Reichstag Fire.

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Reichstag Fire



1. Rudolf Diels, who was the head of the Prussian political police at the time of the fire, wrote source A. In his account of events, he explains that Van Der Lubbe was caught red handed at the incident, and after questioning Van Der Lubbe he believed that the suspect was alone and there was no evidence that other people could have been involved, even other communists.

During the trial of Van Der Lubbe in 1933, he openly confessed to setting fire to the building, but denied that he had been helped. His statement in source B shows that he was adamant that he had worked alone. This would seem to prove Diels' theory, however, Van Der Lubbe could easily have been lying in order to protect the other arsonists, who would have probably been high ranking members of the communist party according to Goring's theory, and therefore much more valuable than a simple member, although extremely devoted, who was mentally unstable. If he was lying, he could also be covering the tracks of the Nazi party, who could have set it all up and, as they did, place the blame on the communists.

All of this causes great confusion for anyone trying to uncover the truth. Rudolf Diels' account could be seen as reasonably reliable as he seems to have considered all the evidence and come to a thought out and unbiased opinion. However, it was written 12 years after the incident so Diels' memory could easily be distorted. Unfortunately, Van Der Lubbe is not a reliable source as he could be protecting any amount of people. And to the best of everyone's knowledge, he was half-blind, mentally slow, physically challenged and a boaster who loved getting attention. So it's very hard to believe anything he says.

So to answer the question you could say B supports A quite far in that they both say Lubbe acted alone, but both sources are seriously flawed so its not really possible to use them together as evidence to prove the theory of lubbe acting alone

2. Source A, Rudolf Diels' account of the fire, although coming from a high ranking Nazi official, seems to disagree with Goring and Hitler's theory that it was a communist plot with many operatives. This is evidence that Diels was not acting simply on obedience to Hitler and the Nazi party, even though it was published after the war and Hitler's death (its likely that Diels would never have dared speak a word to contradict Hitler before the end of the war, for fear of being killed). As the head of the Prussian political police at the time, Diels was one of the first people called to the scene, so he was able to investigate at the scene, only minutes after the crime had been committed (he also headed the full investigation afterwards). He claims that he found Van Der Lubbe alone in the Reichstag, out of breath and dirty; he also relates other evidence that seem to prove the possibility that Van Der Lubbe started the fire alone, he studies the architecture and materials that where found in the Reichstag, all of it was mostly wood, old furniture and heavy curtains, all of these were highly inflammable. He says that Van Der Lubbe could have easily set fire to the Reichstag as he ran around the long corridors, waving his shirt around and lighting every thing possible. Even after a consultation with Goring and Hitler, during which they put across their views, which normally he should have agreed to as a Nazi, he still continued to think it out for himself and concluded that Van Der Lubbe had acted alone. His ideas seem well thought out and reasonable, they are not biased which helps his credibility. His descriptions seem very clear even though the account was written a number of years after the fire, but then again it was a very important event and therefore not easily forgotten. From this evidence I believe that Rudolf Diels' account of the fire is reasonably reliable.

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However there are a few contradictory elements and flaws in his statement. First of all he said he believed Lubbe has acted alone, but later he says, "…several details suggested that communists who had helped him start these other fires, might have helped with the Reichstag Fire." Diels' account was also written some 12 years after the actual fire but he can still remember lots of small details such as the look on Van der Lubbe's face and the words he heard and said himself during the incident. However, he was chief of police so he probably had access to ...

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