how were "democrats" and "socialists" identified in
1933? were there political movements with
member lists described as "democrats" or
"socialists" ? Historically, the standard bit is that
Adolf cited ANY PERSON opposed to his nazi party
---which by nazi logic meant link to the burning of
the Reichstag building. The only people executed
in the early days of Dachau were jews without
charge or trial
The democrats and republicans change platform with time.
But by the 1930s, the democrats were the liberal leftist supporters of unions, labor, the poor, workers, etc., supporting laws to protect workers, unions, different races, different religions, etc.
By the 1930s, the republicans were the conservative wealthy elite, supporting repressive laws, strike breakers, segregation, etc.
The Reichstag fire was set under the orders of Hitler, and Von der Lubber was a mentally retarded person who snuck into the basement to sleep.
He was executed for it in 1933, but later found not guilty.
{...
Nearly 75 years after the event, the German government granted van der Lubbe a posthumous pardon.
...}
{...
The
Reichstag fire (
German:
Reichstagsbrand,
listen (
help·
info)) was an
arson attack on the
Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after
Nazi leader
Adolf Hitler was sworn in as
Chancellor of Germany.
Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch
"council communist", was the apparent culprit; however, Hitler attributed the fire to
Communist agitators. He used it as a pretext to claim that Communists were plotting against the German government, and induced President
Paul von Hindenburg to issue the
Reichstag Fire Decree suspending civil liberties, and pursue a "ruthless confrontation" with the Communists.
[1] This made the fire pivotal in the establishment of
Nazi Germany.
The first report of the fire came shortly after 9:00 p.m., when a Berlin fire station received an alarm call.
[2] By the time police and firefighters arrived, the
Chamber of Deputies (the lower house) was engulfed in flames. The police conducted a thorough search inside the building and found Van der Lubbe, who was arrested.
After the Fire Decree was issued, the Nazi-controlled police made mass arrests of communists, including all of the communist Reichstag delegates. This severely crippled communist participation in
the 5 March elections. After the 5 March elections, the absence of the communists gave the
Nazi Party a majority in the Reichstag, greatly assisting the Nazi seizure of total power.
As part of the effort to blame the Fire on the communists, on 9 March the Prussian state police arrested
Bulgarians Georgi Dimitrov,
Vasil Tanev, and
Blagoy Popov, who were known
Comintern operatives (though the police did not know it, Dimitrov was head of all Comintern operations in Western Europe).
Ernst Torgler, head of the Communist Party, had surrendered himself to police on 28 February.
...}