David Gordon, in his article "Nazi Economics" (December 19, 2008 http://www.lewrockwell.com/gordon/gordon51.html ), writes "Contrary to a popular belief, the Nazis did not start the [Reichstag] fire themselves. See on this Fritz Tobias, The Reichstag Fire, Putnam, 1964."
In actuality, the body of evidence available on this matter conclusively demonstrates that the Nazis set the Reichstag fire. The below is excerpted from "The Reichstag Fire, 68 years on," guest book review by Wilhelm Klein, World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), July 5, 2001; a review of Alexander Bahar and Wilfried Kugel, Der Reichstagbrand--Wie Geschichte gemacht wird (The Reichstag Fire: How History is Created; Berlin: Edition Q, 2001) http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jul2001/reic-j05.shtml :
"" Who were the arsonists?
To this very day, there is hardly any event in German history that has been debated as heatedly as the issue of who really set the Reichstag on fire.
In years of meticulous research, the two authors of the book, historian Alexander Bahar and physicist and psychologist Wilfried Kugel, carried out the first comprehensive evaluation of the 50,000 pages of original court, state attorney office and secret police (Gestapo) files that had been locked away in Moscow and East Berlin until 1990. The result is a remarkable and explosive, more than 800-page document that for the first time provides almost complete circumstantial evidence that the Nazis prepared and set the Reichstag fire themselves.
The authors have thus succeeded in disproving a hypothesis that even today is still fairly widespread: that the Dutchman Marinus van der Lubbe was the sole perpetrator. They “base their evidence largely on original documents that are stored in public archives, but have not been evaluated up to now... The book contradicts in many ways all of the research reports that have been published so far on the Reichstag fire, based on what the authors say is the first thorough evaluation of all presently available relevant sources... In summary, the authors have succeeded after years of work in presenting a comprehensive chain of circumstantial evidence—albeit one that will only have a conclusive character for those readers who are prepared to take on the intellectual challenge presented by the often highly complex and convoluted aspects of this case of political crime.” (2)
Bahar and Kugel describe the two contradictory hypotheses as to who was actually responsible for setting the fire as follows:
“As incontestable as it is that the Nazis benefited from the Reichstag fire and made skillful use of it in establishing their dictatorship, opinion remains divided as to who actually committed the deed. The communists accused by the Nazi authorities at the Reichstag Fire Trial in Leipzig were already ruled out in 1933 for obvious reasons: quite apart from the lack of evidence, the suicidal and thus nonsensical nature of such a deed was self-evident, despite Nazi propaganda to the contrary. So did Marinus van der Lubbe, the 75% vision-impaired Dutch left-wing radical communist arrested in the burning Reichstag set the fire on his own? Or were the culprits to be found among the Nazis?” (3)
As early as the summer of 1933, the Brown Book on the Reichstag Fire and Hitler’s Terror was published in Switzerland under the editorship of Willi Münzenberg. In this book, German emigrés attempted to provide proof that the Nazis had committed the crime in a secret operation run by Nazi leader Hermann Göring. And even before the Reichstag Fire Trial in Leipzig, the “Legal Commission of the International Investigation Committee” came to the conclusion that the Nazis had set the fire themselves. Up to 1949, this was the prevailing opinion of all serious contemporaries outside of Germany. “Everyone abroad was and remains convinced that the Nazis set fire to the Reichstag.” (4)
In Germany, however, the legend of Marinus van der Lubbe as the sole perpetrator was created after 1945 by the first head of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels, and his former staff. Diels, who was in charge of the sweeping arrests carried out on the night of the fire, had every reason to exonerate the Nazi rulers after World War II, since he was deeply involved in the Reichstag fire himself. As the authors explain:
“six hours before the Reichstag fire, Rudolf Diels, head of the ... Political Police since February 23, 1933 and subsequently head of the Secret State Police Office (Gestapo), wrote the following police radio telegram which was sent to all police stations in Prussia at about 6:00 p.m.: ‘Communists reportedly plan to carry out systematic raids on police squads and members of nationalist associations with the aim of disarming them.’ ... ‘Suitable countermeasures are to be taken immediately, and where necessary communist functionaries placed under protective custody.’” (5)
“The arrests carried out the next night had thus already been initiated by Rudolf Diels, the Chief of the Political Police, on the afternoon of February 27.” (6)
The authors prove that it would have been impossible for Marinus van der Luppe to set on fire a building as large as the Reichstag on his own, by reconstructing in minute detail the course of the fire on the basis of countless testimony documents and investigation and court files (particularly in Chapters 2 and 4).
