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Marinus van der Lubbe | |
|---|---|
 Van der Lubbe in 1933 | |
| Born | (1909-01-13)13 January 1909 Leiden, Netherlands |
| Died | 10 January 1934(1934-01-10) (aged 24) |
| Cause of death | Execution by guillotine |
| Resting place | Südfriedhof |
| Occupations | Political activist andtrade unionist |
| Known for | Allegedly setting theReichstag fire |
| Political party | Communist Party of the Netherlands(1925–1931) |
| Movement | Council communism |
| Criminal charges | High treason andarson crime |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
| Criminal status | Executed (posthumously pardoned in 2008) |
Marinus van der Lubbe (Dutch pronunciation:[maːˈrinʏsfɑndərˈlʏbə]; 13 January 1909 – 10 January 1934) was a Dutchcommunist who was tried, convicted, and executed by the government ofNazi Germany forsetting fire to theReichstag building—the national parliament of Germany—on 27 February 1933. During his trial, the prosecution argued that van der Lubbe had acted on behalf of a wider communist conspiracy, whileleft-wing anti-Nazis argued that the fire was afalse flag attack arranged by the Nazis themselves. In 2008, nearly 75 years after the event, the German government granted van der Lubbe a posthumouspardon, though most historians agree that he alone set the fire.[1]
Marinus van der Lubbe was born inLeiden in the province ofSouth Holland in theNetherlands.[2] His parents were divorced, and after his mother died when he was 12 years old, he went to live with his half-sister's family in the town ofOegstgeest. During part of his youth van der Lubbe worked as a bricklayer. He was nicknamed "Dempsey" after boxerJack Dempsey because of his great strength. While working, van der Lubbe became acquainted with thelabour movement; in 1925, at age 16, he joined theCommunist Party of the Netherlands (CPN) and its youth section,Communistische Jeugd Holland.[citation needed]
In 1926, he was injured at work, gettinglime in his eyes, which hospitalised him for a few months and almost blinded him. Since the injury forced him to quit his job, he was unemployed with a pension of 7.44guilders, equivalent to€168 in 2024, a week. After some conflicts with his sister, van der Lubbe relocated toLeiden in 1927. There he learned to speak some German and founded the Lenin House, where he organised political meetings. While working for the Tielmann factory, astrike began. Van der Lubbe claimed to the management to be one of the ringleaders and offered to accept any punishment if no one else was punished, even though he was clearly too inexperienced to have been involved seriously. During the trial, he tried to claim sole responsibility and was purportedly hostile to the idea of not being punished.[citation needed]
Afterwards, van der Lubbe planned to emigrate to theUSSR, but he lacked the funds to do so. He was active politically among unemployed workers until 1931, when he had a disagreement with the CPN and instead approached the Group of International Communists.[citation needed] Around this time, he also became interested inanarcho-syndicalism.[3] In 1933, van der Lubbe fled to Germany to work for communism there. He had a criminal record for several attemptedarsons.[4]
On 27 February 1933, van der Lubbe was arrested in the Reichstag building, soon after the building had begun burning. Van der Lubbe confessed and claimed to have acted alone and have set the Reichstag building afire in an attempt to rally German workers againstfascist rule.[5]
He was tried along with the chief of theCommunist Party of Germany and three members of theBulgarian Communist Party, who were working in Germany for theCommunist International. At his trial, van der Lubbe was convicted and sentenced to death for the Reichstag fire. The four other defendants (Ernst Torgler,Georgi Dimitrov,Blagoy Popov, andVasil Tanev) were acquitted. Van der Lubbe wasguillotined in aLeipzig prison yard on 10 January 1934, three days before his 25th birthday. He was buried in an unmarked grave in theSüdfriedhof (South Cemetery) in Leipzig.
AfterWorld War II, attempts were made by his brother, Jan van der Lubbe, to have the original verdict reversed. In 1967, his sentence was changed by a judge from death to eight years in prison. In 1980, after more lengthy complaints, aWest German court reversed the verdict entirely, but that was criticised by thestate prosecutor. The case was re-examined by theFederal Court of Justice of Germany for three years. In 1983, the court made a final decision on the matter and reversed the result of the 1980 trial on grounds that there was no basis for it and so it was illegal. In January 2008, the public prosecutor generalMonika Harms nullified the entire verdict and posthumously pardoned van der Lubbe.
Historians disagree as to whether van der Lubbe acted alone, as he said, to protest against the condition of the German working class, or was involved in a larger conspiracy. The Nazis blamed a communist conspiracy. Responsibility for the Reichstag fire remains an ongoing topic of debate and research in modern historical scholarship.[6][7][8] JournalistWilliam Shirer, writing in 1960, surmised that van der Lubbe was goaded into setting a fire at the Reichstag but that the Nazis had set their own more elaborate fire at the same time.[9] According toIan Kershaw, writing in 1998[update], the consensus of nearly all contemporary historians is that van der Lubbe had in fact set the Reichstag afire.[10][needs update]
Lex van der Lubbe is the colloquial term for theNazi law concerning the imposition and execution of the death penalty, passed on 29 March 1933. The name comes from the fact that the law formed the legal basis for the imposition of the death penalty against van der Lubbe. TheReichstag Fire Decree of 28 February 1933 included a list of crimes for which the death penalty was to be imposed instead of a life sentence, as was previously the case. The law concerning the imposition and execution of the death penalty was passed by Hitler's government on 29 March (on the basis of theEnabling Act, which had been passed on 23 March 1933). It extended the law retroactively to 31 January 1933, thereby violating Article 116 of theWeimar Constitution, which prohibited retroactive penalties (ex post facto law). The Enabling Act itself made this legislation constitutional, provided the office of the president and the Reichstag and Reichsrat were not affected.[11] It could thus be applied to van der Lubbe, who had admitted in court that he had set fire to the Reichstag on 27 February. The law was ultimately repealed by the Allied Control Council on 30 January 1946 through Control Council Act No. 11.
In January 2023, bodily remains at van der Lubbe's presumed grave were exhumed. This was done to ascertain the precise location and identity of the grave, as well as to allow for a toxicological analysis. Van der Lubbe had appeared sleepy and apathetic during his trial, resulting in suspicions that he had been drugged.[5][12] These remains were determined to be van der Lubbe's after several months of forensic investigations. The toxicology report showed no evidence that van der Lubbe had been administered drugs, although it was noted that due to decomposition it is impossible to scientifically prove one way or the other and that the question remains open.[13]
Germany's federal prosecutor has overturned the guilty verdict passed on Marinus van der Lubbe
