Stupid-Reichstag

Stupid Reichstag. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Once upon a time, in 1933, German Nazis blamed the German Communist Party’s Antifaschistische Aktion (Antifa) group, formed in 1932 in defense against Nazi brownshirts, for a fire that burned down the Reichstag, the German parliament. The Reichstag coalition of Nazis and the German Nationalist People’s Party exploited the fire to accuse their Communist Party rivals of a plot to bring down the government. The baseless accusation led to President Paul von…