Their conclusion is that “the ‘culprit’ van der Lubbe had even less time to carry out his alleged act of arson than has hitherto been assumed, namely only 12 to 13 minutes... The view often expressed in historical literature that the Reichstag arson had taken Göring, Goebbels and Hitler ‘by surprise’ must now presumably be regarded once and for all as a myth.” (7)
In Chapters 5 to 7, the authors document the proceedings at the so-called Reichstag Fire Trial, which began on September 21, 1933 in Leipzig, and then present the circumstantial evidence for the guilt of the Nazis. The exact evaluation of all of the fire expert reports leads to one conclusion: “ All of the fire experts agreed that the fire in the Reichstag assembly hall had to have been set by several culprits. Van der Lubbe’s self-incrimination was thus proved to be a lie.” (8) (My emphasis - W.K.)
In the trial before the Leipzig Reichsgericht court, which the Nazis had originally planned as a show trial, the accused were “van der Lubbe and comrades.” The Dutchman’s alleged “comrades” were Ernst Torgler, the former chairman of the KPD parliamentary group in the Reichstag, and three Bulgarian communists who were living illegally in Germany: Georgi Dimitrov, who had been the head of the Berlin-based Western European Office of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (Third International) until early 1933, Blagoj Popov and Vasil Tanev. Despite coerced witnesses (including concentration camp prisoners), planted and forged “evidence,” and torture and terror against the accused, the Nazis never succeeded in proving the alleged guilt of the communists. Dimitrov’s undaunted conduct in court, in particular, added to the embarrassment for the Nazi leaders. The Reichsgericht passed its verdict on December 23, 1933: “The accused Torgler, Dimitrov, Popov and Tanev are acquitted.” Marinus van der Lubbe, the only “presentable” culprit, was sentenced to death and executed on January 10, 1934, despite the existing expert opinions and testimony which conclusively ruled out the Dutchman as the sole perpetrator.
Finally, the authors expose the Nazis as the only feasible culprits. Among the documentary evidence the authors base this verdict on is the testimony of SA member Adolf Rall (who was later murdered by the SA and the Gestapo). The emigré newspaper Pariser Tageblatt reported on December 24, 1933: “he (Rall) stated he was a member of the SA’s “Sturm 17” unit. Before the Reichstag fire broke out, he had been in the subterranean passageway that connects the Reichstag assembly building to the building in which the government apartment of the Reich President [Hermann Göring] is located. Rall said that he had personally witnessed various members of his SA unit bringing the explosive liquids into the building.” (10)
Hans Bernd Gisevius, who had worked as a junior lawyer for the political police from August to December 1933, made the following testimony at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial in 1946: “It was Goebbels who first came up with the idea of setting fire to the Reichstag. Goebbels discussed this with the leader of the Berlin SA brigade, Karl Ernst, and made detailed suggestions on how to go about carrying out the arson. A certain tincture known to every pyrotechnician was selected. You spray it onto an object and then it ignites after a certain time, after hours or minutes. In order to get into the Reichstag building, they needed the passageway that leads from the palace of the Reichstag President to the Reichstag. A unit of ten reliable SA men was put together, and now Göring was informed of all the details of the plan, so that he coincidentally was not out holding an election speech on the night of the fire, but was still at his desk in the Ministry of the Interior at such a late hour... The intention right from the start was to put the blame for this crime on the Communists, and those ten SA men who were to carry out the crime were instructed accordingly.” (11)
Based on this testimony and a wealth of other circumstantial evidence, the course of this act of arson can be reconstructed as follows:
“On February 27, 1933, at about 8:00 p.m. a commando group of at least 3, and at most 10 SA men led by Hans Georg Gewehr entered the basement of the palace of the Reichstag President. The group took the incendiary substances deposited there, and used the subterranean passageway to go from the Reichstag President’s palace to the Reichstag building, where they prepared the assembly hall in particular with a self-igniting liquid they probably mixed in the hall. After a certain latency period, the liquid set off the fire in the assembly hall. The group made their getaway through the subterranean passageway and the basement of the Reichstag President’s palace (and possibly also through the adjacent basement leading to the machinery and government employees’ building) to the public street ‘Reichstagsufer.’ Göring entered the burning Reichstag building at 9:21 p.m. at the latest, presumably in order to provide a cover for the commando group’s retreat.
