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Who was responsible for the reichstag fire
1. Rudolf Diels, who was the head of the Prussian police at the time, wrote source A. It says that Van Der Lubbe was caught red handed and that he must have acted alone, there was no proof of anyone else being involved, not even communists.
During Van Der Lubbe’s trial in 1933, he confessed he had set fire to the Reichstag, but said he hadn’t been helped. Source B shows that he was insistent that he had worked alone. This agrees with source A, but Van Der Lubbe might have been lying to protect the other people who had helped him, who probably were important members of the communist party according to Goring’s theory. 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.
Rudolf Diels’ account could be seen as reasonably reliable. However, it was written 12 years after the incident so Diels’ memory might not have been that reliable after all. Van Der Lubbe’s speech is not a reliable source either because he could have been protecting other people. It was known that he was half-blind, mentally slow, injured (leg) and that he would have done anything to have his name down in history. So source B, even though it was said only shortly after the event, might not be reliable at all.
So source B supports source A in the way that they both say Van Der Lubbe acted alone, but none of the source are totally reliable, so we cannot really use them to prove the theory of Van Der Lubbe acting alone.
2. Rudolf Diels, a high-ranking Nazi official, wrote an account of the fire, source A. That account seems to disagree with Goring and Hitler’s theory that the Reichstag fire had been a communist plot. Because it was written after the Second World War, it is evident that Diels wasn’t just simply acting on obedience to Hitler and the Nazi party. He wouldn’t have spoken against Hitler while he was still alive because he was scared of Hitler. Diels was the head of the Prussian political police at the time, so he was one of the first people to go and see the Reichstag, so he was able to investigate the scene only minutes after the crime had been committed. The account says that he found Van Der Lubbe alone in the Reichstag, he also gives evidence to prove the possibility that Van Der Lubbe started the fire alone. He talks about the architecture and materials, all of it was mostly wood, old furniture and heavy curtains, and 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. His descriptions seem very clear even though the account was written a long time [next page]