Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: Who started the The Reichstag fire?
It has been suggested that it was he who, with a small party of stormtroopers, passed through a passage from the Palace of the President of the Reichstag, and set the Reichstag building on fire on the night of February 27, 1933. There is evidence indirectly to substantiate this: Gisevius at Nuremberg implicated Goebbels in planning the fire, Rudolph Diels stated that Göring knew how the fire was to be started, and General Franz Halder stated that he had heard Göring claim responsibility for the fire. However, according to Ian Kershaw, the consensus of nearly all historians is that Marinus van der Lubbe did set the "Reichstag" on fire. 
On 30 June 1934 Ernst had just married, and was in Bremen on his way to Madeira to honeymoon with his new wife. SA Leader Ernst Röhm had repeatedly called for a "second revolution" that would introduce socialism into the Reich and banish the old Conservative forces of business and government. Fearing the socialistic tendencies of the SA, along with Röhm's ambition to absorb the "Reichswehr" into the SA, conservative elements in the German Army and "Kriegsmarine" pressed for an elimination of SA power. Adolf Hitler—who had served as Ernst's best man at his wedding six weeks earlier—undertook a purge of the SA, an event known to history as the Night of the Long Knives. It lasted until 2 July 1934.
During the Battle of Berlin (16 April 1945 – 2 May 1945), Hitler and his staff lived in the underground "Führerbunker" while the Red Army approached. On 30 April, when Soviet troops were within two blocks of the Reich Chancellery, Hitler, along with his girlfriend and by then wife Eva Braun committed suicide. On 2 May, General Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered Berlin to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov. Hitler was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reich President and Goebbels as Reich Chancellor. Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide the next day after murdering their six children. Between 4 and 8 May 1945, most of the remaining German armed forces unconditionally surrendered. The German Instrument of Surrender was signed 8 May, marking the end of the Nazi regime and the end of World War II in Europe.
On 15 January 1990, the Stasi's headquarters was stormed by protesters. Modrow became the de facto leader of East Germany until free elections were held on 18 March 1990—the first held in that part of Germany since 1933. The SED, renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism, was heavily defeated. Lothar de Maizière of the East German Christian Democratic Union became Prime Minister on 4 April 1990 on a platform of speedy reunification with the West. The two Germanies were reunified on 3 October 1990.
In November 1918, with internal revolution, a stalemated war, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire suing for peace, Austria-Hungary falling apart from multiple ethnic tensions, and pressure from the German high command, the Kaiser and all German ruling princes abdicated. On 9 November 1918, the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed a Republic, in cooperation with the business and middle classes, not the revolting workers. The new government led by the German Social Democrats called for and received an armistice on 11 November 1918; in practice it was a surrender, and the Allies kept up the food blockade to guarantee an upper hand. The war was over; the history books closed on the German Empire. It was succeeded by the democratic, yet flawed, Weimar Republic.
Presidential elections were held in Germany on 29 March 1925, with a second round run-off on 26 April. They were the first direct elections to the office of President of the Reich (), Germany's head of state during the 1919–33 Weimar Republic. The first President, Friedrich Ebert, who had died on 28 February 1925, had been elected indirectly, by the National Assembly, but the Weimar Constitution required that his successor be elected by the "whole German people". Paul von Hindenburg was elected as the second president of Germany in the second round of voting.
The pretext for the conflict was found in the dispute between Prussia and Austria over the administration of Schleswig-Holstein, which the two of them had conquered from Denmark and agreed to jointly occupy at the end of the Second Schleswig War in 1864. When Austria brought the dispute before the German Diet and also decided to convene the Diet of Holstein, Prussia declared that the Gastein Convention had thereby been nullified and invaded Holstein. When the German Diet responded by voting for a partial mobilization against Prussia, Bismarck claimed that the German Confederation was ended. Crown Prince Frederick "was the only member of the Prussian Crown Council to uphold the rights of the Duke of Augustenburg and oppose the idea of a war with Austria which he described as "fratricide"". Although he supported unification and the restoration of the medieval empire, "Fritz could not accept that war was the right way to unite Germany."