“Van der Lubbe was brought to the Reichstag by the SA at exactly 9:00 p.m. and let into the building by them. The sound of breaking glass which was noticed by witnesses and which was allegedly due to van der Lubbe breaking window panes to get into the building was probably only intended to attract the attention of the public. The Dutchman was sacrificed as the only available witness.” (12)
Almost all of the SA men involved in the deed (with the exception of Hans Georg Gewehr) and many accessories to the crime were later murdered by the Nazis, above during the so-called “Röhm putsch” on June 30, 1934.
Responsibility for the Reichstag Fire was a constant source of debate between German historians after the Second World War. In the early 1960’s, the attempt was made to establish the hypothesis of van der Lubbe as the sole culprit—in particular by Rudolf Augstein’s magazine Der Spiegel and the “amateur historian” and intelligence officer Fritz Tobias. To this very day, some prominent German historians base themselves on this hypothesis and still attempt to deny the guilt of the Nazis. With their new book Der Reichstagbrand, Alexander Bahar and Wilfried Kugel have provided authoritative evidence to finally dispel the longstanding controversy.
References
... (2) A. Bahar and W. Kugel: Der Reichtagsbrand, edition q, Berlin 2001, p. 19 (3) ibid., p. 15 (4) Braunbuch über Reichstagsbrand und Hitlerterror, Universum-Bücherei, Basle 1933, p. 74 (5) Bahar and Kugel, p. 71 (6) ibid., p. 72 (7) ibid., p. 73 (8) ibid., p. 321 (9) Walther Hofer et. al.: Der Reichstagsbrand, Arani-Verlag, Berlin 1972/1978, revised new edition: Ahriman-Verlag, Freiburg 1992, p. 2 (10) Bahar and Kugel, p. 533 (11) ibid., p. 543 (12) ibid., preliminary remarks “Reconstruction of the Reichstag arson”
An example of a so-called "self-igniting liquid" is concentrated hydrogen peroxide, which in the presence of flammable organic materials such as cloth or wood will ignite, with the ignition times depending principally on its dilution with water. Note that Germany at the time was the world's leading country in chemistry.
The above research on the Reichstag fire confirms the position of the Nazis staging the incident of William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), pp. 191-93, which was the first major history of Nazi Germany in English.
See also:
"Court Overturns Nazi Verdict on Reichstag Arsonist," Deutsche Welle, January 11, 2008 http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3052896,00.html
"Historians find 'proof' that Nazis burnt Reichstag," Tony Paterson, Telegraph (U.K.), June 19, 2001 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1310995/Historians-find-proof-that-Nazis-burnt-Reichstag.html
Add to an already unassailable case the fact that the Reichstag arson would be in keeping with the Nazi's modus operandi of staging false-flag terrorist attacks which would be more fully developed with the Nazi government's Operation Himmler, of which staged 21 incidents, including the false-flag staged attack at Sender Gleiwitz (Radio Gleiwitz) on August 31, 1939 that was the main pretext which Hitler used to start World War II with the invasion of Poland (which occured the next day, September 1, 1939). Indeed, the Reichstag fire was tame compared to the fraudulent Sender Gleiwitz attack, since prisoners were actually murdered by the German government in the Gleiwitz incident in order to manufacture phoney evidence of Polish attackers, whereas no one was hurt in the Reichstag fire itself; as well, the Reichstag event wasn't used to initiate war against another country.
