The Reichstag Fire

[phylo_roadking]

i underline, it is more nuanced !

If you want "nuance"...YOU were the one who said the KPD was the ONLY group opposing the Nazis on the streets of Germany.

Once again you've been shown to be WRONG. In fact and in detail.

You recognize yourself that one of the author was a neonazi (Michael Kote)... that's clearer suddenly !

Bolchevik, please don't make yourself even more of an idiot than you really need to be, it makes it rather demeaning for me to have to point out the bleedin' obvious ONCE AGAIN...such as -

What part of "Michael Koth is a former high ranking Communist Party official in East Berlin. He later joined the controversial "Kampfbund Deutscher Sozialisten" (KDS) which seeks to build bridges between Socialists, Communists and (neo)-Nazis." is hard to understand???

He's NOT a neonazi, he's a Communist who's been working for reconciliation in the modern Germany.

I see that all your sources were printed in RFA during cold war, and in USA during the same time... check the neutrality of it, we understand more how anticommunist it is.

Oh, so everything NOT printed in the USSR during the Cold War about Communism MUST by definition be propaganda???



It might suprise you, but there were MANY quite excellent socialist or communist-leaning historians in the West during the Cold War! :roll: for example - I noted that E.H. Carr was one of the footnoted sources? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._H._Carr

You are really doing yourself no favours....

Oh and P.S. - no, my source was the original http://www.pipelinenews.org article from 2008. It's been reprinted there it seems...

[bolchevik]

If you want "nuance"...YOU were the one who said the KPD was the ONLY group opposing the Nazis on the streets of Germany.

Once again you've been shown to be WRONG. In fact and in detail.

Yes i answered to you who was saying "KPD and nazis were allies"... you can admire the "nuance" of your first statement!

Let talk Otto Strasser : "many nazis were disgusted by capitalist evolution of the party, but very few came to me because communist danger was more dangerous for them than the capitalist evolution. Violents riots broke out in Berlin for example between nazis and communists and this fight welded antibolcheviks between them"
About a strike in 1931 : "in april the workers syndicate decided to make a global strike in industry. I (Otto Strasser) decided to support it (...) But big boss of industry alerted their great friend Adolf Hitler. All the SA were now financed by Thyssen and others (...) [Hitler] received an ultimatum from Federation of industries of Saxe : "wether the global strike is disapproved and fought by NSDAP and his newspapers wether the Federation of Industrials of the whole Reich will cease all his financing for NSDAP" (...) [Hitler] accepted the ultimatum. The party interdicted the participation in the global strike." i translated from Le front noir contre Hitler (Strasser et Alexandrov).

Bolchevik, please don't make yourself even more of an idiot than you really need to be, it makes it rather demeaning for me to have to point out the bleedin' obvious ONCE AGAIN...such as -

What part of "Michael Koth is a former high ranking Communist Party official in East Berlin. He later joined the controversial "Kampfbund Deutscher Sozialisten" (KDS) which seeks to build bridges between Socialists, Communists and (neo)-Nazis." is hard to understand???

He's NOT a neonazi, he's a Communist who's been working for reconciliation in the modern Germany.

Michael Koth ist ein deutscher Neonazi cf german wikipedia http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Koth should i translate ? Michael Koth is a german Neonazi

Oh, so everything NOT printed in the USSR during the Cold War about Communism MUST by definition be propaganda???



It might suprise you, but there were MANY quite excellent socialist or communist-leaning historians in the West during the Cold War! :roll: for example - I noted that E.H. Carr was one of the footnoted sources? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._H._Carr

You are really doing yourself no favours....

If only you could be right... but you got to know that even in USSR some writers were not really honests...

Oh and P.S. - no, my source was the original http://www.pipelinenews.org article from 2008. It's been reprinted there it seems...

Why dont you have cited it instead of books you don't have really read ?
I must add that the article you cited was written not by historian but by a journalist from Holland named Emerson Vermaat http://www.emersonvermaat.com/about.htm.

[J. Duncan]

Notice above how Bolchevik uses Otto Strasser of all people as a credible source, as if he were "trustworthy" whereas Sefton Delmer is not. Strasser was once a NAZI, and didn't that automatically disqualify his testimony? Didn't he say that because Delmer once asociated with Nazis that he was automaticaly "suspect"? Strasser has been proven a liar and a creator of propaganda many times over. His "The Gangsters Around Hitler" is a waste of paper and it was he who told the OSS all those sexually bestial things about Geli Raubal and Hitler (that Geli came to him and said that Hitler had her do all sorts of sexually perverted acts like squat over his face and pee).

