Have you ever heard of Marinus van der Lubbe? Probably not, but were it not for this young, itinerant Dutch construction worker with poor eyesight, the Second World War might never have happened. His is a story of a lone-wolf agitator. It is also a metaphor and a cautionary tale for our time. Let me tell you about it.
1933
Marinus van der Lubbe was born in 1909 and grew up in Leiden in utter poverty. His drunken father deserted the family, and, by the time he was 12, his mother had died. He trained as a mason, where he discovered the labour movement and joined the Communist Youth Party. By 1931, he was working his way across Europe towards the Soviet Union to be as close as possible to his communist idols.
But along the way, he became disillusioned with the communists’ strict code of discipline and authoritarian structure. He joined an anarchic-syndicalist group that advocated “propaganda of the deed, not the word.” Reaching Poland, he turned around and headed into Germany, reaching Berlin in mid-February 1933.
Two weeks before van der Lubbe arrived in Berlin, Adolf Hitler had been appointed Chancellor of the German Reich by President von Hindenburg.
The Nazi Party had grown enormously since its drubbing in the federal elections of 1928, in which it had won only 12 seats in a Reichstag of 491. Four years later, in the July 1932 elections, it won 230 seats, accounting for 37.3% of the total vote, the most of any of the numerous parties. However, without a positive plan for the country’s future, and with a German unemployment rate of more than 30%, the Nazis could not capitalize on their new-found popularity.
The country descended into severe turmoil. In September, the Reichstag voted “no confidence” in the government of Franz von Papen and called for new elections in November, elections in which the Nazis lost 34 seats.
Nevertheless, with Joseph Goebbels’ brilliant propaganda and shrewd political maneuvering, Hitler managed to convince von Hindenburg to name him Chancellor on 30 January.
The only plan the Nazis had at that point was Brownshirt terrorism. Having achieved power, they had no idea what to do next. They needed something to energize their movement, and Marinus van der Lubbe, the dedicated and committed anarchist newly arrived in Berlin, was about to provide it.
He believed it would take a spectacular event to rouse the unemployed to break free from their chains and take spontaneous mass action themselves.
He decided to burn down the Reichstag.
On the 26th and 27th of February, he spent every Reichsmark he had on matches and firestarters. On the evening of the 28th, he hid in the Reichstag until everyone had left for the day, and at about 9:00 pm, set fire to the building. After lighting a number of fires throughout the building, he was apprehended by police.
He had done a superb job. The fire brigade did what it could, but the place was a tinderbox and burned brilliantly all night.
His interrogation made it perfectly clear he had acted alone. One of his questioners later said, “His eyes gleamed with fanaticism.”
Immediately after learning of the blaze, Hitler, Goebbels, and Hermann Göring met in the Party’s offices with a clear view of the conflagration. Hitler was excited, even ecstatic. Rudolf Diels, the non-Nazi head of the Prussian political police who had witnessed van der Lubbe’s interrogation, tried to tell Hitler that this was a one-person crime, and a crazy person at that, but Hitler wouldn’t listen. He blamed the Communists, an influential political party he hated, and the winner of 89 Reichstag seats in the recent elections.
Looking straight at Diels and the two others, Hitler set in motion the full power that was to become the Third Reich, saying, “There will be no more mercy now; anyone who stands in our way will be butchered. The German people won’t have any understanding for leniency. Every Communist functionary will be shot where he is found. The Communist deputies must be hanged this very night. Everybody in league with the Communists is to be arrested.”
A few hours later, police squads dug out lists of Communists prepared months, even years previously, for the coming ban on the party, and set off in cars and vans to haul them out of bed. There were thousands of them. The German police, however, were ever so efficient at finding them.
Meanwhile, Wilhelm Frick, Minister of the interior, saw an opportunity. He proposed suspending several sections of the Weimar constitution, particularly those governing freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly and association. He also proposed to Hitler allowing the police to detain people indefinitely without a court order.
At a meeting the following morning, the cabinet unanimously approved the proposal. Hitler made plain his intention of destroying the Communists and anyone else who dared defy his plans. He included the Jews, specifically. “Our struggle must not be made dependent on judicial considerations,” he said. Is that sounding familiar?
Marinus van der Lubbe was tried, found guilty, and executed the following January.
2025
The incompetence and gleeful brutality of the Trump Administration have been on full display for nearly 100 days. The American people are noticing and registering disapproval.
Trump’s job approval rating is 11 points underwater (44% approve, 55% disapprove) in a new Fox News survey. While 55% of registered voters approve of his handling of border security, that is “the only issue where his ratings are in positive territory.” He’s at -15 on taxes (38% approve, 53% disapprove), -18 on the economy (38% to 56%), -25 on tariffs (33% to 58%), and -26 on inflation (33% to 59%).
The Administration is flailing. Every day seems like the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, except those amateurs knew what they were doing.
Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before Watergate, Richard Nixon always seemed able to pull a surprise out of his presidential magic bag when he needed the country to look away from some current horrendoma. He would show us the bluebird of happiness had gone to some new and better place.
Donald Trump doesn’t seem to have a magic bag, much less a magical bluebird.
Right now, 96 days in, not much of Trumpism is resonating around the country. It doesn’t help that Trump changes his positions more often than weather changes in New England. What’s a punch-drunk president to do?
And that is the question.
He needs his own Reichstag Fire — a calamitous event that would galvanize the country around a strong leader who could demonstrate solid control. He’s looking, but hasn’t found it yet.
It could have been Ukraine. Ukraine is burning, but Trump is nowhere to be found. Vladimir Putin leads him around a circus ring by the nose. Trump’s “negotiators,” completely unprepared for the job, seem like kindly Mr. Chase, who would give us third-graders free candy on the way home from school, hoping our parents would come into his store later, which they never did. “Have another Babe Ruth, Tommie.”
He could have marshalled the skills on display at his rallies to mobilize the country for a noble cause — sending Russian troops back to Russia. His MAGA base would not have understood or appreciated that, but the non-MAGA two-thirds of the rest of the country would have. It would have ennobled him, elevated him in history. He didn’t do that, he couldn’t. Instead, he does his best to sell a brave country to a tyrant for a song. In return, he’ll steal some vague mineral rights and crow that he ended a war. Nobel Peace Prize stuff.
Meanwhile, he looks elsewhere for his Reichstag Fire.
Perhaps migrants? But migrants aren’t cooperating. Their numbers are down and, much to the Administration’s disappointment, they seem lawful.
We should all hope Trump is not handed his very own Reichstag Fire here in the U.S. We should all hope he doesn’t find a plausible excuse, as Hitler did, to suspend the freedoms we hold dear, the ones our ancestors fought and died for.
We should all hope.