On the day before President Paul von Hindenburg's death on August 2, 1934, Hitler's cabinet had enacted a law combining the offices of Chancellor (the head of government) and President (the head of state); Adolf Hitler would henceforth be known as "Führer und Reichskanzler" (Leader and Chancellor) and was both head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces. The day of Hindenburg's death, the cabinet ordered a plebiscite for August 19 for the German people to approve the combination of the two offices.
On 29 April 1945, Burgdorf, Krebs, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann witnessed and signed Hitler's last will and testament. After Hitler's suicide on 30 April 1945, Goebbels assumed Hitler's role as chancellor. On 1 May, Goebbels dictated a letter to Soviet Army General Vasily Chuikov, requesting a temporary ceasefire and ordered General Krebs to deliver it. Chuikov commanded the Soviet forces in central Berlin. After this was rejected, Goebbels decided that further efforts were futile. Goebbels then launched into a tirade berating the generals, reminding them Hitler forbade them to surrender. "Ministerialdirektor" Hans Fritzsche left the room to take matters into his own hands. He went to his nearby office on Wilhelmplatz and wrote a surrender letter addressed to Soviet Marshall Georgy Zhukov. General Burgdorf followed Fritzsche to his office. There he asked Fritzsche if he intended to surrender Berlin. Fritzsche replied that he was going to do just that. Burgdorf shouted that Hitler had forbidden surrender and as a civilian he had no authority to do so. Burgdorf then pulled his pistol to shoot Fritzsche, but a radio technician "knocked the gun" and the bullet fired hit the ceiling. Several men then hustled Burgdorf out of the office and he returned to the bunker.
Friedrich Ebert (SPD) served as Germany's first president, followed by Paul von Hindenburg. The office effectively came to an end upon Hindenburg's death in 1934 and its powers merged with those of chancellor. Adolf Hitler now ruled Germany as "Führer und Reichskanzler", combining his previous positions in party and government. The office, however, was not abolished and briefly revived at the end of the Second World War when Hitler appointed Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor as President of Germany. Dönitz agreed to the surrender to the Allies and was arrested a few days later.
The high command under Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff increasingly controlled the country, but in October after the failed offensive in spring 1918, the German armies were in retreat, allies Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, and Bulgaria had surrendered. The Empire collapsed in the November 1918 Revolution with the abdications of its monarchs. This left a postwar federal republic and a devastated and unsatisfied populace, which later led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism.
The presidential election ("Reichspräsidentenwahl") of 1919 was the first election to the office of President of the Reich ("Reichspräsident"), Germany's head of state during the 1919-1933 Weimar Republic. The constitution that stipulated a direct popular vote was not completed before 11 August 1919. Because a head of state was needed immediately the 1919 presidential election was held indirectly, by the National Assembly, on 11 February 1919. The winner was SPD chairman Friedrich Ebert, who beat former (Imperial) Secretary of the Interior Arthur von Posadowsky-Wehner in the first round of voting by 277 to 49 votes. Ebert was supported by the SPD, the German Centre Party and the German Democratic Party (DDP), the parties of the "Weimar Coalition", which held more than 77 per cent of the seats in the National Assembly. He became president of Germany.
As war threatened to engulf Europe once more, the duke (by now an implacable enemy of the Nazis) reformed the group to undertake a mission Codeword – Golden Fleece in Poland and Romania. They succeeded in disrupting secret negotiations over Poland’s surrender to the Germans in September 1939, which were taking place on Baron Lubieszów’s estate (near Pinsk, and now to be found in Lyubeshiv Raion, Ukraine), between ‘General Mack’, the false name adopted by one of Poland’s “most famous statesmen”, and General Count von Geisenheim and a senior Nazi, Major Bauer. Trapped between the advancing German and Soviet armies, De Richleau and his friends escaped to Romania, where they sought to cut supplies of oil transported by barge up the Danube to Germany. A botched kidnap attempt on von Geisenheim and the German commercial attaché in Bucharest on 23 September 1939 left the two Germans injured and their driver dead. A subsequent gun battle with members of the pro-Nazi Romanian Iron Guard resulted in the death of a policeman and an Iron Guard militiaman. The duke was shot several times and only narrowly survived. The friends reached Istanbul safely and provided the British government with an option to buy the oil barges and prevent supplies from reaching the Germans.
