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Reichstag Fire
The Reichstag fire (german: Reichstagsbrand, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch "council communist", was the apparent culprit; however, Hitler attributed the fire to Communist agitators. He used it as a pretext to claim that Communists were plotting against the German government, and induced President Paul von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree suspending civil liberties, and pursue a "ruthless confrontation" with the Communists. This made the fire pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany. The first report of the fire came shortly after 9:00p.m., when a Berlin fire station received an alarm call. By the time police and firefighters arrived, the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house) was engulfed in flames. The police conducted a thorough search inside the buildi ...
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Ernst Torgler
Ernst Torgler (25 April 1893 – 19 January 1963) was the last chairman of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) faction in the German Reichstag before he worked for the Nazis. Early life Torgler was born the son of an urban resident in Berlin. There, he attended school from 1904 to 1907, when he joined the Association of Apprentices and Juvenile Workers of Berlin. From 1909 to 1925, he held a variety of different jobs, working most notably as a salesman and accountant. Torgler began his political career in 1910, when he joined the Social Democratic Party. While he served in the military during World War I, Torgler became a member of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1917. Political career In 1920, Torgler joined the Communist Party of Germany when the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany merged with the KPD. A year later, Torgler became a city councillor in Berlin- Lichtenberg, a position he held until 1930, and he was elected to the Reichstag ...
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Marinus Van Der Lubbe
Marinus van der Lubbe (13 January 1909 – 10 January 1934) was a Dutch communist who was tried, convicted, and executed by the Nazis for setting fire to the German Reichstag building on 27 February 1933. During his trial, the prosecution argued that van der Lubbe had acted on behalf of a wider Communist conspiracy, while left-wing anti-Nazis argued that the fire was a false flag attack engineered by the Nazis themselves. Most historians agree that van der Lubbe acted alone. Nearly 75 years after the event, the German government granted van der Lubbe a posthumous pardon. Early life Marinus van der Lubbe was born in Leiden in the province of South Holland. His parents were divorced, and after his mother died when he was twelve years old, he went to live with his half-sister's family. In his youth, van der Lubbe worked as a bricklayer. He was nicknamed ''Dempsey'' after boxer Jack Dempsey because of his great strength. While working, van der Lubbe came in contact with the ...
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Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, and the Black Sea to the east. Bulgaria covers a territory of , and is the sixteenth-largest country in Europe. Sofia is the nation's capital and largest city; other major cities are Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas. One of the earliest societies in the lands of modern-day Bulgaria was the Neolithic Karanovo culture, which dates back to 6,500 BC. In the 6th to 3rd century BC the region was a battleground for ancient Thracians, Persians, Celts and Macedonians; stability came when the Roman Empire conquered the region in AD 45. After the Roman state splintered, tribal invasions in the region resumed. Around the 6th century, these territories were settled by the early Slavs. The Bulgars, ...
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Article 48
Article 48 of the constitution of the Weimar Republic of Germany (1919–1933) allowed the President, under certain circumstances, to take emergency measures without the prior consent of the '' Reichstag''. This power was understood to include the promulgation of "emergency decrees". The law allowed Chancellor Adolf Hitler, with decrees issued by President Paul von Hindenburg, to create a totalitarian dictatorship after the Nazi Party's rise to power in the early 1930s. Text History Following the Treaty of Versailles, there was a period of hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic between 1921 and 1923, then the Occupation of the Ruhr between 1923 and 1925. Friedrich Ebert, a Social Democrat and the Republic's first President, used Article 48 on 136 occasions, including the deposition of lawfully elected governments in Saxony and Thuringia when those appeared disorderly. On 29 August 1921 an emergency proclamation was issued limiting the wearing of imperial military uniforms t ...
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Weimar Constitution
The Constitution of the German Reich (german: Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs), usually known as the Weimar Constitution (''Weimarer Verfassung''), was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic era (1919–1933). The constitution declared Germany to be a democratic parliamentary republic with a legislature elected under proportional representation. Universal suffrage was established, with a minimum voting age of 20. The constitution technically remained in effect throughout the Nazi era from 1933 to 1945, though practically it had been repealed by the Enabling Act of 1933 and thus its various provisions and protections went unenforced for the duration of Nazi rule. The constitution's title was the same as the Constitution of the German Empire that preceded it. The German state's official name was ''Deutsches Reich'' until the adoption of the 1949 Basic Law. Origin Following the end of World War I, a German National Assembly gathered in the town of ...
