Who started the The Reichstag fire?
Reichstag fire
It is alleged that the idea Van der Lubbe was a "half-wit" or "mentally disturbed" was propaganda spread by the Dutch Communist Party, to distance themselves from an insurrectionist anti-fascist, who was once a member of the party and took action where they failed to do so. John Gunther, who covered the trial, described him as "an obvious victim of manic-depressive psychosis", and said that the Nazis would not have chosen "an agent so inept and witless". Citing a letter allegedly written by Karl Ernst before his death during the Night of Long Knives, he believed that Nazis who heard Van der Lubbe boast of planning to attack the Reichstag started a second simultaneous fire they blamed on him. Hans Mommsen concluded that the Nazi leadership was in a state of panic on the night of the "Reichstag" fire and they seemed to regard the fire as confirmation that a Communist revolution was as imminent as they said it was.
Weimar Republic
Hitler addressed disparate interest groups, stressing the necessity for a definitive solution to the perpetual instability of the Weimar Republic. He now blamed Germany's problems on the Communists, even threatening their lives on 3 March. Former Chancellor Heinrich Brüning proclaimed that his Centre Party would resist any constitutional change and appealed to the President for an investigation of the "Reichstag" fire. Hitler's successful plan was to induce what remained of the now Communist-depleted Reichstag to grant him, and the Government, the authority to issue decrees with the force of law. The hitherto Presidential Dictatorship hereby was to give itself a new legal form.