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tour of the building by watchmen indicated all was well; no flammable liquids were noticed
and nothing was out of the ordinary in the Sessions Chamber where the fire started.
Apparently no one could have gained access to the Reichstag building after 9 p.m., and no
one was seen to enter or leave between 9 p.m. and the start of the fire.
There was only one way a group with flammable materials could have entered the Reichstag
through a tunnel that ran between the Reichstag and the Palace of the Reichstag
President. Hermann Goering was president of the Reichstag and lived in the Palace, and
numerous S.A. and S.S. men were known to be in the Palace. In the words of one author:
The use of the underground passage, with all its complications, was possible
only to National-Socialists, the advance and escape of the incendiary gang was
feasible only with the connivance of highly-placed employees of the Reichstag.
Every clue, every probability points damningly in one direction, to the
conclusion that the burning of the Reichstag was the work of National-
Socialists.17
How does Putzi Hanfstaengl fit into this picture of arson and political intrigue?
Putzi by his own admission was in the Palace room at the other end of the tunnel
leading to the Reichstag. And according to The Reichstag Fire Trial, Putzi Hanfstaengl was
actually in the Palace itself during the fire:
propaganda apparatus stood ready, and the leaders of the Storm Troopers
were in their places. With the official bulletins planned in advance, the orders
of arrest prepared, Karwahne, Frey and Kroyer waiting patiently in their cafe,
the preparations were complete, the scheme almost perfect.18
Dimitrov also asserts that:
The National-Socialist leaders, Hitler, Goering and Goebbels, together with
the high National-Socialist officials, Daluege, Hanfstaengl and Albrecht,
happened to be present in Berlin on the day of the fire, despite that the election
campaign was at its highest pitch throughout Germany, six days before the
poll. Goering and Goebbels, under oath, furnished contradictory explanations
for their "fortuitous" presence in Berlin with Hitler on that day. The National-
Socialist Hanfstaengl, as Goering's "guest," was present in the Palace of the
Reichstag President, immediately adjacent to the Reichstag, at the time when
the .fire broke out, although his "host" was not there at that time.19
According to Nazi Kurt Ludecke, there once existed a document signed by S.A. Leader Karl
Ernst who supposedly set the fire and was later murdered by fellow Nazis which
implicated Goering, Goebbels, and Hanfstaengl in the conspiracy.
Roosevelt's New Deal and Hitler's New Order
Hjalmar Schacht challenged his post-war Nuremburg interrogators with the observation that
Hitler's New Order program was the same as Roosevelt's New Deal program in the United
States. The interrogators understandably snorted and rejected the observation. However, a
little research suggests that not only are the two programs quite similar in content, but that
Germans had no trouble in observing the similarities. There is in the Roosevelt Library a
small book presented to FDR by Dr. Helmut Magers in December 1933.20 On the flyleaf of
this presentation copy is written the inscription,
To the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in profound
admiration of his conception of a new economic order and with devotion for his
personality. The author, Baden, Germany, November 9, 1933.
FDR's reply to this admiration for his new economic order was as follows:21
(Washington) December 19, 1933
My dear Dr. Magers: I want to send you my thanks for the copy of your little
book about me and the "New Deal." Though, as you know, I went to school in
Germany and could speak German with considerable fluency at one time, I am
reading your book not only with great interest but because it will help my
German.
Very sincerely yours,
The New Deal or the "new economic order" was not a creature of classical liberalism. It
was a creature of corporate socialism. Big business as reflected in Wall Street strived for a
state order in which they could control industry and eliminate competition, and this was the
heart of FDR's New Deal. General Electric, for example, is prominent in both Nazi
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