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Enabling Act Of 1933
The Enabling Act (German: ') of 1933, officially titled ' (), was a law that gave the German Cabinet – most importantly, the Chancellor – the powers to make and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or Weimar President Paul von Hindenburg, leading to the rise of Nazi Germany. Critically, the Enabling Act allowed the Chancellor to bypass the system of checks and balances in the government. The act rested upon Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution which gave the government emergency powers during periods of unrest. Among these powers was the ability to create and enforce laws that could explicitly violate individual rights prescribed in the constitution. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, was appointed as chancellor, the head of the German government. On February 27, the German parliament building — the Reichstag — caught fire. Acting as chancellor, Hitler immediately accused the communists of being the perpetrators of ...
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Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
The Reichstag of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) was the lower house of Germany's parliament; the upper house was the Reichsrat, which represented the states. The Reichstag convened for the first time on 24 June 1920, taking over from the Weimar National Assembly, which had served as an interim parliament following the collapse of the German Empire in November 1918. Under the Weimar Constitution of 1919, the Reichstag was elected every four years by universal, equal, secret and direct suffrage, using a system of party-list proportional representation. All citizens who had reached the age of 20 were allowed to vote, including women for the first time, but excluding soldiers on active duty. The Reichstag voted on the laws of the Reich and was responsible for the budget, questions of war and peace, and confirmation of state treaties. Oversight of the Reich government (the ministers responsible for executing the laws) also resided with the Reichstag. It could force individual m ...
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Chancellor Of Germany (German Reich)
The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the German Armed Forces during wartime. The chancellor is the chief executive of the Federal Cabinet and heads the executive branch. The chancellor is elected by the Bundestag on the proposal of the federal president and without debate (Article 63 of the German Constitution). The current officeholder is Olaf Scholz of the SPD, who was elected in December 2021, succeeding Angela Merkel. He was elected after the SPD entered into a coalition agreement with Alliance 90/The Greens and the FDP. History of the office The office of Chancellor has a long history, stemming back to the Holy Roman Empire, when the office of German archchancellor was usually held by archbishops of Mainz. The title was, at times, used in several states of German ...
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November 1932 German Federal Election
Federal elections were held in Germany on 6 November 1932.Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p762 The Nazi Party saw its vote share fall by four percentage points, while there were slight increases for the Communist Party of Germany and the national conservative German National People's Party. The results were a great disappointment for the Nazis, who lost 34 seats and again failed to form a coalition government in the Reichstag. The elections were the last free and fair all-German election before the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. Background Previously Chancellor Franz von Papen, a former member of the Catholic Centre Party, had governed without parliamentary support by relying on legislative decrees promulgated by President Paul von Hindenburg under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. However, on 12 September 1932 Papen had to ask Hindenburg to dissolve parliament in order to pre-empt a motion of no confidence introduced by the ...
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False Flag Operation
A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party. The term "false flag" originated in the 16th century as an expression meaning an intentional misrepresentation of someone's allegiance. The term was famously used to describe a ruse in naval warfare whereby a vessel flew the flag of a neutral or enemy country in order to hide its true identity. The tactic was originally used by pirates and privateers to deceive other ships into allowing them to move closer before attacking them. It later was deemed an acceptable practice during naval warfare according to international maritime laws, provided the attacking vessel displayed its true flag once an attack had begun. The term today extends to include countries that organize attacks on themselves and make the attacks appear to be by enemy nations or terrorists, thus giving the nation that was supposedly attacked a pretext for domestic rep ...
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Leipzig Trial
The Reichstag fire (german: Reichstagsbrand, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch "council communist", was the apparent culprit; however, Hitler attributed the fire to Communist agitators. He used it as a pretext to claim that Communists were plotting against the German government, and induced President Paul von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree suspending civil liberties, and pursue a "ruthless confrontation" with the Communists. This made the fire pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany. The first report of the fire came shortly after 9:00p.m., when a Berlin fire station received an alarm call. By the time police and firefighters arrived, the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house) was engulfed in flames. The police conducted a thorough search inside the buildin ...
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Comintern
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state". The Comintern was preceded by the 1916 dissolution of the Second International. The Comintern held seven World Congresses in Moscow between 1919 and 1935. During that period, it also conducted thirteen Enlarged Plenums of its governing Executive Committee, which had much the same function as the somewhat larger and more grandiose Congresses. Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, dissolved the Comintern in 1943 to avoid antagonizing his allies in the later years of World War II, the United States and the United Kingdom. It w ...
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