Raoul Wallenberg Biography: Part III

Note: Read Part II.

Chapter 4: Judenrein

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”¹ - Martin Niemoeller

People spilled into the streets, looking out towards the smoke billowing out into the night sky of February 27, stunned to see that a fire was coming from the Reichstag. Germany's parliament building was burning.

The Reichstag building on fire, February 27, 1933

“This is a God-given signal. If this fire, as I believe, is the work of the Communists, then we must crush out this murderous pest with an iron fist,”² Hitler reportedly said upon arriving on the scene.

Whether the fire was started by the Communists or not didn't actually matter. Well before any inquiry could be held, Hitler seized the moment immediately, claiming that it was the Communists' doing, that they wanted revolution. The past attempts by Communists to start one in Germany made Hitler's argument believable, even though history would show it to be wrong.

Hitler convinced President von Hindenburg of the dangers and necessity of signing the Reichstag Fire Decree urgently. The President acquiesced and signed the document the very next day.

With the decree in effect, civil liberties were effectively abolished. Freedom of speech. Gone. Freedom of assembly. Gone. Freedom of the press. Gone. The police and members of the SA, the Nazi paramilitary group known as the Brownshirts, fanned out through the cities. On the first day of the decree, around four thousand political opponents, mostly Communists, were arrested and detained without trial. The arrested included elected officials with seats and voting power in the Reichstag.

By the middle of the following month, about 10,000 members of the Communist Party had been arrested. Many of these occurred after another election on March 5, in which the Nazis received 43.9%. Still not a majority, but enough to have much of their opposition either banned or imprisoned. The first concentration camp, Dachau, was opened that month. Political prisoners sent there endured torture and, at times, were killed.

Soon, intellectuals, journalists, professors, and even artists faced the same fate. The Nazis sought more than just dominating the political landscape; they wanted to control the culture of Germany. Books were banned, and academic freedoms were stripped away.

All this was the first significant blow to German democracy. Then came the Enabling Act.