Following the repeated violations of the Polish constitution by the Russians (especially after the Alexander I's death, when the reactionary Nicholas I assumed power), the 1830 November Uprising broke out. It started with the assault on Belvedere - the residence of Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich, the commander-in-chief of Polish army and "de facto" viceroy of the Congress Poland, as well as at the Arsenal. The 1830 uprising led to the Polish-Russian war (1831), the greatest battle of which took place on 25 February 1831 in Grochów—a village in the modern northern part of the district, Praga Południe. Because the Polish commanders were stalled, the war ended in defeat, and curtailment of the Kingdom's autonomy. The Emperor established a military administration in Warsaw. An estate of pretty manors on the north of New Town was eradicated and on this place the Citadel was built, where was a fortress and prison. The Sejm was suspended, the Polish army dissolved, and the University closed.
When Heinrich XI, Prince Reuss of Greiz was appointed by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor to rule the then-new Principality of Reuss-Greiz on 12 May 1778, the flag adopted by the "Fürstentum Reuß-Greiz" was the first-ever appearance of the black-red-gold tricolour in its modern arrangement in any sovereign state within what today comprises Germany – the Reuss elder line that ruled the principality used a flag whose proportions were close to a "nearly square"-shape 4:5 hoist/fly ratio, instead of the modern German flag's 3:5 figure.
Friedrich Ebert (; 4 February 1871 28 February 1925) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the first President of Germany from 1919 until his death in office in 1925.
On 1 August 1934, a new law stated that on Hindenburg's death the presidency would be abolished, and its powers merged with those of the Chancellor. From that day onward, Hitler would be known as Führer and Reich Chancellor. As head of state, Hitler became supreme commander of all armed forces. Hindenburg died the following day. (The new office was confirmed by a plebiscite on 19 August 1934.) Blomberg, on his own initiative, introduced the Oath of 2 August 1934: "I swear by God this sacred oath that I will render unconditional obedience to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, the commander in chief of the armed forces, and, as a brave soldier, will be prepared at all times to stake my life for this oath." (In 1939, God was removed from the oath.) The Reichswehr was reorganized as the Wehrmacht on 21 May 1935, bringing the army, navy and air force under unified command.
The gold-red-black flag of the Jena featured prominently at this Wartburg festival. Therefore, the colours black, red, and gold eventually became symbolic of this desire for a unified German state. Austria, in its determination to maintain the status quo, enacted the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819 that banned all student organisations, officially putting an end to the .
In May 1832, around 30,000 people demonstrated at the Hambach Festival for freedom, unity, and civil rights. The colours black, red, and gold had become a well established symbol for the liberal, democratic and republican movement within the German states since the Wartburg Festival, and flags in these colours were flown en masse at the Hambach Festival. While contemporary illustrations showed prominent use of a gold-red-black tricolour (an upside-down version of the modern German flag), surviving flags from the event were in black-red-gold. Such an example is the , the flag flown from Hambach Castle during the festival: a black-red-gold tricolour where the red band contains the inscription (Germany's rebirth). This flag is now on permanent display at the castle.
The group is also suspected to be behind a spear phishing attack in August 2016 on members of the Bundestag and multiple political parties such as Linken-faction leader Sahra Wagenknecht, Junge Union and the CDU of Saarland. Authorities feared that sensitive information could be gathered by hackers to later manipulate the public ahead of elections such as Germany's next federal election which was due in September 2017.
According to Philip Melanchthon, 31 October 1517 was the day German monk Martin Luther nailed his "Ninety-five Theses" on the door of the All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, Electorate of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire. Historians and other experts on the subject argue that Luther may have chosen All Hallows' Eve on purpose to get the attention of common people, although that has never been proved. Available data suggest that 31 October was the day when Luther sent his work to Albert of Brandenburg, the Archbishop of Mainz. This has been verified; nowadays, it is regarded as the start of the Reformation alongside the unconfirmed (Melanchthon appears to be the only source for that) nailing of the "Ninety-five Theses/grievances" to All Saints' Church's door on the same date.
