Reichstag fire

Only Van Der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death. The rest were acquitted, and (with the exception of Torgler, who was taken into “protective custody" by the Gestapo after the trial), were expelled to the Soviet Union, where they received a hero's welcome. Hitler was furious with the outcome of this trial. He decreed that henceforth treason – among many other offenses – would only be tried by a newly established People's Court (Volksgerichtshof). The People's Court later became infamous for the enormous number of death sentences it handed down while led by Judge-President Roland Freisler.

Van der Lubbe's execution

At his trial, Van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was beheaded (the customary German execution method at the time) on January 10, 1934, three days before his 25th birthday. The Nazis alleged that Van der Lubbe was part of the Communist conspiracy to burn down the Reichstag and seize power, while the Communists alleged that Van der Lubbe was part of the Nazi conspiracy to blame the crime on them. Van der Lubbe for his part maintained that he had acted alone, to protest the condition of the German working-class.

Dispute about van der Lubbe's role in the Reichstag Fire

Historians generally agree that van der Lubbe was involved in the Reichstag fire. The extent of the damage, however, has led to considerable debate over whether he acted alone. Considering the speed with which the fire engulfed the building, van der Lubbe's reputation as a mentally disturbed arsonist hungry for fame, and cryptic comments by leading Nazi officials, it was generally believed at the time the Nazi hierarchy was involved in order to reap political gain. Some have contended that van der Lubbe acted alone, and the Reichstag fire was merely a stroke of good luck for the Nazis. The idea that he was a "half-wit" or "mentally disturbed" was propaganda spread by the 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[5]. The historian Hans Mommsen concluded that the Nazi leadership was in a state of panic the night of the Reichstag fire, and they seemed to have regarded the Reichstag Fire as a confirmation that all their propaganda about a Communist revolution being imminent was actually true[6].

British reporter Sefton Delmer witnessed the events of that night firsthand, and his account of the fire provides a number of details[7]. Delmer viewed van der Lubbe as solely responsible, that the Nazis sought to make it appear to be a "Communist gang" who set the fire, whereas the Communists sought to make it appear that van der Lubbe was working for the Nazis, and that they had plotted the whole thing.

In 1960, the West German Social Democratic journalist Fritz Tobias published a series of articles in Der Spiegel, later turned into a book, which showed that Van Der Lubbe had acted alone. At the time, Tobias was widely attacked for his articles, which showed that Van der Lubbe was a pyromaniac with a long history of burning down buildings or attempting to burn down buildings. In particular, Tobias established that Van der Lubbe had attempted to burn down a number of buildings in the days prior to February 27. In March 1973, the Swiss historian Walter Hofer organized a conference intended to rebut the claims made by Tobias. At the conference, Hofer claimed to have found evidence that some of the detectives who had investigated the fire may have been Nazis. Mommsen commented on Hofer's claims by stating "Professor Hofer's rather helpless statement that the accomplices of Van der Lubbe 'could only have been Nazis' is tacit admission that the committee did not actually obtain any positive evidence in regard to the alleged accomplices' identity"[8].

Göring's possible role

William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich details how at Nuremberg, General Franz Halder stated in an affidavit that Hermann Göring had joked about setting the fire:

"On the occasion of a lunch on the Führer's birthday in 1942, the people around the Führer turned the conversation to the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears how Göring broke into the conversation and shouted: 'The only one who really knows about the Reichstag building is I, for I set fire to it.' And saying this he slapped his thigh"[9]
Under cross-examination at Nuremberg, Göring was read Halder's affidavit and denied he had any involvement in the fire, characterizing Halder's statement as "utter nonsense". Göring stated:

"I had no reason or motive for setting fire to the Reichstag. From the artistic point of view I did not at all regret that the assembly chamber was burned; I hoped to build a better one. But I did regret very much that I was forced to find a new meeting place for the Reichstag and, not being able to find one, I had to give up my Kroll Opera House ... for that purpose. The opera seemed to me much more important than the Reichstag