Chapter 67 Chapter Eleven "Stumble" (2)

Despite its personal success, after six weeks in power, the fate of the Brown Revolution remains in question.The urgent dissolution of the Prussian government caused serious concern in other states. In mid-February, Goering conducted a violent purge of the Prussian police, purging out all those he did not trust.He ordered his police force, "to outlaw, at all costs, anything that is hostile to the SA, the SS, and the Wehrmacht. Because these organizations contain the most constructive people for the country.... It is the duty of the police to help Any form of National Socialist propaganda is welcome." Then he issued a statement to the effect that "against various organizations that are hostile to the country," the police should act boldly and use weapons at any time.If they "failed to do their duty," they were punished.This is an open declaration of war on communists, Marxists and their sympathizers.

Like Prussia, the seven smaller states had submitted politically, but the larger states - including Bavaria, the birthplace of National Socialism - refused to submit to Hitler's government.At the same time, the Communists called on the masses to rise up against the Nazis. On February 21, the "Red Warrior League" incited the "Young Proletarians" to disarm the SS and SA. "In the future Red Army, every comrade is a commander! This is the oath we made to the soldiers of the Soviet Red Army. Neither machine guns, pistols, nor prisons can destroy our struggle. We are the masters of tomorrow!" A few days In the end, the Communist Party's official mouthpiece "Red Sailor" publicly called for violent action: "Workers, enter the fortifications! March towards victory! Load the bullets! Pull the fuse of the grenade!"

These calls to revolution may have been mere slogans, but Goering took them seriously—or in action.On February 24 he attacked the "Karl Liebknecht Building" in Berlin.The official announcement said that the police had copied the Communist uprising plan. On the evening of February 26, Hanussen predicted that this revolution would break out into war.During a seance attended by some of the most influential people in the capital, he declared that he had seen smoke... an old devil flying from the flames? ...Then, a building in Berlin was engulfed in flames.Those in the audience who were well aware that there had been three attempted arson attempts on government buildings the previous day must have been particularly impressed by this statement.

The arsonist was a 24-year-old Dutchman named Marinus van der Loub.He made up his mind to set fire to the Capitol.The man is strong, a little sluggish, and his protest against capitalism is setting fire to buildings.He had quit the party four years earlier, out of distaste for it, to join the International Communist Party, a fragmented group opposed to Moscow policy.He came to Berlin a week ago.His thinking at the time was that something big was going to happen there.But, having participated in demonstrations by both the Social Democrats and the Communists, he believed that the German revolution could only happen if it was spurred on by astonishing events.He hoped that the raging fire in the government buildings would inspire rebellion among the insensitive German masses.

After three unsuccessful arson attempts, he was not discouraged, so at noon on Monday—February 27—he brought 4 packs of arson to a store on Miller Avenue, and then walked to the Capitol.He was dressed in shabby clothes, short trousers, and a high hat on his head. He had a pitiful appearance.Wandering around the ornate, glass-roofed mansion, he found it safest to enter from the west—the doors were least used there.It was extremely cold that day, with a biting wind.To warm up, he stayed at the post office for half an hour, then walked for a while, and returned to the Capitol at 9:00 pm.The passage to the west is deserted.After a while, he climbed up the wall and climbed to the balcony on the second floor.

At 9:30 p.m., a seminary student was passing through the area on his way home. He suddenly heard the sound of breaking glass in the Capitol, and then saw a black figure with a torch in his hand.He then ran to call the police, and met a corporal policeman at the northwest corner of the building.The corporal found the shattered window and saw flames behind it, but he just watched in amazement, and it took a few minutes before he called the fire department. At about 10 o'clock, the first team of fire engines arrived.At this time, the meeting room was on fire. Hanf Stangl's apartment in Berlin, just opposite the Reichstag.At that time, he was sick and bedridden.It was the shrieking of the watchman that woke him up.He looked out the window, saw the fire, and hurried to Goebbels' house, where the dinner party was in full swing.Goebbels thought it was a joke when he heard the news. "If you think that way, please come and see for yourself," Hanf Stangel retorted and hung up the phone.A moment later, the phone rang—it was Goebbels. "I just told the Führer, and he asked what happened. Stop joking." From the sound of his voice, Goebbels seemed disbelieving and troubled.This angered Hanf Stangl.He said the building was on fire and fire trucks had arrived.After speaking, he went to bed and "raised" his illness.

