The Reichstag Fire Trial, 1933-2008

In the opening decade of the twentieth century the German national state united the great majority of the German speaking population of Europe, excluding only those in Switzerland and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and was among the leading states of the world.It boasted technologically advanced industry, among the highest per capita GDP, and the second largest army and third largest navy in the world.Germany was at peace, save for minor military operations against disobedient natives in Southwest Africa.It was a state that was among world leaders in providing basic social insurance, yet held sacred private property and the rule of law, except only in strictly prescribed areas of national security.In the opening decade of the twentieth-first century the German national state unites the great majority of the German speaking population of Europe, excepting only those in Switzerland and Austria, its industry is technologically advanced and its per capita GDP high.Its military budget is the sixth largest in the world, and it is at peace, save for minor military operations against disobedient natives in Afghanistan.Despite cutbacks, few states in the world have better provision of basic social insurance, and Germany today prides itself on holding private property to be sacred and on its adherence to the rule of law, except for a few strictly prescribed areas of national security.In the fourth and fifth decades of the twentieth century the German national state committed crimes universally agreed to be the most horrendous in human history.Causal explanations of the descent into the Nazi hell have been, of course, numerous.Some have emphasized ideas, as in the Isaiah Berlin thesis that traces a line of descent into Nazi barbarism starting with the rejection of enlightenment values in the German romantic nationalism of the early nineteenth century.Other explanations, which we prefer, emphasize the interests and actions of those who held the most power-the ruling class-in the society that produced the Third Reich.But

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• Allegory of the Reichstag Fire in W. H. Auden’s “New Year Letter”

  Yi Tang•ANQ A Quarterly Journal of Short…•2019

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