Reichstag Fire - The Fire

The Fire

At 21:15 (UTC +1) (22:15 local time) on 27 February 1933, the Berlin Fire Department received a message that the Reichstag was on fire. Despite the best efforts of the firemen, most of the building was gutted by the blaze. By 23:30 hours (11:30 p.m.), the fire was put out. The firemen and policemen inspected the ruins and found twenty bundles of inflammable material (firelighters) unburned lying about. At the time the fire was reported, Adolf Hitler was having dinner with Joseph Goebbels at Goebbels' apartment in Berlin. When Goebbels received an urgent phone call informing him of the fire, he regarded it as a "tall tale" at first and hung up. Only after the second call, did he report the news to Hitler. Hitler, Goebbels, the Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen and Prince Heinrich Günther von Hohenzollern were taken by car to the Reichstag, where they were met by Hermann Göring. Göring told Hitler, "This is a Communist outrage! One of the Communist culprits has been arrested." Hitler called the fire a "sign from God", and claimed it was a Fanal (signal) meant to mark the beginning of a Communist Putsch (revolt). The next day, the Preussische Pressedienst (Prussian Press Service) reported that "this act of incendiarism is the most monstrous act of terrorism carried out by Bolshevism in Germany". The Vossische Zeitung newspaper warned its readers that "the government is of the opinion that the situation is such that a danger to the state and nation existed and still exists".