WEBVTT - Part Two: The Reichstag Fire Was Not An Inside Job 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:06.520 Al Zone Media. Hello, and welcome to Cool People, did 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:10.160 Cool Stuff, your weekly reminder that things are real complicated 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:15.000 and sometimes there's a difference between moral action and strategic action, 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.439 and it's impossible to know. But what you can know 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.400 ahead of time is that my name is Margaret Kiljoy 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:22.919 and I'm the host. You can also know you probably 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:25.000 have guessed because you've probably listened to part one, unless 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.600 you're a very strange person. That My guest is Carl 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.159 Casardo from en Range TV. How are you? 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:34.400 I'm doing great? Hello everybody, It's good to be back. 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:38.480 Hopefully Margaret, you're doing well. And I am personally extremely 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:42.080 excited to hear about Council Communism. Like I've been waiting 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:44.839 a while now I'm dying for that part. I mean, 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:47.640 I mean, I know what happens to Vanderloubi, but like 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.080 I don't know about the Council Communism part. So that's 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:51.000 what's what I'm here for. 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.560 I know exactly. And our producer Sharen Sharan, how are you? 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.240 I am good? Thank you for having me. Also very 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.160 stoked to learn what that is. Council of Communism yep. 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:08.600 And our audio engineer is Daniel Hi. Daniel Hi Daniel, Hi, 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:12.039 I know or it's okay. Our theme musical was written 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:14.120 forced by un woman. My favorite thing in the world 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.199 is when listeners tell me that. They say it also 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:19.240 when they're like at work and shit, so cute. 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:20.040 I know that. 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:22.440 Yeah, No, I'm really into it makes me happy. 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:25.840 So you're adding into the general positive zeitgeist and the 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.600 magnetic sphere. For Daniel right there, it was like boom, 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:29.280 it just happens. 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.280 Yeah, and just like a little bit of strangeness going 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:33.039 out into the world. 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:34.520 Yeah. 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:38.920 So today is the moment you've all been waiting for. Yes, yes, 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:42.680 there'll be fire and political intrigue. But first, niche left 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:44.640 his theory from one hundred years ago that has no 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:46.720 about relevance to modern leftism. 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:48.000 Hooray. 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:52.200 Yes, but it is relevant to this story. And I 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:56.360 actually think understanding the ins and outs of all of 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:58.400 this stuff that happened in the early twentieth century in 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:02.440 late nineteenth century has on me so much good at 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.080 giving me a vantage point to understand what's going on today. 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:07.120 The foolish thing to do would be to think that 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:08.679 the things that happen in the past are the same 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.960 as what's happening now. Right, But It has helped me 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:16.239 think about how people have like faced similar problems and 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:18.320 what they've come up with, and it just I find 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:19.600 it interesting. Yeah. 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:21.000 I like that you said that because I sort of, 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:23.600 I mean, I know and I understand that also not 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:26.680 exactly full quote of you know, those who don't understand 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.079 the past are doomed to repeat it. I don't really 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:31.840 buy that. No, but those who don't know the past 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.560 don't have depth and understanding of the human condition and 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:40.240 better comprehension of what things happening now mean totally. 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:42.320 You can kill someone with the dull sword, and you 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:43.880 can kill someone of the sharp sword, and it's easier 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:45.640 to do with the sharp sword. If I'm using the 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.080 Game of Thrones. The reason you read books is to 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:53.280 sharpen your intellect. You know, most importantly, understanding nitty gritty 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:57.120 stuff about ancient political ideology is cool and fun and 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.080 it has hip, and it will win you friends at parties. 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.720 It will win you exactly one friend at any given party, 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:05.680 the other random nerd who happens to be there. Everyone 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.480 else will leave you alone. They'll come over, they'll hear 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.880 what you're talking about, they'll leave. It's great. You get 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.000 to win at parties, you only have to talk to 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:15.160 one person at a time. 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:17.400 It's like the Church of the subject, you says, I 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.240 drink to make other people interesting. I learned these topics 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:21.880 to find the other interesting person. 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:27.040 Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And so Marinus was a council communist. 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:29.800 There are not many council communists anymore. If there are, 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.239 and you're listening, I actually think you're onto something. It's great, 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:35.400 it's fine. I met a former one once and he 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.280 was in his probably seventies, maybe eighties, and he had 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:40.440 written a bunch of books about council communism in the 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:45.000 sixties and seventies, and then he became an anarchist. Council 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:49.800 communists are look forever ago, there was this split between 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:55.000 libertarian socialists like anarchists, and authoritarian socialists like Marxists. Back 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:58.800 in the nineteenth century. The authoritarian side is, you know, 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.240 the Marxist side, the liberty inside, the more anarchist side. 