Word: reichstager
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...admiration. In 1933, two tyrannies faced each other in a Berlin courtroom - Naziism represented by a fat bully, Hermann Göring, Communism by an obscure, curly-maned agitator named Georgi Dimitrov. In this instance, the Communist was the hero, accused of complicity in the setting of the Reichstag fire which, by then, everyone suspected Hermann Göring had set himself. Dimitrov, acting as his own attorney, alone in a hostile courtroom and a hostile country, fought Göring with courage. "I am not here to be questioned by you, you scoundrel!" cried Government Witness Göring...
...became a Communist, spent years in jail for his revolutionary activities. Forced to flee Bulgaria in 1923, he first went to Vienna, later to Berlin. After the Reichstag trial, he became a Soviet citizen. As chief of the Comintern (1935-43), he propounded the Popular Front policy with extreme candor. "Comrades," he told the Comintern's 7th World Congress, "you recall the old legend of the Conquest of Troy . . . We revolutionaries should use the same strategy...
...illustrate his point Krayer recalled the "Reichstag Fire Trial" of 1934. The Nazis allegedly burned down the Reichstag, Berlin meeting place of German Parliament and then utilized the resulting national panic to take over the government. Once in power they arrested a Dutchman, charging him with setting the fire. The defendant made a complete confession in court and was convicted, although most of the world believed him innocent. It was generally thought that the Nazis used drugs to obtain the confession, but even the closest observers couldn't prove it, Krayer remembered...
François de Wendel became manager of "The Grandsons of François de Wendel and Company," which he built into one of France's largest steel works. His brother Guy was a senator of France. His brother Charles was a member of the German Reichstag. During World War I, the De Wendels were suspected of playing both sides of the Rhine...
...Before [Georgi] Dimitrov [of Bulgaria] stood up ... to make his courageous peroration [at the famed Reichstag fire trial], he knew of a secret arrangement between the GPU and the Gestapo that he would leave it a free...