The Reichstag Fire Trial

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21050, 29 December 1933, Page 8

The Reichstag Fire Trial

It cannot be said that the verdict in the Reichstag fire trial throws much light on a very puzzling episode in the history of the Nazi revolution. To judge by the cabled reports of the trial and the comments of reliable English and American newspapers, the conviction of van der Lubbe was in accordance with the great weight of the evidence. But the evidence, and the comments of the presiding judge, also made it clear that van dcr Lubbe was not a principal and that he played a very minor part in the actual firing of the Reichstag building. The identity and the motives of his masters are still a mystery. Whether, as has frequently been asserted, the Nazis themselves had any hand in the affair the outside world has no means of knowing. The court declared they were not implicated; and in the circumstances it seems best to accept the court's opinion. In any case, the primary duty of the court was not to decide who fired the Reichstag building and why but to decide whether the five accused were parties to the act. And that duty it seems to have carried out fearlessly. There was evidence against at least three of those who were acquitted; but the court found, in defiance of popular opinion, that it was not adequate. The incident will, it must be hoped, induce a saner and more polite attitude towards the Nazi regime in other countries. It can be admitted that the recent revolution was marked by much senseless brutality and persecution; and it was all to the good that these excesses were noticed and condemned by the outside world. But the laborious public insults which are being hurled at Herr Hitler and the Nazi movement generally are another matter. Provided it does not flagrantly offend civilised standards of conduct, the method by which Germans govern themselves is their own affair.