Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring arrived soon after, and when
they were shown van der Lubbe, a known communist agitator,
Göring immediately declared that the fire was set by the
communists and had the party leaders arrested. Hitler took
advantage of the situation to declare a state of emergency and
encouraged the aging president Paul von Hindenburg to sign the
Reichstag Fire Decree, abolishing most of the human rights
provided for by the 1919 constitution of the Weimar Republic.
According to the police, van der Lubbe claimed to have set the
fire as a protest against the rising power of the Nazis. Under
torture, he confessed again, and was brought to trial, along
with the leaders of the opposition Communist Party. With their
leaders in jail and denied access to the press, the Communists
were badly defeated in the next election and those Communist
(and some Social Democratic) deputies that were elected to the
Reichstag were not permitted by the SA to take their seats.
Hitler was swept to power with 44 percent of