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Hersch Fischler
Relevant mistakes in Alfred Berndt′s study of the Reichstag fire
Keywords: Marinus van der Lubbe, Nationalsozialismus, Fritz Tobias
At the beginning of the 1960s, Fritz Tobias claimed that it had not been the National Socialists who had set fire to the Reichstag in 1933, but the Dutchman Marinus van der Lubbe alone. Tobias criticised above all the reports of the fire experts according to which van der Lubbe had not had enough time to start a fire in the plenary assembly hall. These reports had contributed decisively to the verdict of the court, which stated that the arson in the plenary assembly hall of the Reichstag building had been committed by other culprits. In 1964, Hans Mommsen confirmed Tobias′ theory that there was only one single culprit, and his criticism of the fire experts in an article in the Vierteljahrshefte. In 1975, a further article by Alfred Berndt appeared in the Vierteljahrshefte, “Zur Entstehung des Reichstagsbrandes. Eine Untersuchung über den Zeitablauf”. The author claimed that the fire experts had started out from incorrect details of time and date. According to Berndt, Marinus van der Lubbe had started his doings earlier and the fire in the plenary assembly hall had flared up later than the experts had assumed, and therefore Tobias′ theory of one single culprit was all the more probable. However, a scrutiny of Berndt′s study proves that his argumentation is founded to a large extent on faulty quotations taken over from Tobias′ work. Besides, Berndt′s argumentation is in itself implausible. It neither refutes chronological assumptions of the fire experts, not does it make the theory of one single culprit more probable.
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag
Print ISSN: 0042-5702
Volume: 53, 04/2005
Pages: 617 - 632