reich history

[Kevin Troy]

I think the Reichstag fire is a rather interesting event to discuss
apropos Pynchon's writings.  I recently read a monograph on the subject (a
graduate thesis, to be more precise), written in the late 1950s, and that
author concluded that the fire was, indeed, the work of Marinus van der
Lubbe, who was deranged, acting alone. The Nazis took advantage of the
fire to speed their ascent to complete control over the state, and the
Communists used the Nazi show trial as a platform for counter-propoganda.  
Van der Lubbe himself hardly said anything at the trial; most of the
exchanges of note involved Georgi Dmitriov, a Bulgarian Communist who had
been arrested on a "round up the usual suspects" charge.  Based on a brief
and amateur analysis of other articles about the fire that I've seen, I'm
of the opinion that those who do not subscribe to the "lone arsonist"
theory fall into two categories:  1) Deliberate propogandists, either pro-
or anti-Communist, and 2) Later historians carelessly misreading
literature written by those in category one.  As such, I was surprised to
see so much of the Britannica article Terrence posted giving credence to
the Nazi-plot theory, but I guess that's why I don't work for Britannica.

It's a story that would make a good Oliver Stone film (and yes, I believe
that there can be such a thing, ha-ha)-- groups struggling to have their
theories & lies become history, power through authority.  The Kennedy
assassination 30 years later is the only other event I can think of that
was equally dramatic (a nation struck by lightning) and mired in
historical confusion, and it shares the "never could one man do this it
must have been a conspiracy" brand.  The 1933 fire and the 1963
assassination also share the interesting trait of a missing or speechless
culprit (Oswald killed by Ruby; van der Lubbe not too coherent to begin
with, and then executed by the Nazi state), which is one of the primary
reasons why such heated discussions of what they did, why they did it,
whether they did it alone, and so forth can take place.

The differences between the Weimar republic's (or what was left of it, at
that point) reaction to the Reichstag fire and the American republic's
reaction to the Dallas murder is, as they say, beyond the scope of the
current paper.


Kevin Troy