Former Prime Minister István Tisza was murdered in Budapest during the Aster Revolution of October 1918. On 31 October 1918, the success of this revolution brought the leftist liberal Count Mihály Károlyi to power as prime minister. Károlyi was a devotee of the Entente powers from the beginning of the war. On 13 November 1918, Charles IV ("IV. Károly") surrendered his powers as King of Hungary, however, he did not abdicate, a technicality that made a return to the throne possible.
If the president dies, resigns or is otherwise removed from office, a successor is to be elected within thirty days. Horst Köhler, upon his resignation on May 31, 2010, became the first president to trigger this re-election process. Jens Böhrnsen, President of the Senate and Mayor of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and at the time President of the Bundesrat, assumed the powers and duties of head of state. Similarly, when Christian Wulff resigned in 2012, it was Horst Seehofer, Minister-President of Bavaria, as President of the Bundesrat, who assumed the powers and duties of head of state. When Heinrich Lübke, on the other hand, announced his resignation in 1968, it only came into effect the following year, a mere three months before the scheduled end of his term and after the expedited election of his successor. Back in 1949 Karl Arnold, at the time Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia and President of the Bundesrat, also acted as head of state for a few days: after the Basic Law had come into effect and he himself was elected as President of the Bundesrat, the first President of Germany was not yet elected and the office therefore vacant.
In February 1933, three men were arrested who were to play pivotal roles during the Leipzig Trial, known also as the "Reichstag Fire Trial": Bulgarians Georgi Dimitrov, Vasil Tanev and Blagoy Popov. The Bulgarians were known to the Prussian police as senior Comintern operatives, but the police had no idea how senior they were: Dimitrov was head of all Comintern operations in Western Europe. The responsibility for the Reichstag fire remains an ongoing topic of debate and research. Historians disagree as to whether van der Lubbe acted alone, as he said, to protest the condition of the German working class. The Nazis accused the Comintern of the act. Some historians endorse the theory, initially proposed by the Communist Party, that the arson was planned and ordered by the Nazis as a false flag operation. The building remained in its fire-damaged state until it was partially repaired from 1961 to 1964, then completely restored from 1995 to 1999.
At the Nuremberg trials, General Franz Halder testified that Göring admitted responsibility for starting the fire. He said that, at a luncheon held on Hitler's birthday in 1942, Göring said, "The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!" In his own Nuremberg testimony, Göring denied this story.
On February 27, 1933, the dome was destroyed along with the rest of the building in the Reichstag fire, an act blamed on the Communists, despite there being little evidence to determine who actually started the fire. The remains of the building and the dome were further demolished with the bombings of Berlin through World War II and the eventual fall of Berlin to the Soviets in 1945. While the Reichstag building was partially reconstructed in the 1960s as a conference center, the dome was not. Much of the dome and the ornaments that decorated it had been removed by that time.
In "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", William L. Shirer wrote that at Nuremberg, General Franz Halder stated in an affidavit, that Hermann Göring boasted about setting the fire:
On the occasion of a lunch on the Führer's birthday in 1943, the people around the Führer turned the conversation to the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears how Göring broke into the conversation and shouted: 'The only one who really knows about the Reichstag building is I, for I set fire to it.' And saying this he slapped his thigh.
Under cross-examination at the Nuremberg trial in 1945/6, Göring was read Halder's affidavit and denied he had any involvement in the fire, characterizing Halder's statement as "utter nonsense". Göring stated:
I had no reason or motive for setting fire to the "Reichstag". From the artistic point of view I did not at all regret that the assembly chamber was burned; I hoped to build a better one. But I did regret very much that I was forced to find a new meeting place for the "Reichstag" and, not being able to find one, I had to give up my Kroll Opera House ... for that purpose. The opera seemed to me much more important than the "Reichstag".