Seeing Tiergard's sky turn red, Hitler shouted: "The Communist Party did it!" After shouting, he and Goebbels rushed to the scene of the fire.Upon arriving at the scene, they found Goering in the still burning building.With his brown hat turned up high and his camel-hair coat, he looked huge.He was one of the first to arrive at the scene of the fire, and his first order was *?Characteristic: "Save the tapestry!" He told Hitler that it was done by the Communist Party, "20 minutes before the fire, a group of representatives of the Communist Party were still in the Reichstag. We detained an arsonist." Goebbels asked quickly : "Who is it?" Goering said triumphantly: "We don't know yet, but we can get it out of his mouth, don't worry, doctor.

"Are the other public buildings okay?" Hitler asked. "I've taken all precautions. I've mobilized all the police. Special posts have been set up in every building. We're ready for any eventuality." The people stepped on the water pool and the charred ruins, patrolled the burned area for a week, and then walked into a hall full of thick smoke.A policeman raised a gun and warned Hitler that the menorah might collapse at any moment.Chancellor Hitler hurried to find Selton Delmer who came to interview the fire. “God bless this is the Communist Party,” he said—a signal to the reporter that he wasn’t sure it was the Communist Party, he just hoped. "What you are seeing, Mr. Delmer, is the beginning of a great period in German history. This fire was the beginning." He stepped on a hose, neither losing his balance nor interrupting the conversation. "If the Communists take control of Europe Well, six months from now—what am I talking about! Two months!—the whole continent will be in flames like this building.”

They went up the stairs, to another floor, and Papen came to meet them.He had given a banquet in honor of Hindenburg at the Heron Club, and hurried over when he heard what had happened.He was wearing a gray duffel coat and a black hamburger hat, and he couldn't speak a word. "This is a signal from God, Mr. Deputy Chancellor!" Hitler shouted: "If this fire was set by the Communist Party, I believe it was! Then we must smash this pest with an iron fist!" Seeing that Goering had rescued the tapestry, Papen breathed a sigh of relief.Hitler asked him to go to Goering's office to discuss the matter to decide what measures to take, but Papen politely and firmly refused.He said he had to report to Hindenburg first.

The fire seemed to fascinate Hitler.Arriving at the Congressional President's office, he leaned against a stone railing overlooking the devastation, seemingly drawn in by the flames.At this time, various cabinet ministers, officials and other dignitaries (including the mayor of Berlin, Prince Owe, the chief of police and the British ambassador) came one after another.The person in charge of conducting the preliminary investigation walked in.Rudolf Diels, chief of the police of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, reported to the Führer and Göring that the arsonist was a Dutchman named van der Lueber, who had been found in the Reichstag—he was half naked.An interrogator shouted angrily: "Why are you doing this?" The radical youth replied: "To protest."

