WI: No Reichstag Fire

[Kerguelen]

On 1933, the Nazi Government was in the process of passing the Enabling Act, a proposed law that gave Chancellor Hitler the power to pass laws, without the Reichstag interfering. To do this, Hitler planned to ban the Communist Party to remove Reichstag members who would oppose the law. The KPD was outraged and on the 27th of February 1933, a communist bricklayer named‎ Marinus van der Lubbe protested by setting fire to the Reichstag Building. This act would begin a massive panic and Hitler soon claimed that the fire was a sign from God, warning the German people about a communist coup. Nazi Government quickly accused Van Der Lubbe of being a part of a larger communist conspiracy within Germany and the Enabling Act was passed, allowing Hitler to become the first Führer of Germany.

Today, there is much debate on whether Van der Lubbe truly acted alone or if the fire had been orchestrated by the Nazi Government. If Van der Lubbe truly did act alone, what would happen in a world where he didn't start the fire? During his time as a bricklayer, a chuck of rubble fell on his head in 1927, blinding his right eye. What if the accident had been a lot more serious, causing him to die from cerebral hemorrhage shortly after? During the beginning of Hitler's Chancellorship, the Nazis had only won 33% of the vote and most Germans believed that they would be voted out during the next elections. The Enabling Act changed all of that, allowing them to arrest the Communist opposition and control all branches of government. So in a world where Hitler never achieves absolute power, what would be the future of Germany and Europe as a whole?

 

[Michele]

You are assuming that, in the absence of the Reichstag fire, the Nazis wouldn't proceed to dictatorship anyway, on some other pretext.
I wouldn't bet on that.

 

[sendô]

Then Hitler would find some other way of outlawing the Communist party and getting the enabling act passed.

You know, he was pretty good at that sort of stuff.

 

[Alanith]

About the only way you could prevent the Enabling Act is to have the fire blow up in their faces. IE: Have Hess or Himmler or whoever caught at the scene of the fire with an empty can of gas and a box of matches and a handwritten note from Hitler telling him to burn it down in his pocket.

 

[Ramontxo]

That would make quite a timeline... Say members of the Kriminal Polizei (or whatever the competent German police is) take prisoners a group of SA thugs while the burn the Reichstag. I think that Hindenburg deposes Hitler.

 

[jmc247]

You won't get the Enabling Acts without the fire which actually would make it quite interesting to see how things might proceed. The regime has to work in a semi democratic framework until it finds a way through it or loses power. No Enabling Act and you lengthen the time perhaps significantly he has to act within the system which has huge butterflies down the road including perhaps a much later WW2 assuming he inches up in power rather then pole vaults.

 

[Michele]

You won't get the Enabling Acts without the fire...

What you actually mean is "you won't get the Enabling Acts without some egregious provocation". If it's not that fire, it may very well be some other fire. Or alleged conspiracy. Or riot with victims. Etc.

 

[jmc247]

What you actually mean is "you won't get the Enabling Acts without some egregious provocation". If it's not that fire, it may very well be some other fire. Or alleged conspiracy. Or riot with victims. Etc.

He will try to usurp legislative power in time. None of what you came up with would I believe get him the necessary votes for the three year emergency decree of OTL.

There are other things that might though. Though sans the burning of parliament I could see a spate of smaller crises (foreign and domestic) and him taking power slower and more one piece at a time.

To be clear about my point... its not that the Nazis won't continue to use the Communists as a foil to try to gain more power. Its that without something as specular as burning down parliament which had an enormous impact on the German psyche at the time they won't get the parliament to relinquish nearly as much power as they did.

More street fighting and a few dead Germans or burned businesses is not anywhere near the emotional equal to a nations parliament being gutted. There are things that would be as impactful, but unless they happen the regime is stuck slowly taking power bit by bit.​

 

[Michele]

Then we'll have to disagree.

Goebbels, in his diary, on January 31, wrote: "For the time being, we will avoid direct countermeasures. First, the bolshevist revolutionary attempt must explode, so that we will be able to strike at the most opportune time" (translation is mine).
Joachim Fest maintains that Hitler wanted to provoke the Communists into committing some act of violence. So he would be seen to intervene to restore order.
Fest, quoting Tobias, Der Reichstagsbrand, says that while van der Lubbe was probably actually captured inside the building and probably was intentioned to burn it, it seems highly unlikely that he alone could have started several, effective ignition points across the building in a few minutes, considering his brains, state, and awkwardness.

Now, if van der Lubbe was only a pawn of the Nazis themselves, if their modus operandi is consistent with the Gleiwitz incident a few years later, then the Nazis wanted this to happen. If we accept this as a premise, then something like this is going to happen anyway. And it is going to be a pretext for those laws.

Assuming that van der Lubbe is unavailable, the Nazis would simply find another unwitting pawn. Assuming the plan failed for some happenstance circumstance (say, a policeman sees intruders entering the Reichstag and reacts promptly, calling reinforcements and preventing the fire), then some other act of violence would happen. A Communist railwayman causing a spectacularly catastrophic disaster in a Berlin station. A bomb in a Berlin monument. Anything like that would serve.