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Reichstag arsonist, beheaded in 1934, receives pardon

An unemployed Dutch bricklayer who was made a scapegoat for one of the defining moments of modern German history has been pardoned 75 years later.

Marinus van der Lubbe, 24, was beheaded after being convicted of setting the Reichstag on fire, an event Adolf Hitler used as a pretext to suspend civil liberties and start a dictatorship.

But Van de Lubbe's conviction has been overturned by the federal prosecutor, Monika Harms, after a lawyer in Berlin alerted her to the fact that he had yet to be exonerated under a law passed in 1998. The law allowed pardons for people convicted of crimes under the Nazis, based on the concept that Nazi law "went against the basic ideas of justice."

The exoneration is only symbolic and will not lead to compensation for his heirs.

Police arrested Van der Lubbe in the burning building and he is said to have confessed to starting the fire to encourage a workers' uprising against the Nazis.

Historians remain divided over the event. The Nazis said it was a communist plot. Most historians agreement that Van der Lubbe was involved in the fire, but whether he acted alone is still open to debate.

Following the attack in February 1933, the Communist Party was banned and Nazi opponents were brutally suppressed. In one night 1,500 communist functionaries were arrested.

Van der Lubbe went on trial in 1933 with four others, charged with arson and attempting to overthrow the government. Only Van der Lubbe was convicted. He was executed in 1934.
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