"Jesus Is an Anarchist", Dec. 4, 2011 http://ssrn.com/abstract=1337761
Theophysics http://theophysics.host56.com
I'm grateful to James Redford for his informative post on the Bahar and Kugel book, but the views in that book have been rejected by most experts on the period. See, e.g, Richard Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (Penguin, 2004) and Ian Kershaw, Hitler (Norton, 2008). The Goebbels diary shows that the top Nazi leadership was surprised by the fire. Hans Bernd Gisevius isn't a reliable witness. It's not surprising the World Socialist Web Site endorses the Bahar-Kugel book. The story that the Nazis burned the Reichstag building was concocted by the notorious Communist propagandist, Willi Muenzenberg. See the famous Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror, which included diagrams showing alleged secret tunnels, by which the Nazis accomplished the dire deed. On Muenzenberg, see Sean McMeekin, The Red Millionaire (Yale University Press, 2004). By the way, the role of the Gleiwitz incident is often exaggerated. The were a number of border incursions by both sides in the days prior to the Sept.1, 1939 German invasion of Poland.
David Gordon:I'm grateful to James Redford for his informative post on the Bahar and Kugel book, but the views in that book have been rejected by most experts on the period. See, e.g, Richard Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (Penguin, 2004) and Ian Kershaw, Hitler (Norton, 2008). The Goebbels diary shows that the top Nazi leadership was surprised by the fire. Hans Bernd Gisevius isn't a reliable witness. It's not surprising the World Socialist Web Site endorses the Bahar-Kugel book. The story that the Nazis burned the Reichstag building was concocted by the notorious Communist propagandist, Willi Muenzenberg. See the famous Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror, which included diagrams showing alleged secret tunnels, by which the Nazis accomplished the dire deed. On Muenzenberg, see Sean McMeekin, The Red Millionaire (Yale University Press, 2004). By the way, the role of the Gleiwitz incident is often exaggerated. The were a number of border incursions by both sides in the days prior to the Sept.1, 1939 German invasion of Poland.
I doubt it's correct that Alexander Bahar and Wilfried Kugel's argument has been rejected by most Nazi historians, since probably most such historians haven't read their book let alone argued against it. As well, there exists no greater experts on this matter than Bahar and Kugel, as no one has done anywhere near the amount of research on this matter than they have.
Richard Evans's The Coming of the Third Reich only mentions the Bahar and Kugel book in passing within a footnote, and makes no attempt to address it directly.
Contrary to it often being exaggerated, the Sender Gleiwitz false-flag attack is almost unknown in the popular mind, as with Operation Himmler. And it was simply one of the false-flag attacks staged by the German government during Operation Himmler (i.e., the phoney "border incursions" which you refer to). Further, it would be surprising if the importance of these false-flag pretext attacks could be exaggerated, given that they were what Hitler used to start World War II. Below is a translation from Hitler's September 1, 1939 speech justifying his invasion of Poland, wherein he refers to the fraudulent Polish "border incursions" staged with Operation Himmler:
"" I, therefore, decided last night and informed the British Government that in these circumstances I can no longer find any willingness on the part of the Polish Government to conduct serious negotiations with us.
These proposals for mediation have failed because in the meanwhile there, first of all, came as an answer the sudden Polish general mobilization, followed by more Polish atrocities. These were again repeated last night. Recently in one night there were as many as twenty-one frontier incidents: last night there were fourteen, of which three were quite serious. I have, therefore, resolved to speak to Poland in the same language that Poland for months past has used toward us. This attitude on the part of the Reich will not change. ""
From "Address by Adolf Hitler - September 1, 1939," Avalon Project at the Yale Law School http://www.fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/resource/document/HITLER1.htm
The "months past" in the above refers to the German government's prior months-long propaganda campaign against Poland accusing Polish authorities of inciting ethnic cleansing against ethnic Germans living in Poland.
Mr. Redford evidently thinks that if historians do not embrace the Bahar-Kugel book, it must be because they are unfamiliar with it. Perhaps they have consulted the Goebbels diary and other relevant evidence and find the book unconvincing.
Does Mr. Redford think that all of the border incidents were German "false flag" operations? Clashes in Poland between Poles and ethnic Germans weren't a figment of Hitler's imagination.
