New research into the case of Marinus van der Lubbe presented in a tv documentary confirmed that van der Lubbe wouldn't have been able to torch the Reichstag on his own.
The producers of the tv documentary "Neues vom Reichtagsbrand" conclude that he was used as a scapegoat. According to the researchers the nazis themselves set fire to the Reichstag, the symbol of the democracy in Germany. Shortly after the fire Hitler issued a new law in which he became the sole ruler of Germany.
"The Reichstag was burned down and shortly after the world", according to the researchers.The researchers uncovered a conspiracy of former high nazi officials who manipulated journalists of the magazine "Der Spiegel" to keep pointing the finger at van der Lubbe. The former nazi officials wanted to honor Hitler and grant him a favor for the last time. 
In the film the researchers were able to provide some proof for their statements. They suggested that large cardboard nameplates, with the names of 600 members of Pairlement were used to set fire to the Reichstag. The nameplates were found at unusual places and not in the proper storage. Suggested is, that these plates were used to set fire a several places in the Reichstag.
The prominent chairman of the board of the "Institut fur Zeitgeschichte" in Muenchen, Horst Moeller, states that a fire of this magnitude couldn't possible have been caused by one man.
According to the head of the fire department of Berlin, the fire must have been set a several places throughout the Reichstag.For other historians the fire has been set by the poor bricklayer from the Netherlands and no nazi conspiracy was proven. According to these historians, van der Lubbe set fire to the curtains in the great meeting hall and the fire was soon out of control.
They accuse the researchers and the producers of the documentary of leftwing ideas and of loss of their impartiality in their investigation. They suggest there is not one bit of prove that the nazis were responsible or that more than one man was involved in the fire. 
Dr. Eckard Jesse writes in the magazine "Das Parlement" that the confession of van der Lubbe was extracted in the presence of representatives from all over the world and that he got a fair trail. According to Jesse, by his act, van der Lubbe meant to give a strong signal to the workers association, in which he clearly failed.
It's only just that no streets are named after this common criminal. To commemorate van der Lubbe is, according to Jesse, out of the question and he states that the statues in two German cities are exagerated and by no means appropriate.In the mean time the slander campaign against van der Lubbe in the German press is still going on. The Frankfurter Algemeine states that the Dutchman, still buried at a cemetary in Leipzig, was a homosexual. According to the newspaper "Bild" as if they were present at the scene, Hitler shouted: "Are you hallucinating?" when he was told of the fire at 21.00 hours on Febr. 27nd, 1933. After which he resumed eating his eggs and lettuce.
The heated debate between the German historians clearly shows that Germany is some ways still not prepared to deal with its own history.
For most Dutch people van der Lubbe was indeed a scapegoat for Hitler to seize total control over Germany. The poor bricklayer was sentenced and beheaded just for Hitlers political reasons and not for setting fire to the Reichstag. For the Dutch it is obvious: if a vehicle looks like a car, sounds like a car, has four wheels like a car and has a steeringwheel like a car....it must be a car! For some Germans, this vehicle still appears to be a bicycle. |
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