on the night of the 27 february 1933 and 28 february 1933, someone set the reichstag building on fire. this was the building where the german parliament held their meetings. the nazis blamed the communists. opponents of the nazis said that the nazis themselves had done it to come to power. on the very same day, an emergency law called "reichstagsbrandverordnung" was passed. the government claimed it was to protect the state from people trying to hurt the country. with this law, most of the civil rights of the weimar republic did not count any longer. the nazis used this against the other political parties. members of the communist and social-democratic parties were put into prison or killed.