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:04.480 This is not universally true. This is the broad strokes. 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:07.680 And every now and then, over the ensuing you have this, 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:09.760 you know, this tree that is split, and you have 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:12.640 two different branches, right, and every now and then people 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:14.480 from one branch will be like looking over at the 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.159 other branch and being like, damn, that's a nice branch. 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.320 They got like pretty good bark. Like I don't know 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:21.480 what branches see in each other, but like, whatever branches 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.159 see in each other, they're into about each other. Right. 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:26.840 It's like, I'm tired of three hour meetings about what 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:28.800 colors we should make our font What if we just 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:30.560 get a dictator that kind of thing. 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:35.960 Right exactly. And so the anarchist side, looking over towards 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.240 the Marxist side, you would get as an example, I 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.320 would say it would be the platformist anarchists who are like, 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.280 what if anarchism was way more unified and organized at 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.760 the expense of putonomy or whatever what. I'm not trying 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.040 to talk shit on them, but they're cribbon notes from 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:53.920 the Marxists, right. And then in the other direction, I 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:56.920 know more examples of the other direction because our branch 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:00.840 is better whatever, because my p spective of where I'm at, 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.560 I see the other direction more if Marxist cribbing notes 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.240 from the anarchists. And among other groups that have done this, 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:10.479 there's like autonomous Marxists and various other groups are the 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:15.240 council communists. Because council communists. At its core was communists 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:20.200 who were like one if communism actually pushed for communism, 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.599 as we covered at length in the Russian Civil War episodes, 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:27.480 the Russian Communist Party aka the Bolsheviks, they had started 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:29.880 off being into the idea of these councils aka the 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:33.039 Soviets and the trade unions, and you know, some of 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.080 these people and some of these councils wanted to workers 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:40.159 to take power without creating a dictator, without taking that 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.760 power away from the workers and then centralizing it into 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.960 one place. Right, the Bolsheviks did the opposite. They centralized 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.839 power and the Soviets the councils were left with nothing. 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:54.920 So council communists spun off. At this point they looked 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:57.320 at what was happening in Russia and they were like, 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.360 what if the point was that power's supposed to stay 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:02.600 in the hands of the working class During the revolution, 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:04.920 I thought that was the whole thing. We were all 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:08.760 dying over. A ton of Marxists in Germany and the 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:13.320 Netherlands were into council communism in the nineteen twenties. I 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.000 talked about the some of the political landscape in the 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.440 nineteen twenties in Germany and how the Nazis were originally 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:21.640 sort of minority party among the right and they gain 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.400 power and stuff right and council Communism comes out of 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.240 the German left overall. Again there's Dutch parts of it too, 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:33.799 but basically, the German Communist Party originally started off pretty cool. 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.600 It was interested in workers' power. It was not interested 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:39.560 in being told what to do by the Bolsheviks. They're 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.200 in a different country. But then in nineteen nineteen, the 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:47.560 Communist Party of Germany, the KDP, they managed to do 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.120 some political maneuvering against the will of the majority of 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.560 their own members in classic Bolsheviks style, and so they 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.400 made the party line of this group suddenly be now, 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:59.680 we do whatever Russia tells us to do, even though 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.640 most Communists didn't actually want to do this. So the 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.080 party split. And here's where you get into that, Like, yeah, 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:09.080 I ever seen Life of Brian? Oh of course, yeah, 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:11.160 Trein you ever seen this movie Life of Brian? It's 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:13.880 okay if I have, I have no memory of bit. 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.840 But there's this part where like people are like, oh, 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:20.560 we're the Judea's Party of Liberation. We're like, no, we're 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:24.200 the where the I can't even do the bit. They're 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:26.640 all like arguing amongst each other themselves, and they have 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.119 basically the same name, and they're like arguing over fine 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:31.120 points and the getting really mad at each other, and 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:35.800 it's a fun joke. Well, the old Communist party was 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.360 the Communist Party of Germany. The new one that they 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.280 form is the Communist Workers Party of Germany. 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.480 Oh, this changes everything right there, that makes the difference. 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:46.840 That's the reformation that will make it succeed. 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:51.120 Yeah. Yeah, So they go from the KDP to the KADP, 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:54.680 and they actually, I mean they're pretty cool. They set 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.000 up a workers union modeled after the Industrial Workers of 0:07:57.040 --> 0:07:59.640 the World. Mark that off in your Bengo card, aka 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.040 union for leftists who are more concerned with giving power 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:04.560 to the working class than being obsessive about ideological labels. 