Marinus van der Lubbe

Uncommon card · No. 97101

Marinus van der Lubbe (Dutch pronunciation: [maːˈrinʏs fɑn dər ˈlʏbə]; 13 January 1909 – 10 January 1934) was a Dutch council communist who was tried, convicted, and executed by the government of Nazi Germany for allegedly setting fire to the Reichstag building – the national parliament of Germany – on 27 February 1933. During his trial, the prosecution argued that van der Lubbe had acted on behalf of a wider communist conspiracy, while left-wing anti-Nazis argued that the fire was a false flag attack arranged by the Nazis themselves. In 2008, 74 years after the event, the German government granted van der Lubbe a posthumous pardon on the basis of a 1998 law that rules all criminal convictions in Nazi Germany "went against the basic ideas of justice." Sonja Heine, a spokesperson for the Federal Prosecution Office, elaborated that the pardon was "not a ruling on whether van der Lubbe was guilty or innocent." The general consensus of historians is that van der Lubbe was the arsonist, but...

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