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Reichstag fire
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Reichstag fire Portrait of Adolf Hitler in a collared shirt and tie, facing forward with a serious expression, circa 1933.
The mystery behind the Reichstag fire
German officers in uniform stand amid rubble and charred beams inside the heavily fire-damaged Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany, February 1933. Close-up of the damaged dome of the Reichstag building in Berlin after the 1933 fire, showing broken windows and a statue of a horse and rider in the foreground.
Rise of Hitler and Nazi terror tactics
Composite photograph with four portrait panels showing Marinus van der Lubbe, Georgi Dimitroff, Blagoi Popoff, and Wassil Taneff, accused in the 1933 Reichstag fire in Berlin. Portrait of Georgi M. Dimitrov, Bulgarian communist leader, wearing a suit and tie and looking slightly to the side. Judges and officials sit at a long dais in a Leipzig courtroom during the Reichstag fire trial, with large diagrams of the Reichstag building displayed behind them. Ernst Torgler, second from left, sits upright beside Marinus van der Lubbe, who bows his head, both flanked by German guards during the Reichstag fire trial in 1933.

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Reichstag fire
Reichstag fire Burning of the Reichstag building in Berlin, February 1933.

Reichstag fire

German history
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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History

Reichstag fire, burning of the Reichstag (parliament) building in Berlin on the night of February 27, 1933, a key event in the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship and widely believed to have been contrived by the newly formed Nazi government itself to turn public opinion against its opponents and to assume emergency powers. Adolf Hitler had secured the chancellorship after the elections of November 1932, but his Nazi Party had not won an overall majority....

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