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.000 So I the council Communists, they all right, like I 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.160 actually not not here talk shit on them. But they 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.040 still see themselves as part of communism, right. They don't 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:15.480 see themselves as part of anarchism or a new thing, right, 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.440 And so they they apply to join this group called 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:24.400 the Common Tern the Communist International, which used to be 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:26.240 back in the day. This like sort of horizontal group 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:31.000 of all these different socialists around Europe. Right these days, 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:35.160 well the days I'm talking about, it's just run by Russia. 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.480 So they're like, no, you can't fucking join. Fuck you 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:39.839 get the fuck out of here. You all want to 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.920 be independent. Fuck that, we don't want independence here, we're 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.800 fucking the Bolsheviks. So you call this This tendency also 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.320 gets called left wing communism, which I think is really funny. 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.959 Lenin wrote a pamphlet called left Wing Communism in Infantile 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:58.000 Disorder to make fun of them. Lenin got jokes, it 0:08:58.120 --> 0:08:59.120 is funny to think about that. 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.760 How there's that means there's right wing communism. I mean 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:05.800 it's just ket such a like fractionalization upon fractionalization, a 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.680 pro fractionalization, and then a group trying to bring the 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.880 factions together, but then don't. It's an endless story of humanity, 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:14.160 regardless of any movement. 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:16.320 No I know, I know. This is why I live 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:22.400 alone on a mountain. Like, so this is how you 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.800 get council communists. At first, they tried saving the common 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:28.559 turn from authoritarianism. They're like, hey, what if we all 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.560 get to be worker's power? Like it says in the 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.920 name of communism, you know, and they were like pointing 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.679 out accurately that Russia was a capitalist state. This did 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.079 not work. They're like, fine, we're doing our own thing 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:43.760 and the five principles of council communism. Don't worry, we'll 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:45.959 get to fire soon. It's not one of their principles. 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.439 Five principles are capitalism is in decline and needs to 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.080 be abolished immediately. It should be replaced by workers control 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:57.840 over the economy through council democracy. The bourgeoisie manipulates the 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.640 working class with its social democratic ally in order to 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:05.920 maintain capitalism. This manipulation must be resisted by boycotting electoral 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:10.840 politics and fighting traditional labor unions. And finally, the Soviet 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.080 Union is not an alternative to capitalism, just a new 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:18.360 type of capitalism. So that's them. They did their thing 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.359 in Germany and the Netherlands alongside the other left communists 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:23.960 across the Western world, which was basically everyone who didn't 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:27.680 want to fucking toe the party line of Bolshevism. Council 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.840 communism was not particularly influential except in Germany and the Netherlands. 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:32.680 It's just like, you know, you read the Wikipedia, they'll 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:34.760 be like, wow, it's in all these countries and you're like, okay, 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.600 but was there one hundred people in France And they're 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:39.640 like yeah, there's one hundred people in France and you're 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:40.320 like that's cool. 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:43.800 Yeah, the one guy sending out postcards from Pueblo, Colorado 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:45.000 isn't a movement. 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.800 Yeah, exactly, although I guess that's kind of a fucking 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:49.920 Nazi started. 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:52.480 Well, you don't know where it's going to go, but 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:54.079 it isn't the movement yet, right. It might be the 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:56.840 yet Sea Crystal or something like that, but it's not 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:58.800 in and of itself yet totally. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:04.400 And so everyone of all sides could not wait to 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:08.520 throw the Council communists under the bus. So back to barness, 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:10.560 who's about to be under the bus of history? 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.360 Oh you know what that makes me think everyone wants 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:15.160 to throw them under the bus because no one likes 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:17.800 being called out on what is ultimately the hypocrisy. 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:18.960 Yeah, no, totally. 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:21.719 Everybody hates that when he checks out. Yeah yeah, when 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.120 you're like, no, you're full of shit, everybody gets mad 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:26.120 at that, even if you're right. 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.280 Yeah, everyone's mad at them. Yeah, because it is that 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:31.199 it's that meme like everyone's mad at Jesus because he 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:34.560 was right, you know, yeah, like that's what's happening here. 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.160 Everyone's like, but the Bolsheviks are clearly bullshit, and everyone's like, no, 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:38.880 there are a guy. I mean, I don't know what 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:40.319 it's like to live in a place where people are like, 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.400 that's our guy, even though they're bad and wrong, and 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:44.400 you're like, what if that just isn't our guy anymore? 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.319 And they're like, how dare you split the party? Yeah? 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:50.440 Thankfully that's nothing like what we have going on, so 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:51.440 we don't have to worry about that. 