Are Better Off>": The Investigation ; Chapter 5: <"Stand Up, van der Lubbe!>" The Trial and What Followed ; Chapter 6: <"Nuremberg History>": The Prosecutors' Tale ; Chapter 7: <"Persil Letters>": The Gestapists' Tale ; Chapter 8: <"The Feared One>": Fritz Tobias and His <"Clients>" ; Chapter 9: <"Snow From Yesterday>": Blackmail and the Institute for Contemporary History ; Epilogue: Decadence of a Controversy