Reichstag Fire

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I would be interested in reading some credible histories that look at alternative theories of the Reichstag Fire, aside from that Marius VDL started it. Are there any? By credible I don't mean the propaganda department of the ISO...

[Blake's Baby]

There aren't, probably because Marius Van Der Lubbe started it.

[Daxim]

Many people theorise that the Nazis themselves started it as a false flag to decrease support for the German communists. No way to really know, i guess.

[reviscom1]

I always assumed the Nazis started it to justify the Enabling Act.

[Devrim]

I thought everyone knew that Van Der Lubbe did it.

Devrim

[Sasha]

he did it and he should be celebrated for it..

[OGG]

I always assumed the Nazis started it to justify the Enabling Act.
I think the Nazis used the fire to justify the Enabling Act. After skimming Marius' Wikipedia, I concluded that most historians agree that Marius started the fire. The Nazis would've done something eventually to justify the Enabling Act. One only needs to look at the Nazi's justification for the invasion of Poland. Regardless, the fire serves as another example of the State using an event to justify giving itself more power. We saw a similar thing after the Paris attacks, not to the degree of the Nazis however.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Someone said to me the other day that there was some new research out showing VDL possibly didn't start teh fire. I don't really have a dog in this fight, it would just be a more interesting angle to present to students than 'big bad communists starting violent fires in Reichstag..'.

[Faust Arp]

I remember that, back in school, my history textbooks explicitely claimed that the fire was set up by the Nazis, and the teachers all went along with it. The curriculum was still heavily based on the old Yugoslav one. I wonder if the "false flag" version is also the "official" one in other formerly socialist (or "socialist") countries.

[motion denied]

Faust Arp, I heard the same at school. And this is surely the wide-spread version of the facts.

[bricolage]

Someone said to me the other day that there was some new research out showing VDL possibly didn't start teh fire. I don't really have a dog in this fight, it would just be a more interesting angle to present to students than 'big bad communists starting violent fires in Reichstag..'.
Might be referring to something here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n09/richard-j-evans/the-conspiracists

I can't remember the whole article but Evans gives a pretty good historiographically overview and I'm pretty sure he demolishes all the alternative theories.