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:56.240 Yeah, no, No, it's just weird history. So Marnus is 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.280 in the Netherlands. He's getting in and out of jail, 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:01.720 and the word on the s and the Netherlands is 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:03.520 that there might be about to be a civil war 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:06.600 in Germany to stop Hitler from taking power. Right, this 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.760 is like January nineteen thirty three. Hitler's just I guess 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:12.880 this February nineteen thirty three. Hitler's just come to power. 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.520 And everyone's like, oh, we might stop this, right, we 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:19.600 might be able to have a civil war to stop this, 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:24.200 if only there had been, And he's like, well, don't 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.280 have a civil war without me, I'll throw cops through windows. 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:31.400 Not a problem. I'll walk all the way there. And 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:33.520 so he did. I think he hit checked again, but 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:35.040 actually it took him a couple of weeks to get there, 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.760 so maybe he did fucking walk. I don't know. He 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.600 gets to Berlin, it's like mid February nineteen thirty three, 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:46.680 and there's stormtroopers and shit now, and he's like, hey, 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.400 the Nazis are taking over. Should we do something about this? 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:55.720 And he is trying, like his first resort wasn't individual 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:58.560 action at night. His first resort was he went to 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.079 every meeting he could, including a group so he didn't 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:03.760 like all that much, like the communists and the social Democrats, 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:06.880 and he goes to every meeting and he's like, hey, 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:09.959 what if instead of letting the Nazis take over, we 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.360 stop the Nazis from taking over. I've got this wild idea. 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:15.360 You know. He's that other meme, the guy standing up 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.040 being like I have an idea, you know, the unpopular 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:22.040 idea guy. He's trying really hard. He's getting people to 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:23.800 talk about it on the streets. He keeps trying to 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.000 like just like organize everywhere he goes. He's like hey, like, 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.200 and he's going directly the workers. He's like, the parties 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:31.120 aren't stopping it, how do we stop it? You know? 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:34.440 And he's trying to incite riots. He does not successfully 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:39.839 incite them. Nothing is working. On February twenty third, he's 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:42.520 at a Communist Party meeting that is broken up by 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.280 cops and no one even fights back. He's like, wait, 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:49.440 what the fuck is happening. Then on February twenty fourth, 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.520 the Communist Party headquarters is rated. I mentioned this earlier, 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:56.960 and the Communists are still just trying to play nice, 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:01.760 and he's like, we can't fucking nice while the Nazis 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.280 are taking over. That is not an acceptable thing for 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.559 us to do. He can't stand what's happening. He feels 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.000 like has something has to be done. He wanted it 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.160 to be a mass action through the proper channels of 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.960 workers organizations. He's going to even the Social Democrats. That's 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:19.520 not working. So he's like, all right, what about fire. 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:25.080 So on the night of February twenty fifth, this is 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.040 not the Reichstrog fire, it's two days earlier, he goes 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.920 on a sort of failed arson spree. He's trying to 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:34.480 burn down an unemployment office, a castle in the Imperial Palace. 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:37.080 He did this by just kind of walking around and 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:40.240 throwing burning tinder through mail slots. Right, that's why he's 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:42.400 hitting a bunch of places in one night. He's just 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:44.240 like walking all over town being like la la, la 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.280 la la. I'm Johnny fire Seed. 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:50.720 I was just gonna say, the Johnny apple Seed of Arson. Yeah. 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:55.240 Yeah, And none of those buildings burned down. But he's like, 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.480 maybe these actions will spark the working class out of 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:02.960 their lethargy. And he there's where I disagree with him. 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.200 I think this is a miscalculation, and I think it's 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.280 a miscalculation that he had because he's young and he's 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.560 from a different country. The communists and even the Social 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.160 Democrats have been fighting for a decade against fascism in 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:18.040 Germany and they've been steadily losing ground. In my estimation, 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:20.720 and I am not an expert, I don't think this 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.680 was lethargy. I think this was burnout. It was despair 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.040 and it was feeling defeated that I think people were 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:32.080 dealing with. So Marnus is like, well, if at first 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:34.360 you don't burn down an important building to spark a 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:39.400 working class revolt, burn burn again. On February twenty seventh, 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:41.400 he does the thing that puts him into the history books, 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:46.120 just in a bad way. The specifics of this night 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:51.080 are argued about even still one hundred years later, well, 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:55.760 ninety years later, nearly never, Yeah, ninety nine years later, no, 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:57.760 eighty whatever, I can't do math. 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:00.280 I think it's ninety nine balloons, which is a different 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:01.120 reference entirely. 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:03.120 Yeah, it's a bunch of balloons later. 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:04.479 Yeah. 