Goering shouted slogans and gave orders. "This is the beginning of the communist uprising. Not a single minute is wasted..." Hitler interrupted him: "Give them some color! Whoever dares to stand in our way will be knocked down!" He blushed with excitement, "The German people grow up too weak. The Communists in office must be shot. The Communists in office must be hanged tonight. The friends of the Communists must be locked up. This also applies to the Social Democrats and the Reichsba-ner (State vermin)!" Diels told the Fuehrer that the arsonist denied any ties to the Communist Party, saying that he alone set the fire in the Reichstag.Diels added that his testimony sounded credible and that the arsonist was no more than a lunatic. "This conspiracy is very cunning and carefully planned." Hitler said coldly.Then he hurled insults: "The only thing possible is that they don't think much of us, or of the German people. They're hiding in their rat holes and they can't hear the cheers of the crowd." .Now they're trying to crawl out!" Diels said, saying that the idea that the Communists were about to revolt was ludicrous.Countless communist traitors had told him that the uprising was nothing but talk.But Hitler just wouldn't listen.He flew into a rage again, cursed "the pigs" again, and shouted that he didn't need any evidence to believe that the Communists "used the clumsy technique of setting fire to the patron saint of Germany as part of their hoarsely announced intention A signal for mass action." The stormy meeting ended at 11:00 pm.Another meeting was held at the home of the Prussian Minister of the Interior to study security measures.Afterwards, Hitler set off to the local offices of the Volksobserver to see how they reported on the fire. "It took a full half an hour to let me in. There were several editors sitting inside. An assistant editor finally came out. He seemed very sleepy." Hitler immediately called Goebbels.In order to prepare the next manuscript together, the two worked until dawn.They were prepared to accuse the Reds of plotting to seize power while "everybody was panicked". At the same time, Goering was furious with the man who wrote the report for the official Prussian newspaper.The draft was only 20 lines long and mentioned only one arsonist.Goering took a cursory glance and exclaimed: "It's all nonsense! It might be fine as a police report, but it's not what I'm thinking of as a bulletin, not at all!" He grabbed a blue pencil, Changed 100 lbs of Pyrotechnics to 1000 lbs.The author retorted that one person cannot carry such a weight.Goering retorted: "There is nothing impossible. Why do you say there is only one person? There are 10 or even 20 people! Don't you understand what is happening? This is a signal of the Communist uprising!" Goering rewrote the communique , pointing out that van der Lueber's accomplices were two Communists in Congress.The original author asked him to sign because it was not an official report but a political document. "They will only accept it if you officially sign it," he said, "and I hand it over to the news agency." Goering reluctantly wrote a capital G on it. (The first letter of "Göring" - Annotation).At this time, all the police radios were calling to arrest the Communist members of the Congress, as well as the Communist members of the provincial and city councils.Communist Party officials will also be arrested, and all red newspapers will be closed. Stimulated by the incident that night, Hitler became emboldened and threw all the bans he issued at the end into obscurity.Towards noon the next day he publicly threw himself into the struggle for military power.Before the cabinet meeting began, Chancellor Hitler greeted the cabinet ministers in order of their rank (this is the traditional rule before the meeting).Afterwards, he presides over the meeting in a domineering manner.The current crisis forces us to "settle accounts" with the Communist Party "without mercy" and "not to rely on the law," he said.Therefore, he suggested that an emergency decree be passed to protect the country from the "red", but it must be made to sound purely defensive and not too conspicuous.It can only mention lightly, "This is a special measure, the purpose is to protect the documents of the German people." However, after Frank read the draft, it was obvious that this decree had taken away what a democratic society could give people. Entitlements are mostly cancelled.First, it abolished the civil liberties enshrined in the Weimar Constitution—freedom of speech, freedom of the press, sanctity of the family, secrecy of correspondence and telephone conversations, freedom of assembly and association, and the inviolability of private property, among others.It then authorized the Reich Minister of the Interior to temporarily control state governments that were unable to maintain order.None of the ministers objected to disfranchisement; only Papen suggested that meddling in the affairs of the states would sow vengeance, especially in Bavaria.Papen's dissent was also fleeting.He also made only a small change—a nominal change.That