The Reichstag fire, a pivotal event in the establishment of Nazi Germany, began at 9.14 p.m. on the night of February 27, 1933, when a Berlin fire station received an alarm that the Reichstag building, assembly location of the German Parliament, was ablaze. The fire seemed to have been started in several places, and by the time the police and firemen arrived a huge explosion had set the main Chamber of Deputies in flames. Looking for clues, the police quickly found Marinus van der Lubbe, half-naked, cowering behind the building.

Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring arrived soon after, and when they were shown Van der Lubbe, a known Communist agitator, Göring immediately declared that the fire was set by the Communists and had the party leaders arrested. Hitler took advantage of the situation to declare a state of emergency and encouraged the aging president Paul von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, abolishing most of the human rights provisions of the 1919 Weimar Republic constitution.

The Nazi leaders were determined to demonstrate that the Reichstag Fire was a deed of the International Communist society and in early March 1933 Georgi Dimitrov, Vasil Tanev and Blagoi Popov were arrested, who played pivotal role during the Leipzig Trial, known also as "Reichstag Fire Trial."

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