[Marcus]

Everyone, drop the personal and political commentary and get back on topic.

/Marcus

[phylo_roadking]

If only you could be right...

Actually, I can; I've got two of Carr's volumes, and he is not anticommunist. As a left-wing-leaning and through his life a gradually MORE Marxist-leaning historian, Carr was if anything PRO-Communist!!!

Why dont you have cited it instead of books you don't have really read ?

How do you know???

Anyway - YOU asked me for the sources for the MANY and various anecdotes of KPD/NSDAP cooperation I posted up from the article...so I provided the footnoted references. It's not up to ME to have read the books, it's up to YOU to PROVE that the cited incidents and statements didn't happen/weren't said; that's how it works around here

I must add that the article you cited was written not by historian but by a journalist from Holland named Emerson Vermaat

So! Are you claiming that journalists can't write history or something??? Robert Fisk? Max Hastings??? The WW2 field of study is FULL of journalists writing good history.

Michael Koth ist ein deutscher Neonazi cf german wikipedia http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Koth should i translate ? Michael Koth is a german Neonazi

Did you actually READ the article???

[bolchevik]

I have been following the dialogue between Bolshevik (sorry - "Bolchevik") and Phylo. Notice above how Bolshie uses Otto Strasser of all people as a credible source, as if he were "trustworthy" whereas Sefton Delmer is not. Strasser was once a NAZI, and didn't that automatically disqualify his testimony? Didn't he say that because Delmer once asociated with Nazis that he was automaticaly "suspect"? Strasser has been proven a liar and a creator of propaganda many times over. His "The Gangsters Around Hitler" is a waste of paper and it was he who told the OSS all those sexually crapulous things about Geli Raubal and Hitler (that Geli came to him and said that Hitler had her do all sorts of sexually perverted acts like squat over his face and pee). I'm afraid "Bolchevik" only trusts Communist testimonies...next he'll be justifying the Katyn forest massacre.

Dear Dunkan (oups sorry Duncan ) by thinking Strasser was communist you have just discredited yourself.

[J. Duncan]

Revised my above post - take note. The mod. has warned us to get back to topic which means the thread will be locked if we don't. What you were discussing above could form a separate thread. Fact remains that the Nazis firing the Reichstag as the sole culprits, their possible use of M. van der Lubbe as a stool-pigeon, or both cannot be proven beyond all shadow of doubt. We were originally discussing "credible" testimonies and the only person "credible" here is Fritz Tobias, whom most reputable historians agree with. His "testimony" comprises an entire book length of carefully weighed research and not just a few lines of opinion within a work not specializing in the subject.

[J. Duncan]

According to Ian Kershaw, writing in 1998, the consensus of nearly all historians is that Van der Lubbe did, in fact, set the Reichstag fire.[11] Although Van der Lubbe was certainly an arsonist, and clearly played a role, there has been considerable popular and scientific debate over whether he acted alone. The case is still actively discussed.

Again: According to Ian Kershaw, writing in 1998, the consensus of nearly all historians is that Van der Lubbe did, in fact, set the Reichstag fire.[11] Although Van der Lubbe was certainly an arsonist, and clearly played a role, there has been considerable popular and scientific debate over whether he acted alone. The case is still actively discussed.

Once more:

According to Ian Kershaw, writing in 1998, the consensus of nearly all historians is that Van der Lubbe did, in fact, set the Reichstag fire.[11] Although Van der Lubbe was certainly an arsonist, and clearly played a role, there has been considerable popular and scientific debate over whether he acted alone. The case is still actively discussed.

Wikipedia

[J. Duncan]

Tobias (from the study of the trial transcripts) said that Lubbe was examined by court psychiatrists, who confirmed that he was sane, not retarded, rather "emotionally disturbed'. Though evident he performed horribly at his trial and engaged in strange behavior, this does not make him "retarded", which implies a certain ineptitude and inability to care entirely for himself. Great crimes however are often committed by the 'emotionally disturbed'.

