The following excerpt is from a Monthly Review magazine article on the Reichstag Fire Trial (and its political aftermath during and after the Nazi era). It is deja vu, all over again. The article is entitled "The Reichstag Fire Trial 1933-2008", written by Michael E. Tigar and John Mage and appears in the March 2009 edition of the magazine.

…

Who Set the Reichstag on Fire?

We begin by examining the evidence. Then, we can examine the trial proceedings.

The night of the fire, German police arrested van der Lubbe, half clothed. He had removed his shirt to use it as kindling while setting one of the fires inside the Reichstag.

Many characterizations of van der Lubbe’s role in the Reichstag Fire have begun by characterizing his political and social outlook and even in some cases his alleged sexual orientation. From these premises, often based on scant evidence, writers leap to a conclusion that van der Lubbe acted alone, or acted with Communists or Nazis depending on one’s perspective. In 1933, writers of the left and right sprinkled their prose with this sort of conclusion-jumping.

The preferable, and more reliable, way to see van der Lubbe’s role is to reason from the undisputed forensic evidence, introduced in evidence in London or at the German trial, and the contemporaneous reports of journalists and police officers at the scene. Then, one can evaluate the divergent views presented in the dozens of books and articles about the fire.

By the time police arrived and arrested van der Lubbe, about 9:30 p.m., on the 27th, the Reichstag was ablaze. Many separate fires were merging into one. Indeed, the fire was not put out until nearly midnight. A British newspaper journalist arrived about 9:45, even before Hitler, Goebbels, and Goering, and reported that a police officer said, “They’ve got one of them who did it, a man with nothing but his trousers on. He seems to have used his coat and shirt to start the fire. But there must be others still inside. They’re looking for them there.”

When Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels arrived, they quickly began to assert—without a particle of evidence—that the Communists must have set the fire, and to announce that they would immediately begin a meeting to decide on repressive measures.

According to the prosecution’s trial evidence, van der Lubbe entered the Reichstag by breaking a window on the lower level. A witness named Floeter was passing on his bicycle and heard the sound of breaking glass. He stopped to look and saw someone on the first floor balcony with a burning object in his hand. He told a police officer, Buwert, what he had seen, and continued on his way. Another witness, Thaler, stopped because he also heard the sound of breaking glass. Thaler originally reported seeing two men inside the building.

Thus, the timeline of the fire begins at 9:03 or a little after, when the witnesses seem to agree that there was the sound of glass breaking and one or more people were inside the building setting fires. Another important person in this recital is House-Inspector Scranowitz, who rushed from his nearby apartment to the Reichstag, and actually confronted and arrested van der Lubbe about 9:25 or a little before. By that time, the Reichstag’s main chambers were in flames.

Scranowitz later prepared a diagram that identified at least two dozen separate places of origin for the fires that were set and later merged into one or two large-scale blazes. The indictment alleged twenty-three separate fires, in different parts of the building, and on different floors. In order to reconcile the known time of the first blaze being set, at 9:03, and the later progress of the fires, the prosecution accepted that all these fires must have been set within about eleven to fourteen minutes.

Moreover, the prosecution forensic experts also agreed that an accelerant or accelerants were used to set the fires, although they disagreed on whether the material was liquid or solid. That night, when the alarm was given and officials began to arrive at the Reichstag, they found all exterior doors were locked, as they should have been.

There was never any plausible evidence against Dimitrov, Tanev, and Popov. Torgler, who was a Reichstag deputy, did come and go from the building on a regular basis, but he had a solid alibi for the time when the fire was set. No forensic evidence or credible witness statement linked him to the fire.

Van der Lubbe was caught at the scene. He had doubtless been involved. As we have noted, the Brown Book marshaled the evidence that the Nazis set the fire. Their research showed that there was an underground passage leading into the Reichstag. This passage had three entrances: the one in the Reichstag, one in the Reichstag president’s—Goering’s—residence, and one in what the contemporary record describes as an “engine house” or machinery room.

At the trial, Dimitrov attempted to inquire whether the underground passage had been investigated, using information that the commission had collected. He was initially ruled out of order. However, a prosecution witness named Adermann testified that he had heard noises from the passage during nights before the fire. The issue was then open for discussion. The court visited the site and heard evidence about the passage.

It turned out that at least one set of keys to the passage doors was kept by Inspector Scranowitz, the man who had arrested van der Lubbe at about 9:25. When the fire was discovered, someone on duty called Scranowitz, who did not answer his telephone. Scranowitz turned up at the fire scene about 9:18 and told an SS officer that he had heard people in the cellars of the Reichstag. The Commission of Inquiry concluded that the underground passage was the probable entry point for those who set the fire. Not surprisingly, the prosecution and the German court rejected this idea.

Late in the evening of February 27, Martin Sommerfeldt, who was Goering’s press chief, appeared at the Reichstag and interviewed police and firefighters in order to prepare a press communiqué. He drafted a press communiqué reporting that the police had collected “about a hundredweight” of firelighters—about fifty kilograms—at the scene. Sommerfeldt met with Goering, who drafted a press release saying that the recovered incendiary material was so heavy that at least seven persons would have been necessary to carry it, and that the fires had to have been set by persons familiar with the Reichstag building. Goering’s memo, which was issued to the press, said that at least ten persons must have been involved in setting the fire.

The most reliable studies of the fire focus on this forensic evidence, which tends powerfully to show that van der Lubbe could not have acted alone and that the probable method of entry into the Reichstag was the underground passage—the exterior doors having been found locked.

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In reading the entire piece it becomes evident that the cast of characters and "evidence" is eerily similar to more recent events:

* The patsy and/or implicating evidence already at the scene of the crime
* The physical impossibility of the "evidence"
* The witness plants and lying
* The stacked judiciary
* The independent investigations by real scientists and political/legal analysts
* The bullying leader ("those who are with us and those who are against us")
* Offing the real perps to conceal the truth
* The attempt to rewrite history for strictly political ends
* The scapegoating or creation of an enemy
* The actual involvement of the main accuser
* Eventual revelation of the truth (as in, who gives a s**t anymore?)

I just wonder if the authors wrote this as a roman a clef to conceal their thoughts/feelings about events closer to our time. In any case, this is how it gets done. Nothing new under the sun…

To read the entire article, go to:

http://www.monthlyreview.org/090309tigar-mage.php