The Reichstag Fire and January 6th

On February 27, 1933, around 9 O’clock in the evening, a fire report was called in to a Berlin fire
station. Upon arrival, firemen found the Chamber of Deputies of the Reichstag (home of the German
parliament) fully engulfed in flames. During a search of the building, German police found and arrested
Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch Communist. He was subsequently tried for arson, convicted, and
executed. There is considerable controversy over whether van der Lubbe was solely responsible for the
arson. The chief of the Berlin fire department Walter Gempp, who personally directed operations of the
fire department at the scene, later claimed that there had been a delay in reporting the fire and other
irregularities suggesting NAZI involvement in the arson. He was later removed from his position for
alleged abuse of office, imprisoned and killed in prison in 1939. Whether van der Lubbe was solely
responsible for the arson or not, the NAZI party took steps to ensure that any alternative story was
crushed and that they took full advantage of the fear and anxiety which they had stoked.
What is not disputed is the dramatic changes in the German political system in the aftermath of the
Reichstag fire. Adolf Hitler had been named Chancellor of Germany just four weeks prior to the historic
fire and he had immediately convinced President von Hindenburg to call for new elections which were
scheduled to be held just one week after the fire. Hitler convinced Hindenburg to sign a decree, the
‘Reichstag Fire Decree’, which suspended most civil rights in Germany including habeus corpus, freedom
of expression and freedom of the press. There was an immediate crackdown on the German Communist
Party with thousands of arrests on the pretext that it was the Communists who were attempting a
putsch (insurrection). This suppression of the opposition, including the detention of elected deputies
from the Communist Party, allowed the NAZI party, along with allied parties, to control the legislature
and pass the ‘Enabling Act’ which effectively empowered the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. It was not long
before many others joined Hitler’s political opponents in concentration camps. The story of Hitler’s rise
to power include the infiltration of the government, including police agencies, by the NAZIs, the
complicity of politicians who did not have the good sense or the courage to oppose Hitler, the failure of
a flawed system to maintain a separation of power, and a contrived emergency to justify the use of
power against one’s political enemy. Does this scenario sound familiar?

We are now approaching the midterm elections, which may be a referendum on the policies of the
current administration. The comparison between the Reichstag fire and the January 6th ‘insurrection’
may not be a perfect analogy but consider this: state authorities used the ‘emergency’ of covid to flood
the system with unverified mail-in ballots and allow Mark Zuckerberg and Democrat operatives to
control local election systems; evidence continues to accumulate that there was FBI complicity in the
events of January 6th,2021; there are hundreds of people still being held in prison for essentially the
crime of trespassing; media companies enforced censorship against the reelection campaign of
President Donald Trump; Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that Facebook suppressed the Hunter Biden
laptop scandal because of pressure from FBI agents working on behalf of the Democrat party; fifty
members of the intel community were willing to put their names to the lie that the Hunter Biden laptop
scandal was ‘Russian disinformation’; the same FBI agents were involved in the ‘Governor Whitmer
kidnap hoax’, the breach of the Capitol on January 6th, 2021 and the raid on President Trump’s Mar a
Lago estate.

This past Thursday, Joe Biden gave a speech to the American people which some anticipated to be a call
for unity. It was certainly anything but a call for unity. It was without a doubt the darkest, most divisive
speech ever given by someone claiming to be President of all the people. The speech was a vile diatribe
attacking the supporters of President Trump. It was chock full of slurs, slanderous lies and unveiled
threats against his political opponents. Intentionally or not, the blood red lighting used as a backdrop,
perhaps designed by a later day Leni Riefenstahl, evoked images of a NAZI rally. The Marines forced to
stand at attention behind Biden was a clumsy attempt to intimidate the opposition. This misuse of the
Marine guard is an affront to the many service members who are being forced out of the military
because of their refusal to be vaccinated and many others who are resigning or retiring early because
they are unwilling to abide by the policies or abide the incompetence of their superiors. One wonders
how many of the senior command would acquiesce if the Biden administration required an oath of
allegiance to him instead of the Constitution, as German soldiers were made to do after Hitler’s ascent
to power.

November 8th, 2022 may turn out to be a turning point in the history of this country. It needs to be a
reaffirmation of the principles on which this country was founded and a step in the direction of making
America great again.

Gene Comiskey
Tryon, North Carolina 9/4/2022