Thread:

“This is a God-given signal! If this fire, as I believe, turns out to be the handiwork of Communists, then there is nothing that shall stop us now crushing out the murder pest with an iron fist.” 1/

So allegedly expressed Adolf Hitler to Sefton Delmer, British journalist and Berlin correspondent for the Daily Express, one day after arsonists razed the Reichstag, Germany’s federal parliament building, on 27 February 1933. 2/

Though he had yet to complete his first full month as chancellor in the still functioning Weimar Republic, Hitler seized upon the crisis for his own political gain. 3/

The Völkischer Beobachter, the Nazi Party’s official newspaper, propagated the false allegation that communists were planning to overthrow the legally-appointed government. 4/

Historians have never discovered any credible evidence that supports this claim. Many German citizens at the time, however, believed the Nazis’ charge, including several news agencies in the United States. 5/

The New York Times reported on 13 September 1933, for instance, that a German commission discovered “a coup in the hands of a Russian Jew named Wollenberg … was prepared so that at a given signal the Red rising would break loose everywhere.” 6/

Public fear cultivated an environment ripe for political abuse. As the Reichstag still smoldered, Nazi representatives, together with a sizable cadre of center-right politicians in the German National People’s Party and Center Party, passed the “Reichstag Fire Decree.” 7/

Article 1 suspended “Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Constitution,” an action that enabled the government “to restrict the rights of personal freedom, freedom of expression, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble ..." 8/

Article 4, meanwhile, targeted anyone whom the Nazis deemed a potential enemy of the state. 09/

“Whoever provokes, or appeals for, or incites the disobedience of the orders given out by the supreme state authorities … or order given by the Reich Government,” decreed the new legislation, “is punishable ... with imprisonment of not less than one month ..." 10/

"In addition, the sentence may include [the] confiscation of property. Whoever provokes or incites an act contrary to public welfare is to be punished … with imprisonment of not less than three months.” 11/

Shortly after the Nazis issued this decree, the first concentration camps opened in the Munich suburb of Dachau and the Berlin suburb of Oranienburg. 12/

These sites imprisoned Hitler’s political opposition, principally members and supporters of the Social Democratic Party and Communist Party, as well as all others whom he deemed “enemies of the state.” 13/

The fire effectively fashioned a permanent state of war, one that empowered the Nazis to utilize their newfound legal authority to monitor, police, and ultimately destroy opposition forces through emergency declarations and claims of national defense. 14/

Hitler’s fire decree served as his first step toward civil dictatorship. Less than one month later, the last remnants of Germany’s republic passed the “Enabling Act,” which authorized the Nazis to declare laws outside of the traditional constitutional framework. 15/

German representatives, in effect, voted themselves out of existence. The Reichstag, now under the leadership of Hermann Göring, Hitler’s future second-in-command, simply authorized legislation at his convenience. 16/

Serious historians recognize the importance of historical context and the necessity for evaluating the past on its own terms. 17/

At a time when high-profile media personalities invoke a skewed or blatantly false historical narrative to justify policies on a seemingly daily basis, I am wary of arguments that clumsily rely on unnuanced comparisons. 18/

Professional responsibility, however, does not abjure historians the right to call attention to contemporary affronts to liberal democracy, including officially-sanctioned state violence against peaceful protestors in Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C and Portland, Oregon. 19/

Clearly, the United States today is not the Weimar Republic or Nazi Germany. Its democratic institutions have existed for over two centuries, a condition that at minimum assures a base level of public support and civil authority for the rule of law. 20/

An overwhelming majority of citizens, moreover, believe in the promise of liberal democracy and the juridical structures that have helped navigate the country forward politically and socially. These represent stark contrasts between Weimar’s end and the contemporary U.S. 21/

One does not need a Ph.D. in German history, however, to recognize the dangerous potentials of our present-day politics in the United States. We can no longer comfort ourselves in a false logic that regards discriminatory practices as a unique aspect of German history 22/

History does not repeat itself. But a critical evaluation of past events can at least provide us means to learn about the destructive capabilities of nationalism, racism, and centralized oppression of citizens peacefully exercising their constitutional rights. 23/

George Orwell reminds us that “Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.” 24/

Trump is not Hitler and Trumpism is not Nazism. But any systematic federal reliance on secret police and fabricated revolutions will not have a happy ending. 25/