Of the three totalitarian movements that made the biggest impact on the history of the twentieth century, only one, German National Socialism, came to power through a constitutional process.

The other two, Soviet Communism and Chinese Communism, were launched in countries that had been exhausted by invasion and civil war.  In October 1917 (old style, November in the west) the Soviet communists overthrew the provisional government that in February of that year had replaced the Czar.  They then had to face two distinct threats.  First, they fought counter-revolutionaries (the “White” forces).  Second, after the Soviets withdrew from the First World War and signed a separate peace treaty with Germany, the western allies invaded Russian territory in a vain attempt to keep Germany occupied in the east.  The Soviets used armed force to see off both threats and then turned that power on the unarmed civilian population whose reformation in accordance with Marxist doctrine was the stated objective of the revolution.

The Chinese Communists and Nationalists spent most of the 1930s fighting each other, but sometimes put their differences aside to fight Japan, who had been swallowing Chinese territory since 1931 and had been actively and formally at war with China since 1937.  The rivals also had to face regional warlords whose ambitions were more limited than the two main contestants but nevertheless posed a genuine if only local threat.  By the fall of 1949, the Chinese Communists, better organized and with better morale, were the last team standing.  When the Nationalists departed the mainland for Taiwan, the Chinese Communist Party moved into a power vacuum.

The National Socialist party in Germany took office on January 30, 1933 when the German Head of State, President Paul von Hindenburg, appointed Adolf Hitler Germany’s Chancellor, in accordance with established constitutional procedure.  Hindenburg did not like or trust Hitler or his party, but had run out of options.  The National Socialists had achieved office, but constitutional constraints stood in the way of the absolute power they sought.  Neither his coalition partners nor his political opponents knew how to use those constraints if Hitler and his party acted unlawfully after achieving power.

The National Socialist party was the largest in Germany but had far less than majority support.  Germans went to the polls four times during 1932.  Support for National Socialism was well below 40% in all four elections.

There was a presidential election in March where the incumbent, Hindenburg, finished with a plurality of 49.6%.  Hitler came second with 30.1%.  Hindenburg’s failure to achieve a majority forced a runoff.  In the second round, in April, Hindenburg won a clear majority of 53%, while Hitler again came second, this time with 36.8%.

There were two legislative elections that year.  On July 31, the National Socialists shocked the country by winning the largest number of votes and the largest number of seats in the Reichstag, the lower house of the German federal legislature.  Although they had doubled their vote total from the previous election in September 1930, they had gathered no more than 37% of all votes cast. Because they had less than a majority and because every other party either hated them or feared them, the National Socialists were not included in the government.  Lack of cooperation among the other parties forced a second legislative election in November 1932.  This time, the National Socialists lost two million votes and 34 seats, although they remained the largest party with some 33% of all votes.

In that same election, the Communist party won some 16% of the vote.  The two revolutionary parties, the ones that wanted to remake German society from the ground up, had won slightly less than half of all votes.  In a backhanded way, that is a testament to the devotion of the German people to some form of rational governance.  In the previous 20 years, they had suffered the loss of a war that many of them thought they should have won.  That was followed by a humiliating peace treaty, hyperinflation that wiped out whatever savings had survived the war, and then, after a few years of respite, an economic depression that devastated the economy and generated among many citizens a sense of hopelessness.  Despite all of that, half of the voters stuck with politicians who favored some form of rational politics.  The problem was that the non-fanatics could not agree among themselves.  The two fanatical parties used street violence and rabid propaganda to make their respective cases.  The social democrats, centrists, and nationalists relied on intrigue and back-door deals to advance their modest agendas.

Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor provided his party with significant advantages, but challenges remained.  The National Socialists had only three seats in the cabinet.  Eight other positions were held by old-line conservative politicians whose objective was to keep Hitler and his violent street fighters in check.  In the Reichstag, the National Socialists were forced to govern in a coalition with the Nationalist Party, but the two together did not have a majority of seats.  If they could persuade the Center Party to join their coalition, they would have a majority in the Reichstag.  The Center Party refused the offer.  A new election, the fifth in the last twelve months, was scheduled for March 5.

Hitler and his colleagues had no intention of giving up power now that they had achieved it.  They had a large force of “Storm Troopers”, a private army that broke up meetings of their political opponents.  In those days, when politics was often an open-air affair, the ability to silence the opposition was invaluable.  Then as now, a political organization that can prevent its opposition from making its case is well on the way to victory.

Even before Hitler came to power, the German establishment had demonstrated that they were unwilling to use legitimate force – the army and the police – to oppose National Socialist street fighters.  The authorities had allowed widespread violence during the summer and fall elections in 1932.

With loyal partisans in control of the levers of state power and willing to wield them for raw partisan ends, Hitler’s chances in the March election must have looked good to him and his inner circle.  Hermann Goering, one of Hitler’s chief lieutenants, was a cabinet minister “without portfolio”, but more importantly he held two posts outside the cabinet.  He was president of the Reichstag, comparable to Speaker of the House.  He was also the Interior Minister for Prussia, Germany’s largest state.  That position gave him direct control over the largest police force in the country.  It was clear from the first moment that the police would not take action against the National Socialists and their private army.  Citizens soon learned that any overt opposition to National Socialism meant trouble from which there was no appeal.

