Reichstag fire

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Reichstag fire

German history

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Apr 11, 2024 • Article History

Reichstag fire

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Date:: February 27, 1933

Location:: Berlin; Germany

Context:: Enabling Act; Nazi Party; Third Reich

Key People:: Georgi Mikhailovich Dimitrov; Joseph Goebbels; Hermann Göring

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Reichstag fire, burning of the Reichstag (parliament) building in Berlin on the night of February 27, 1933, a key event in the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship and widely believed to have been contrived by the newly formed Nazi government itself to turn public opinion against its opponents and to assume emergency powers. Adolf Hitler had secured the chancellorship after the elections of November 1932, but his Nazi Party had not won an overall majority. He therefore obtained Cabinet consent to hold new elections on March 5, 1933. Meanwhile, his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, was supposed to have devised the ...(100 of 377 words)

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