Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

558 DER FUEHRERCommunist Reichstag fraction, went to the police; he declared that theaccusations against the Communists, and especially against himpersonally, were ridiculous and that he would refute them. He statedthat he did not know van der Lubbe, had never seen him, andconsequently had not made incendiary arrangements with him. Torglerwas immediately arrested. The police also arrested Georgi Dimitroff, aBulgarian, of whom they knew only that he was a prominent BulgarianCommunist. Not until more than a year later did it come out that thisDimitroff was the leader of the Central European section of theCommunist International. Two other Bulgarian Communists, Popoffand Taneff, were also arrested.As days went on, Goring's stories about the terrible Communist plansbecame wilder and wilder. He said that he would publish the material 'inthe very near future.' Former Chancellor Bruning replied in a speechthat this was good, and he only hoped that the material would soon bepublished. To which Hitler replied in a public speech of March 3: 'HerrBruning may set his mind at rest. We shall publish the material.'It was never published. If the public had then known anything aboutHelldorf's strange behavior on the night of the fire, further questionsmight have been asked. The leader of the armed might of the NationalSocialists in Berlin knew — if the statements about the documents fromthe Karl Liebknecht House are to be believed — that a Communistuprising was imminent. He knew that a fire was to be the 'signal.' Heknew that two days previous an attempt at incendiarism had beendiscovered in the Berlin Casde. But when he heard that the Reichstagwas burning, he did not go and look; he did not summon his S.A. tobatde; he went to bed. His was the kind of implausible behavior thatoccurs only when a man is building up an alibi. And scarcely lessremarkable was it that Hitler and Goebbels should have been playingmusic with Communist incendiary murder staring them in the face.Months later the world was still waiting for the documents thatGoring had promised to 'submit to the public in the very near future.'His police had many months' time in which to search for proofs of theattempted Communist revolution, and there were no earthly limits set toits investigation. For many months the Reich