night, Hitler joined him in an audience with Hindenburg.The Führer argued that this decree was necessary to suppress the Red Revolution.Papen and Messner made no comments, so the president signed it and said nothing. The National Emergencies Act thus replaced the military measures coveted by conservatives, with powers normally conferred on the Commander-in-Chief in the case of a military dictatorship in the hands of the Cabinet.On the surface, these powers are not scary, because the cabinet is not overwhelmingly dominated by the National Socialist Party.The decree was passed, but in such a hurry and with such intensity of emotion that no one could tell who had the idea of ​​abolishing citizenship instead of reducing it, as had been done by the previous Prime Minister.Perhaps this was not a despicable conspiracy by Hitler, who was determined to gain a dictatorship, but an accident of history.It was clear that the conflagration had driven Hitler to the brink of hysteria, and he was indeed afraid of a communist revolution.To be sure, Hitler's erratic behavior, and that of Goering and others close to him, were not the calculated actions of wise conspirators.Hitler's reaction was more one of faith in his mission than panic.For its part, the conflagration vindicated what he had said about the Reds and Jews for years. The subsequent emergency measures aimed at suppressing a non-existent rebellion turned out to be a leap forward on Hitler's path to all power.Carload after truckload of SA and SS troops hastily sworn in as an auxiliary force to the police, assisting them in maintaining the enforcement of the emergency decree.They got up suddenly, rushed into the rooms and taverns of the Communist Party that had already been taken over, and threw them into prisons or underground interrogation rooms by car.More than 3,000 Communists and Social Democrats were detained by the regular police.Airports, docks and other places were strictly monitored; trains were searched at the border. Goering can be said to have stole the show.The next day, he made a radio speech in the name of the Prussian Minister of the Interior, accusing the Communist Party of a "criminal conspiracy".He accused many people of planning to wear the uniforms of the SA and the SS to carry out crimes and acts of terror that undermine the unity of the country.He predicted that the burning of the Capitol was nothing more than the harbinger of many future fires, aimed at diverting the attention of the police and making the people at the mercy of the revolutionaries.Still, he concluded that the nation need not panic. "I can say to the Communist Party that my spirit is not broken. I feel fully capable of crushing their evil plans!" While his explanations are widely accepted in Germany, foreigners are not so gullible. "The suggestion that the Communist Party was involved in the fire is foolish," wrote London's "News Chronicle". "In the diplomatic circles and the press, this view is generally held. There is a growing feeling that the Reichstag was burned down by the Nazis themselves as an excuse to suppress the Communist Party." The next day, March 2, Sefton Delmer visited Hitler for answers.Hitler cursed foreigners, saying that they should be grateful for his feat against the common enemy, the Communist Party, and should not point fingers.Delmer chimed in later to say that the mass arrests had created fear, that Hitler was planning to kill the *?The enemy takes bloody revenge. "I don't need the night of St. Bartholomew." (* Bartholomew was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. On the evening of August 24, 1572, Protestants in Paris, France were massacred. The massacre generally Known as the "Bartholomew Massacre" - Annotation.) Hitler retorted, "A tribunal has now been established, the enemies of the country can be tried by the tribunal, and all conspiracies can be solved by the tribunal." Delmer said that according to his Understanding that Hitler wanted to use legal means to slaughter his old enemy; he asked, should citizenship be revoked forever? "No," said Hitler, "everything will return to normal when the Communists threaten to be eradicated. Our laws are too mild for me to deal quickly and effectively with the Bolshevik hell. For my part, I would like normal order to Restoration as soon as possible. However, we have to eradicate communism first." Across Europe, as the days passed, the belief grew that the Nazis were responsible for the arson attack on the Reichstag.It was revealed that Goering's building was connected to the Capitol through a tunnel.This took people by surprise and reinforced the above perception.As a result, there are calls from abroad.The uproar, however, hastened Hitler's trial of van der Lueber and his communist suspects—even though the police had objectively reported that "the case was undoubtedly the work of Lueber alone." The decision was foolish. , because Hitler thought the trial could be resolved quickly and quickly clarified right and wrong, but in fact the trial has been delayed for several months.This provided a handle for his enemies at home and abroad.