David Gordon:Mr. Redford evidently thinks that if historians do not embrace the Bahar-Kugel book, it must be because they are unfamiliar with it. Perhaps they have consulted the Goebbels diary and other relevant evidence and find the book unconvincing. Does Mr. Redford think that all of the border incidents were German "false flag" operations? Clashes in Poland between Poles and ethnic Germans weren't a figment of Hitler's imagination.
Most Nazi historians haven't read Bahar and Kugel's book, let alone argued against it. Moreover, Nazi historians disagree as to whether the Nazis were invovled in setting the fire. And as stated previously, there exists no greater experts on the Reichstag fire than Bahar and Kugel, as no one has done anywhere near the amount of research on this matter than they have.
The incidents which Hitler specifically referred to in his September 1, 1939 speech in order to justify his invasion of Poland were the Operation Himmler false-flag attacks.
Regarding Joseph Goebbels's diaries, could you be so kind as to tell me what they have to say regarding Operation Himmler and the staged attack at Sender Gleiwitz, Mr. Gordon?
Mr. Redford should have another look at the speech by Hitler to which he rightly calls attention. The bulk of the text is devoted to Hitler's claim that the Poles rejected his terms on Danzig and the Polish Corridor and refused to negotiate. I know of no serious diplomatic historian of the period who places primary emphasis on the Gleiwitz incident. By the way, I don't deny that the incident occurred; rather, I'm questioning whether it has the significance Mr. Redford has ascribed to it.
I doubt that he is right to say that most specialists haven't read the Behar-Kugel book: that would imply that they are incompetent in failing to consider relevant evidence. If he finds the book convincing, I'm content to leave it at that.
David Gordon:Mr. Redford should have another look at the speech by Hitler to which he rightly calls attention. The bulk of the text is devoted to Hitler's claim that the Poles rejected his terms on Danzig and the Polish Corridor and refused to negotiate. I know of no serious diplomatic historian of the period who places primary emphasis on the Gleiwitz incident. By the way, I don't deny that the incident occurred; rather, I'm questioning whether it has the significance Mr. Redford has ascribed to it. I doubt that he is right to say that most specialists haven't read the Behar-Kugel book: that would imply that they are incompetent in failing to consider relevant evidence. If he finds the book convincing, I'm content to leave it at that.
The German government had for some time been implementing a strategy to lead up to this moment, of which included a propaganda compaign against Poland even appart from Operation Himmler. Yet it was the Operation Himmler false-flag attacks which Hitler used as the casus belli for the invasion of Poland occurring at the time that it did, i.e., the claimed reason why the German government chose to act with invasion at that time.
You write, "I doubt that he is right to say that most specialists haven't read the Behar-Kugel book: that would imply that they are incompetent in failing to consider relevant evidence." I wonder how many so-called "economists" have read Mises's Human Action, or Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State. Incompetence within academia is the standard and not the exception as it pertains to matters which have political implications, even in the natural sciences such as climatology. Although "incompetence" isn't the right word to describe this state of affairs, since the academicians are quite competently doing that which is good for their careers, with veridicality being their unlamented casualty.
With that said, I don't accept the implication of this statement by you. Responsibility for the Reichstag fire is a point of contention within the field of history. Incompetence would, one might argue, come into play if a historian advanced the contrary position without addressing Bahar and Kugel's book. But, since the publication of aforesaid book, simply not advancing a position on the issue one way or the other is no logical sin.
Going back to the question I asked you in my previous post, my point in asking it is that I hoped it would make you realize why advancing arguments regarding the Reichstag fire vis-à-vis Joseph Goebbels's diaries is illogical. Besides the obvious point that not everything the Nazis did was included in his diaries (even if it pertained to propaganda measures and was vitally important to their cause), the more central reason is this: Goebbels fully intended his diaries to be read by the public at some future time. It's not as if he's going to admit to future readers that the Nazis' source of power--and later on, their reason for war--was a concocted sham. He would therein be admitting to committing a fraud against the Aryan Germans as much as anyone. Of course he's going to paint himself and his superiors as embattled defenders of the German people.