The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

would ‘awaken’ the German proletariat as by personal despair (Van der Lubbe was condemned to imminent
blindness). But above all, this personal despair expressed a growing political despair in the deepest layers of the
proletariat.
We know what happened to Van der Lubbe. Dragged before nazi ‘justice’, he denied to have had contacts with
the KPD, the ‘councilist’ milieu in Berlin. He was condemned to death (23 rd December 1933) and decapitated on
10 th January 1934, one of the first victims of nazi terror. For his friends, this execution was the logical
continuation of the bourgeois terror which struck down so many workers under governments from Ebert to
Hitler. But the worst for Van der Lubbe was to be dragged in the mud by the Stalinists, who accused him of
being in the service of nazism and began a great campaign of slander. 764 The Stalinists were his executioners
every bit as much as the nazis, and had no hesitation in demanding his death. Dimitrov (Van der Lubbe’s
supposed accomplice), who was to be acquitted and become one of the principal leaders of the stalinised
Komintern, even demanded in open court that Van der Lubbe should be “condemned to death for having worked
against the proletariat”. 765
In the Netherlands, the CPH – despite Van der Lubbe’s having been an active party member – developed the
same campaign of slanders. It propagated the lies contained in the ‘Brown Book’ published by the Münzenberg
Trust – the latter being the Komintern’s great financial wizard – with the support of ‘democrats’ that included an
unzeitgemässe Leben des Berliner Rätekommunisten Alfred Weiland (1906-1978) (Münster-Hamburg-Berlin-London: LIT
Verlag 2001), pp. 113-126, for the brief (and informal) contacts between the KAU, and Van der Lubbe.
Nonetheless, according to Alfred Weiland, whose testimony is contradictory, Van der Lubbe had had contact with the
student Wilfried von Oven (1912-200.?), who was member of the ‚left’ SA and had had in the past (1932) a brief contact
with a AAU circle in Berlin. In the years 1990, Oven denied any contact with Van der Lubbe. In 1936, von Oven, convinced
nazi, was a volunteer in the “Legion Condor”, during the Kominternvil war in Spain; in 1943, he became a personal
counsellor of Goebbels. He became after the war press correspondent of Der Spiegel in South America. He remained a nazi
and published a book on the SA, in 1998 (Kiel): Mit ruhig festem Schritt: Aus der Geschichte der SA. He was active in the
ultraright, publishing in 1998 in Argentina the fascist Plata Ruf, in 1998. [See: M. Kubina, op. cit.]
In the opinion of the historian Alexander Bahar and the psychologist Wilfried Kugel [Der Reichstagbrand. Wie Geschichte
gemacht wird [‚The Reichstag Fire. How History is Created’), Berlin, 2001], had been introduced by SA in the building:
“On February 27, 1933, at about 8:00 p.m. a commando group of at least 3, and at most 10 SA men led by Hans Georg
Gewehr entered the basement of the palace of the Reichstag President. The group took the incendiary substances deposited
there, and used the subterranean passageway to go from the Reichstag President’s palace to the Reichstag building, where
they prepared the assembly hall in particular with a self-igniting liquid they probably mixed in the hall. After a certain
latency period, the liquid set off the fire in the assembly hall. The group made their getaway through the subterranean
passageway and the basement of the Reichstag President’s palace (and possibly also through the adjacent basement leading
to the machinery and government employees’ building) to the public street Reichstagsufer. Göring entered the burning
Reichstag building at 9:21 p.m. at the latest, presumably in order to provide a cover for the commando group’s retreat…
Van der Lubbe was brought to the Reichstag by the SA at exactly 9:00 p.m. and let into the building by them. The sound of
breaking glass which was noticed by witnesses and which was allegedly due to van der Lubbe breaking window panes to
get into the building was probably only intended to attract the attention of the public. The Dutchman was sacrificed as the
only available witness.”
[This these can not convince every impartial historian, because it seems the product of dubious testimonies. See: Nico
Jassies in his book : Marinus van der Lubbe en de Rijksdagbrand (Amsterdam: ‘De Dolle Hond’, 2002).]
Van der Lubbe denied constantly any arsoning with anyone: “As to the question of whether I acted alone, I declare
emphatically that this was the case.” [Marinus van der Lubbe, statement to police (3 rd March 1933.)
In 1967, the county court of Berlin broke the judgement of Leipzig and sentenced post mortem Van der Lubbe to 8 years of
prison for “attempted arson with house breaking”. In 1980, the same court of Berlin pronounced a verdict of not guilty,
verdict which was broken by the court of Kassel in 1983.
A Dutch documentary has been devoted to Marinus in 1998, by Joost Seelen: Water en vuur. (‘Water and fervour’). De
roerige geschiedenis rond Marinus van der Lubbe (1909-1934), Zuidenwind Filmprodukties, Breda, 90 minutes, video VHS.
In February and June 2000, a commemorative stele for Van der Lubbe was twice erected in Berlin, the first one having
being stolen.
764 The Dutch CP accused him of being in the service of the Dutch police, the stalinists of all countries of sympathising with
the SA and being one of the Röhm gang’s ‘toy boys’.
765 L’Humanité, 17 th December 1933.
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