21 Nov. 45
to plot the regaining of territories lost in the First World War
and the acquisition of other fertile lands of Central Europe by
dispossessing or exterminating those who inhabited them. They also
contemplated destroying or permanently weakening all other
neighboring peoples so as to win virtual domination over Europe and
probably of the world. The precise limits of their ambition we need
not define for it was and is as illegal to wage aggressive war for
small stakes as for large ones.
We find at this period two governments in Germany-the real and
the ostensible. The forms of the German Republic were maintained for
a time, and it was the outward and visible government. But the real
authority in the State was outside and above the law and rested in
the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party.
On February 27, 1933, less than a month after Hitler became
Chancellor, the Reichstag building was set on fire. The burning of
this symbol of free parliamentary government was so providential for
the Nazis that it was believed they staged the fire themselves.
Certainly when we contemplate their known crimes, we cannot believe
they would shrink from mere arson. It is not necessary, however, to
resolve the controversy as to who set the fire. The significant point
is in the use that was made of the fire and of the state of public
mind it produced. The Nazis immediately accused the Communist Party
of instigating and committing the crime, and turned every effort to
portray this single act of arson as the beginning of a communist
revolution. Then, taking advantage of the hysteria, the Nazis met
this phantom revolution with a real one. In the following December
the German Supreme Court with commendable courage and independence
acquitted the accused Communists, but it was too late to influence
the tragic course of events which the Nazi conspirators had set
rushing forward.
Hitler, on the morning after the fire, obtained from the aged and
ailing President Von Hindenburg a presidential decree suspending the
extensive guarantees of individual liberty contained in the
constitution of the Weimar Republic. The decree provided that:
"Sections 114, 115, 117, 118, 123,
124, and 153 of the Contitution of the German Reich are suspended
until further notice. Thus, restrictions on personal liberty, on the
right offree expression of opinion, including freedom of the press,
on the right of assembly and the right of association, and violations
of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephoniccommunications,
and warrants for house-searches, orders for confiscations as well as
restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal
limits otherwise prescribed."(1390-PS)