On the night of 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building in Berlin—the seat of the German parliament and a potent symbol of the Weimar Republic’s fragile democracy—was engulfed in flames. This pivotal event served as the catalyst for the rapid consolidation of Nazi power, marking the definitive end of democratic governance in Germany and setting the nation on a trajectory toward the devastation of World War II.

To understand the significance of the Reichstag Fire, one must examine the precarious state of the Weimar Republic in early 1933. Germany was grappling with the severe economic fallout of the Great Depression, which had radicalized the electorate and swelled the ranks of both the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).

Right: 27 February 1933: Firemen work on the burning Reichstag Source: Item from Record Group 208: Records of the Office of War Information, 1926-1951. Public Domain, click to enlarge.

Adolf Hitler had been appointed Chancellor on 30 January 1933, by President Paul von Hindenburg. However, Hitler’s coalition government was unstable. The Nazis did not hold a parliamentary majority, necessitating a coalition with the German National People's Party (DNVP). Hitler sought absolute power, but constitutional constraints remained a hurdle. The burning of the Reichstag provided the pretext needed to dismantle these barriers.

The fire began shortly after 9:00 PM on 27 February. Firefighters arrived to find the main chamber ablaze. Inside the burning building, police apprehended Marinus van der Lubbe, a young, unemployed Dutch council communist. Van der Lubbe confessed to starting the fire, claiming he acted alone to protest capitalism and encourage the German working class to rise up.

Despite van der Lubbe's claims of acting alone, the Nazi leadership immediately seized the opportunity to frame the incident as the signal for a communist uprising. Hermann Göring, then Prussian Minister of the Interior, arrived at the scene and declared, "This is the beginning of the Communist revolution! We must not wait a minute. We will show no mercy. Every Communist official must be shot, where he is found."

This narrative allowed the Nazi propaganda machine, led by Joseph Goebbels, to incite fear and justify extreme countermeasures. Within hours, roughly 4,000 people were arrested, including KPD parliamentary leaders and anti-Nazi intellectuals.

The most significant immediate consequence of the fire was the issuance of the Reichstagsbrandverordnung (Reichstag Fire Decree) on 28 February 1933. Drafted by Hitler and signed by President von Hindenburg under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, this emergency decree suspended key civil liberties.

The decree nullified the right to habeas corpus, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right of free association and public assembly, and the secrecy of the post and telephone. It also allowed the Reich government to assume powers normally residing with the federal states.

Historian Ian Kershaw notes in his analysis of the period: "The Reichstag Fire Decree was the fundamental basis for the Nazi dictatorship... It was the permanent state of emergency upon which the regime was built."

By removing legal protections, the decree allowed the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the Schutzstaffel (SS) to terrorize political opponents with impunity. The upcoming elections on 5 March 1933, were held under this shadow of state-sanctioned terror, allowing the Nazis to secure 43.9% of the vote—not a majority, but enough to push through the Enabling Act weeks later, which formally allowed Hitler to enact laws without the Reichstag’s consent.

The international community watched the events in Berlin with a mixture of skepticism and alarm. To prove the existence of a communist conspiracy, the Nazi regime organized a show trial in Leipzig in late 1933. The defendants included Marinus van der Lubbe and four leading communists, among them Ernst Torgler, the parliamentary leader of the KPD, and Georgi Dimitrov, a Bulgarian communist.

Right: Berlin Germany, March 1933. Hitler delivering his speech promoting the Enabling Act (bill) at the Kroll Opera House, following the Reichstag fire. Click to expand.

The trial did not go entirely as the Nazis planned. Dimitrov famously cross-examined Göring, exposing inconsistencies in the prosecution's case and effectively turning the courtroom into a platform for anti-fascist rhetoric. While van der Lubbe was found guilty and subsequently executed, the other four defendants were acquitted due to lack of evidence—a verdict that infuriated Hitler and led to the transfer of treason trials from the Supreme Court to the newly created "People's Court" (Volksgerichtshof), where the Nazis controlled the judiciary completely.

The link between the Reichstag Fire and World War II is foundational. The fire dismantled the internal checks and balances that might have restrained Hitler’s foreign policy ambitions. With the domestic opposition crushed in the concentration camps established shortly after the fire (Dachau opened in March 1933), Hitler could focus on the rearmament of Germany (Aufrüstung) and the pursuit of Lebensraum (living space) in the East.

Without the Reichstag Fire Decree, the rapid synchronization (Gleichschaltung) of German society would have been significantly more difficult. The decree silenced the press that might have criticized early violations of the Treaty of Versailles. It imprisoned the political leaders who would have opposed the reintroduction of conscription in 1935 or the remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936.

Furthermore, the narrative established by the fire—that Germany was under siege by "Bolshevist" forces—became a central pillar of Nazi ideology justifying the eventual invasion of the Soviet Union. The fear of a communist plot, fabricated in the smoke of the Reichstag, was cultivated for years to prepare the German populace for a war of annihilation on the Eastern Front.

The Reichstag Fire was not merely an act of arson; it was the mechanism by which a constitutional democracy was converted into a totalitarian dictatorship overnight. By exploiting the fire to enact the Decree for the Protection of People and State, the Nazi regime eliminated political opposition and suspended the rule of law. This consolidation of domestic power was the prerequisite for Hitler’s aggressive expansionist policies. Therefore, the ashes of the Reichstag represent a critical turning point in 20th-century history, marking the moment when the institutional barriers to World War II were violently removed.

Recommended further reading
Benjamin Carter Hett’s Burning the Reichstag: An Investigation into the Third Reich's Enduring Mystery, delivers an exemplary in-depth reexamination into 1933’s mysterious Reichstag fire in Berlin Germany. Burning the Reichstag benefits from Hett’s legal background, researching and addressing key legal documents overlooked by previous historians. The former attorney-turned-historian received his Ph.D. in modern German history from Harvard University and now teaches at Hunter College and the Graduate Center at CUNY.