Reichstag Fire Sources Questions

communists had to cause trouble because the workers were currently not uprising due to terror, the communists were the only people who were prepared to fight against the Nazis and therefore it is likely that the source is telling the truth about the kind of person who started the fire. Because he acted alone, this could not have been an attempt at a revolution because one man can’t start a revolution; it has to be a group. However you could say that this was just the beginning of a big series of communist attacks that had been planned, this could’ve forced a revolution because it would’ve meant that a lot of communists were involved. The statement also says that Van der Lubbe did not mean to hurt anyone just destroyed the main part of a system that he disagreed with. The German general election was on the 28th February and Van der Lubbe started the fire the day before, this perhaps shows that the communists knew that the Nazis were going to get the majority and were willing to go to desperate measures to stop this happening. This source is going to be a little biased in favour of the communists because it was written by an ex-communist so in actual fact when he says he acted alone there could’ve been others helping that he was protecting. Source C is written by Goebbel in his diary on 27th February 1933, the day the fire was started, Goebbel was master of propaganda for the Nazi party so is definitely going to be biased in favour of the Nazis. It looks like an alibi because it is not the sort of thing that you would usually write in your diary but does prove that the Nazis did not do it. It proves that the two main people in the German party were not present when the fire was started and Goebbel also tells us how shocked he was when he found out and how he refused to believe it until he was informed by furthermore calls. Not only is it an alibi for Goebbel and Hitler but also it is one for Goring and von Papen this also proves that even more of the Nazis were not involved in the fire. When Goebbel hears the news he immediately blames the communists and says that it was a deliberate attempt by them to disrupt the country and cause panic and terror which shows that the communists had been terrorising the country before and so Goebbel is ready to believe that they would start the fire as soon as he is told. By Josh Congdon