Historians generally agree that Van der Lubbe, sometimes described as a half-wit, was involved in the Reichstag fire. The extent of the damage, however, has led to considerable debate over whether he acted alone. Considering the speed with which the fire engulfed the building, Van der Lubbe's reputation as a fool hungry for fame, and cryptic comments by leading Nazi officials, it is generally believed that the Nazi hierarchy was involved in order to reap political gain—and it obviously did.

At Nuremberg, General Franz Halder claimed that Göring had confessed to setting the fire: "At a luncheon on the birthday of Hitler in 1942, the conversation turned to the topic of the Reichstag building [fire] and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears when Göring interrupted the conversation and shouted: 'The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!' With that he slapped his thigh with the flat of his hand."

Göring denied that he had any involvement in the fire. "I had nothing to do with it. I deny this absolutely. I can tell you in all honesty, that the Reichstag fire proved very inconvenient to us. After the fire I had to use the Kroll Opera House as the new Reichstag and the opera seemed to me much more important than the Reichstag. I must repeat that no pretext was needed for taking measures against the Communists. I already had a number of perfectly good reasons in the forms of murders, etc."

During the summer of 1933 a counter-trial was organized in London by a group of lawyers, democrats and other anti-Nazi propagandists. The countertrial took part in only one week and ended with the conclusion that the defendants were innocent and the true initiators of the fire are found amid the leading NSDAP elite. The counter-trial served as a workshop during which all possible scenarios were tested and all speeches of the defendants were prepared.