90 years of the Reichstag Fire and a fiery lesson for civilisation

New Delhi: On Monday, February 27, 1933, the Nazi regime in Germany gained life-altering momentum. In an iconic and infamous false-flag operation, the German Parliament building was burnt by Hitler’s goons, while the Communists were ravenously framed.

But before progressing to civilization, permit me to conclude the historical loop. Hitler had only been in power for six months and needed an urgent excuse to be granted an authoritarian licence. So, the think tank concocted a Communist plot, taking advantage of a societal fear psychosis post the Russian revolution. As well as fuelling the resurgence of national pride, post the humiliating World War 1 reparations, a major agenda in the NSDAP manifesto. 

In response to public paranoia, President Hindenburg suspended most democratic rights and made Chancellor Hitler the de facto dictator of Germany.

This single event set in motion an evil momentum that moved on to the terrifying holocaust, which led to the murder of six million Jews. As well as the utterly unnecessary Second World War, which destroyed the peace of Europe and inspired the Japanese to pursue their brutal imperialist passions.

Most importantly, the constitutional speed breakers that may have prevented the mindless madness were removed as a result of this day in 1933, a well-concocted wicked strategy. What is valuable to note is the wilful complicity of the German people in devilish governance, ever since the fire stirred violent negative energy across the nation.

In my simplistic view, this wilful complicity remains the most valuable learning from the regime of Nazi Germany. Almost overnight, a DNA pool of science, arts, philosophy and innovation got converted to a bunch of sadistic murderers, whether in the frontline or the backroom. 

Equally overnight, in 1945, the survivors of the same bloody pool, except those directly implicated in Nuremberg, resumed life as perfectly normal do-gooders -the mechanical engineers graduating from Messerschmitts to BMWs and the chemistry super-brains shifting lab apparatus from poison gas to industrial chemicals. 

I sincerely wonder how an evolved genetic pool sincerely endured such fundamental mindset transitions across a single generation and many still feel that millions of murderers got away too lightly - on the alibi of following orders and to fuel the winner’s agenda of a successful Post War Europe.

To be fair, though, the propaganda machinery of the Nazis would sweep every award for advertising effectiveness - if a satanic version of the same did exist. Dr Joseph Goebbels. the master of the lie and half-truth, ensured that every ‘Aryan’ citizen was suitably paranoid about Jews, Communists, Gypsies and citizens with deficient psycho-physical development. 

This led to a blind observance of even the most diabolical decrees and long-term neighbours, precious colleagues and valuable friends were sacrificed at the altar of in-house ethnic cleansing. To add to the contradictory narrative, the same folks and immediate descendants quickly changed colours to become post-war integrated global citizens welcoming immigrants, marquee models of sustainable development just a few years after counting dead bodies in Auschwitz.

Exactly why, wilful complicity remains the greatest lesson from the Reichstag fire - the mesmeric acumen of vile imaginations to seduce the good senses of harmless commoners - although in an era where tools for self-awareness were rather limited. There are comparable patterns behind the Iron Curtain, where post-war Soviet occupation led to the demolition of benevolent societies - Stasi, the notorious secret service of East Germany operated largely from a network of citizens betraying citizens. 

Apartheid is the other blatant instance of an overnight transformation of belief systems, where suddenly and grudgingly whites had to behave as if blacks and coloureds were equal in the first place. One may argue that fear and the obligation to conform define the rationale for wilful complicity, but the focus of this peace is naturally on prevention.

I believe increasingly that technology and its able offspring, the internet, are the finest insurance policies against a recurrence of this mass complicity - the abundant flow of information empowers the educated to forge a thoughtful identity. In democratic environments, it is easier done than said and while the reverse is true in autocratic cultures, objective information has the power to sneak in unquestioned - such is the sneaky prolificity of the world wide web. We saw this in the Jasmine Revolution and even in Taliban Afghanistan or retrograde Iran - glocal resistance is instigated by this diversity in facts.

Another key factor is the growing rise of individualism in thinking and pursuits, assisted by booster doses of liberalism in every sphere, which can appear as non-conformance in smaller hemispheres but actually ensure that an irrational singular point of view cannot be drilled in. This also explains the rampant cyclicity of political thought systems post the Berlin Wall dissolution as we see, for instance, from the Pink Tide in Latin America, the left-thinking enjoying a well-earned resurgence. It will be not surprising if the Taliban gets ousted shortly in Afghanistan and Pakistan ( as an influence), with the momentum for change coming from the optimally woke citizenry. The digital evolution has surely not played a small part in this as well.

To repeat, willful complicity was the most debilitating fallout of the Reichstag Fire, which subverted a bona fide civilization to turn inexplicably grotesque. At that time, in monarchical or immediate post-monarchy societies, mass mobilisation of minds was easy to stock in trade for the ruling classes - whether Tsar or Hitler. 

The biggest difference today is the empowered opinionation of the same masses, bolstered ably by the free-flowing fluids of information and in its wake, a reasonably firm mental autonomy, especially when seasoned by education. This does give rise to hope, that whatever the provocation, we are ready with a defence mechanism and the Ukraine War reinforces that conviction. As it is clearly a ‘professional’ conflict dictated by a ‘ professional’ government which has to endure significant protests in Moscow, the modern-thinking youth are not impressed by war realities.

It is always useful to look back thoughtfully in order to act forward intelligently. From Berlin of 1933, we must learn wilfully so that ill-informed complicity never brings us down ever again.