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:08.440 Overall, the popular media version of this story is that 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.080 the Nazis burned down the Reichstag to blame the Communists, 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.000 or at the very least tricked Marnus into doing it. 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:19.080 And then the rough consensus, maybe the majority rather than consensus, 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.800 but the rough majority or consensus of historians is that, no, 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:26.200 this was not a false flag attack. Marnus burned the 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:29.920 Reichstag on his own volition. I'm not going to tell 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:33.040 you that's definitely what happened. That's what I think happened. 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:35.720 I feel fairly certain about that, and I'll tell you 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.680 why I think it. At around nine pm on February 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:43.080 twenty seventh, nineteen thirty three, Marnus broke into the Reichstag. 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:45.280 Basically he was thinking. He was like, all right, this 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:49.800 didn't work last time because I didn't go all in. Literally, 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.160 He's like, I got to go inside these buildings to 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:55.640 set them on fire. Right, He goes in to try 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.040 and make sure the place burns. As soon as he 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.520 breaks in. People see him break in. It's nine it's 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:02.880 not When I first read that this happened at nine pm, 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.320 I was like, do Germans just go to bed really early? 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:10.000 Like what's happening, you know? And then I realized I 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.199 read a different source and I learned more details, and 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.720 I was like, no, they saw him do it. He 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.919 broke in, and he was like, shit, the firefighters are 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:21.760 already coming, the cops are already coming. I better fucking 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.560 burn this place. And so he's running around inside trying 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:27.280 to set shit on fire. And all he has is 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.760 this like coal lighter, and I think that means it 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:33.560 is a lighter for lighting coal, and not a lighter 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:35.480 that works off of coal. But I could not tell 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:37.119 you because I spent a while trying to learn and 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:41.639 I couldn't figure it out. And he goes around. The 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:45.160 kindling he brought isn't catching anything. He starts setting towels 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.600 on fire. He takes off his own shirt and sets 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:51.440 it on fire to try and start this fire, while 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:55.200 the fire department is like outside using his coal and 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:59.400 alzunder his coal fire lighter. He also sets the curtains 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:03.719 on fire. This fire was started in multiple places, and 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:05.920 this is where a lot of the conspiracy stuff comes from. 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.320 Either he moved around quickly, which seems the most likely 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:12.919 thing and the thing that most historians tend to believe 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:16.919 that the curtains that he eventually lit like took a 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:18.960 little while and he's like running around from curtain to 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.119 curtain and setting them on fire around the building. Or 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:27.080 I think this is also perfectly likely. He had accomplices 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.400 and he shut the fuck up and he never mentioned them, 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:31.280 you know. 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:33.360 Yeah, I mean it could be either he goes over 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:35.480 and lights the curtain and it just slowly starts a 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.760 smolder till it goes up it hits that combustion point yep. 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.920 Or yeah, but I mean, considering this guy's strength and 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:44.960 bravado in the past that we've learned about him, him 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:47.959 not breaking and talking about others is also very very 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:51.399 understandable and very believable. Yeah, Well, what's weird is why 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.960 didn't they bring any accelerant? I think they bring like 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:55.320 lighter fluid or something. 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.080 No, I don't know. I think yeah, and actually that 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.320 almost even works. Stwories that like it was just right. 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:02.639 It's because like it's right, and he clearly wasn't like 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.480 the most thought out action that's ever happened, right, Yeah. 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:08.720 It almost sounds like a whim like I'm doing it now, 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:10.480 like if you were, because if you're planning. 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.639 This, ZEPM, let's go yeah kind of. 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:14.119 Because I mean, wouldn't you bring like a can of 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:16.720 zippo or something like whatever the equivalent was. 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:17.800 Yeah, No, I don't know. 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:20.280 Yeah, you might think it's way easier to catch things 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:22.040 on fire if he was just like putting kindling in 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.919 little mail slots, like yeah, maybe he has a different 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:26.400 impression of how fire works. 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:30.159 Yeah, totally. He's just running around with a flint striker, 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:33.840 being like why is that working? It's like a stone palate. 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.119 With the string and he's like spinning it in the 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:37.560 right stock. Yeah. 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.040 The cops are outside because he's like he's burning his 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:43.600 own shirt, right, Like he's willing to burn the shirt 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:44.200 off his back. 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:46.560 That's what I mean. It sounds like it was almost 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:48.480 a whim like I'm just doing it, Like maybe he 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:50.399 just got the moment or got the I don't know, 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:51.240 but it's. 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:55.000 Yeah, yeah. And then there's the least likely thing, which 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:57.080 is that Nazis spies knew he was going to be 0:19:57.119 --> 0:19:59.680 starting this fire, so they also positioned themselves to also 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.639