Tuesday, February 27, 2007
This Day in the History of False Flag Operations
On this day in 1933, Nazi operatives under orders from Hermann Goering set fire to Germany's parliament building, the Reichstag, in Berlin. The Nazis, blaming Communists, used the fire as a pretext for suspending civil liberties in the thin end of the totalitarian wedge. The loopy guys who believe we brought down the twin towers with controlled demolition and fired a missile at the Pentagon use this episode as an example of false flag operations in the past. Yeah, the Nazis did things like this, we didn't.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 6:36 AM 
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It's certainly true that the Nazis used pretexts to initiate violence. It is also true that they took advantage of the Reichstag fire for political gain. But it is by no means clear that the Reichstag was destroyed by the NSDAP (as an organization) or some of its members acting on their own.
The Soviets certainly tried very hard* (and pretty successfully) to convince the world that the Germans were responsible for the fire, but dispassionate examination after the war was over allows of no such certainty.
From the available information, it seems clear that the fire was arson, since there was lots of accelerant lying about. But it might have been the work of the German Communist Party, which was no friend of the Nazis. It might have been Sicherheitsdienst operatives, working alone or on orders. Or it might have been the Dutch communist/anarchist who was actually convicted and executed, and who had a history of arson.
None of this should be taken to suggest that I have any tolerance for the National Socialist German Workers' Party. But there's plenty of undisputed evil to lay at the feet of the Nazis without resorting to the deeply speculative.
(For those who would wish to impute bad faith on the basis of analogy, a better historical example would be the "Polish sabotage" used as a pretext for invading Poland in 1939.)
* The principal propaganda method used was a show trial staged in London, which purported to prove that the Germans had done it themselves. The star witness, supposedly an SD member, was actually the editor of the Rote Fahne ("Red Flag"), a German Communist newspaper, who "testified" while wearing a mask.
The Soviets certainly tried very hard* (and pretty successfully) to convince the world that the Germans were responsible for the fire, but dispassionate examination after the war was over allows of no such certainty.
From the available information, it seems clear that the fire was arson, since there was lots of accelerant lying about. But it might have been the work of the German Communist Party, which was no friend of the Nazis. It might have been Sicherheitsdienst operatives, working alone or on orders. Or it might have been the Dutch communist/anarchist who was actually convicted and executed, and who had a history of arson.
None of this should be taken to suggest that I have any tolerance for the National Socialist German Workers' Party. But there's plenty of undisputed evil to lay at the feet of the Nazis without resorting to the deeply speculative.
(For those who would wish to impute bad faith on the basis of analogy, a better historical example would be the "Polish sabotage" used as a pretext for invading Poland in 1939.)
* The principal propaganda method used was a show trial staged in London, which purported to prove that the Germans had done it themselves. The star witness, supposedly an SD member, was actually the editor of the Rote Fahne ("Red Flag"), a German Communist newspaper, who "testified" while wearing a mask.
I thought we found some incriminating documents at a place we captured (not the Soviets) but I have to admit that I'm fuzzy on that. Kudos to the Soviet's propoganda machine. Thanks for the correction.
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