*Above posts were deleted but this is a response to the subject of Lubbe being called "retarded' and therefore impossibly incapable of carrying out the burning of the Reichstag alone. Tobias learned through his research that lubbe was quite knowledgeable not only of Communist doctrine but also Calvinism. He was a sort of leader amongst Communist vagrants and also was handy with his fists. He had eye damage from a practical joke (lime was splashed in his eyes). He had a slight learning disability but this was partially due to the stresses of coming from a very broken home. He also had to have some "street smarts" to survive several periods of homelessness. Hardly the attributes of someone who is clinically retarded.

[David Thompson]

A collection of rubbish posts from bolchevik, which added nothing of informational value to the discussion, were deleted by this moderator, along with some now unnecessary responses from other posters - DT.

[J. Duncan]

I'm still waiting for proof of Lubbe's clinical retardation which would illustrate Lubbe's disability to set THE REICHSTAG FIRE (the topic**) all by himself? The topic is the Reichstag Fire. We were discussing the credible source of Fritz Tobias and his uncovery of evidence / fact and some of the conclusions he made. We were told Lubbe was retarded and could not have been the main culprit in the crime. He had to have had help because he was retarded. What is the evidence / source that shows his clinical retardation? This is in contradiction to Fritz Tobia's generally recognised authority on the subject.

[David Thompson]

Another rubbish post from bolchevik, consisting entirely of attempts at repartee without providing informational content for our readers, was deleted by this moderator - DT.

[phylo_roadking]

It's worth looking at the rest of Vermaat's article...and the actual point of it all in relation to the Reichstag Fire...

On January 30, 1933, NSDAP leader Adolf Hitler became Reich Chancellor and Von Papen Vice-Chancellor. Soon after this crucial date in German history – the death of the Weimar Republic – the Nazi president of the Reichstag, Hermann Göring first became Interior Minister and later Prime Minister of Prussia, Germany's most important province. Göring immediately started a brutal campaign against Communists and Social-Democrats. The Nazis no longer needed the extremists from the left and persecuted them. (A similar thing happened in Iran, where Ayatolla Khomeini first formed a kind of alliance with the Iranian Communist Tudeh party, but began to persecute them when they were no longer needed; the Communist Soviet Union also courted the Khomeini regime in 1979/1980.7)

If a plague of singing Rumanian dwarves had fallen out of the sky and crushed every German matron eating Torte mit sahne in the cafes of the Unten Den Linden - Göring would have said "It's the Communists! It's the start of the Revolution!"

If every toilet in the Hotel Adlon had exploded in a fountain of vintage champagne - Göring would have said "It's the Communists! It's the start of the Revolution!"

If a half-mad Dutch Arsonist broke into the Reichatag and set it on fire - Göring would have said "It's the Communists! It's the start of the Revolution!"

Every incident after January 30th was going to be spun as an action by the KPD or the SDs. It would have been Göring's very first reaction when faced with an audience. They probably couldn;t in their wildest dreams have hoped for such a coup. The "purity" of the National Socialist revolution that was on hands had to be restored - for "revolution" it was, or rather that was how Hitler refered to the Brownshirt Terror after January 30th in conversation with Tom Delmer and Martha Dodd on several occasions.

[Phil Nix]

The entry for this post was the Reichstags Fire why do we have to get into various political aspects, please keep to facts not opinions. We all have opinions that others may not agree with so neither will get anyware so can we keep to facts not opinions
Phil Nix

[bolchevik]

I'm still waiting for proof of Lubbe's clinical retardation which would illustrate Lubbe's disability to set THE REICHSTAG FIRE (the topic**) all by himself? The topic is the Reichstag Fire. We were discussing the credible source of Fritz Tobias and his uncovery of evidence / fact and some of the conclusions he made. We were told Lubbe was retarded and could not have been the main culprit in the crime. He had to have had help because he was retarded. What is the evidence / source that shows his clinical retardation? This is in contradiction to Fritz Tobia's generally recognised authority on the subject.

VDL one day joined a swimming competition which consisted to cross the Channel. He came alone... the officials had to explain to him he could not compete because competitors have to be accompanied by a boat.... as he came alone without warning anyone, he could not compete... that's just one exampla...
You can find other exampla : when the day before the Reichstag's Fire he tried to set fire at different buildings in Berlin while it was snowing just by launching some lighters... etc etc. He also agreed with the fact to set fire at the Reichstag just on the advise of a man he has met some two weeks ago... this guy he thought was a friend was indeed a nazi accomplice.
ps : i dont think the psychiatric expertise during the trial was honest.