Another factor in Hitler’s favor was the masterful use of propaganda by Joseph Goebbels.  Also, many big industrialists had who had shied away from National Socialism before January 30, 1933, decided to buy a seat at the table by contributing large sums of money for Goebbels to use in the political campaign.  (Germany did not have laws limiting campaign contributions as far as I know.  Had there been such laws, the business supporters of National Socialism would undoubtedly have found ways to support the cause through unregulated in-kind contributions.)

It’s clear that Hitler and his cronies intended to remain in power after March 5, no matter the outcome of the election.  (William L. Shirer provides ample documentary evidence in “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” first published as long ago as 1959.)  Even so, if the downward trend revealed in the November election were to continue, cementing power would be more difficult.  Despite the propaganda and the campaign contributions, there was no reason to think that the popularity of National Socialism was on the rise.

What to do?  They had a plan for that.  On the night of February 27, fires broke out in the Reichstag, gutting the building.  The fire was immediately condemned as the work of Communists.  The next day, February 28, Hitler asked the President to suspend seven sections of the German constitution that guaranteed individual and civil liberties.  Freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and the right of assembly and association were suspended.  In addition, “violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscation as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.”

A government with those powers in hand is well on its way to establishing a totalitarian dictatorship.

How did the fire start?  As William L. Shirer said in 1959, the full story may never be known.  What we do know does not support the charge that the fire was set as part of a Communist plot, an accusation that the National Socialists immediately and loudly publicized.

As President of the Reichstag, Goering occupied the President’s residence down the road from the Reichstag.  The two buildings were connected by an underground tunnel that connected them both to a central heating system.  During the evening of February 27, National Socialist operatives carried gasoline and other tools of the arsonist’s trade through the tunnel to the Reichstag and set it alight.

However, when the authorities arrived at the burning building, the only person they found inside was an individual named Marinus van der Lubbe, a mentally challenged Dutch Communist.  He had been overheard in a bar a few days earlier claiming that he had already attempted to burn several buildings in Berlin and that the Reichstag was his next target.

If he was not responsible for the blaze, how was it that he was in the building on the night of the fire?  The answer was provided in an affidavit that was sworn in 1955 and filed with a German court but not published until 2019.  Van der Lubbe had been arrested by the S.A., the Storm Troopers, shortly after his bar boasts came to their attention.  On the night of February 27, an S.A. member named Hans-Martin Lennings was ordered to transport van der Lubbe to the Reichstag.  Lennings’s affidavit states that when he arrived at the Reichstag, the building was already in flames.  When van der Lubbe was arrested, Lennings and his companions objected, because of what they knew.

The blaze started in multiple locations.  It wouldn’t have been possible for one individual to carry all of the chemicals and equipment into the building undetected.  The task required a team.  That much activity would have been detected had it taken place anywhere but in the underground tunnel connecting the Reichstag to the residence of the Reichstag president.  Van der Lubbe didn’t have the mental capacity to plan the act or to carry it out.  His presence in an S.A. infirmary until he was transported to the burning building gives him an alibi.

Of course, he was arrested on the spot, charged with arson, convicted, and put to death by guillotine.  Four other defendants were acquitted.  His availability as a scapegoat to shield the arsonists was an extraordinary piece of good luck for those planning to convert a dysfunctional state into a totalitarian hellhole.

The S.A. personnel who took van der Lubbe to the Reichstag were inconvenient witnesses.  Except for Lennings, they were all murdered.  He got word of the plan to liquidate him and was able to escape.  He filed his affidavit in 1955 to ensure the survival of a record of what actually happened.  He died in 1962.

The van der Lubbe complication is a nice example of how easy it is to persuade the public of a narrative that is pure invention.  Almost always there will be some stray event that lends credibility to even the most unlikely constructions.  To this day, there are respected commentators who attribute the fire to a Communist plot.  The Deutsche Welle news organization allows that opinion among historians is “mixed”.  Incidentally, in 2008 the German government pardoned van der Lubbe posthumously.

Despite a massive propaganda campaign in the week between the fire and the March 5 election, the National Socialists gathered only 44% of the vote.  Together with their Nationalist Party partners, they had achieved a majority in the Reichstag.  They were then able to eliminate opposition parties one by one and to suppress any political opposition.  As they did so, they brought the leading government, cultural, economic, and social institutions of Germany onside.  When President Hindenburg died in August 1934, the last bulwark against absolute power was gone.  A plebiscite to combine the offices of Chancellor and President won 95% of the vote, placing absolute power in Hitler’s hands beyond recall.  The National Socialists had achieved unity, the oft-stated goal of those who want unconstrained political power.

The National Socialists would likely have achieved their goals without the Reichstag fire.  Still, if a political party wants to create in the public mind a fear that conspirators walk among us who are intent on doing great harm, it helps to have a specific and dramatic event to pull the imagined threat into focus.  A concrete threat with compelling visual content – a historic building on fire – got the National Socialists and their coalition partners the parliamentary majority that enabled them to dispense with constitutional niceties and rule by decree.