On This Day in History: February 28

The day after the Reichstag Fire

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The actual fire was the day before, but the real shitassery happened on this day, almost like they’d planned it all along and were ready to pounce. Almost like those Nazi fucks set the Reichstag on fire themselves and blamed communists so they could issue a decree giving them dictatorial powers. Well, maybe.

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: February 28, 1933--

Four weeks after that Nazi cockblanket Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, the country’s parliament building, called the Reichstag, went up in arsonist flames. It was blamed on a Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe. He might have been guilty, but some historians consider him a pawn, and that the fire was actually set by Nazis to further their fucktacular aims. Either way, they tried Marinus and executed him via guillotine the following year, three days before he turned 25.

But what happened the day after the fire, on February 28, 1933, is where shit got real. Real shitty. Unless you were a fucking Nazi, that is. It was called the Reichstag Fire Decree, and it was some dastardly political maneuvering. See, Hitler was leader of a coalition government, meaning he had to cooperate with others to get anything done, which, if you know anything about Hitler, was totally not his style. So, he told German President Hindenburg to dissolve parliament and call an election. The fire happened just a week before that election was scheduled.

The fire wasn’t just blamed on van der Lubbe, but was proclaimed to be a communist plot. The Nazi crudbuckets said a commie uprising was imminent and they were gonna eat your babies or some shit. They said the fire was a “signal for a bloody uprising and civil war.” They used words like “pillage” and “terrorism” and plenty of Germans freaked entirely the fuck out. And when people are freaked out, they’re less likely to notice the loss of their freedoms in the name of security.

They threw a bunch of communists in jail, suspended the constitution, and abolished civil rights. All those freedoms around speech, press, assembly, not being thrown in prison for no good fucking reason? Gone. You got a warrant to search my house? Here’s your fucking warrant [clubs homeowner over the head]. The night of the decree more than 4,000 people were arrested, imprisoned, tortured. Hitler had the power to do this because just six days earlier he’d enrolled 50,000 Nazi stormtroopers as auxiliary police.

In the election that followed, the German Communist Party won 81 seats, but weren’t able to take them because all those who won were quickly arrested and treated like traitors. Being a communist in Germany had become de factoillegal. The decree remained in place during the remainder of the Third Reich, giving Hitler absolute power to do whatever the fuck he pleased.

And the world suffered for it.

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