Dutch youth had already tried unsuccessfully to burn down
three other buildings, including Berlin’s City Hall, castle, and a
welfare office.
For Göring, who had hoped for proof of an immense
Communist conspiracy, Van der Lubbe, “a half-witted Commu-
nist pyromaniac,” was a poor exhibit. Discussing it at the Chan-
cellery later that same evening, however, Hitler and Goebbels
saw it very differently. If they extracted every ounce of publicity
from this “godsent beacon,” as Hitler called it, they could walk
away with the March election.
“Now we’ll show them,” cried Hitler, purpling with ex-
citement. “Anybody who stands in our way now will get mown
down!”
In a further meeting at Göring’s own ministry, Hitler in-
structed him to make immediate use of the arrest lists that they
had so fortuitously drawn up during the past few days.
A draft presidential decree suspending civil liberties was
also taken out of its file, ready for Hindenburg to sign.
Small wonder that when his ministry’s press chief now di-
ffidently laid before Göring his draft communiqué, announcing
Van der Lubbe’s arrest and police beliefs that “a hundred-
weight” of incendiary materials had been used, he exploded with
frustration, swept his desk clear of the accumulating telegrams
and police reports, grabbed a blue pencil, and shouted, “Rub-
bish! One hundredweight? Ten no, one hundred!”
The official stammered that Van der Lubbe could hardly
have carried in all that alone.
“Nothing is impossible!” cried Göring. “There were ten
no, twenty men!”
He dictated a new communiqué to his secretary, Fräulein
Grundtmann, scrawling his own outsized “G” at its foot.
He adhered to the same standards of accuracy in reporting