When people hear "King of Beers" they think of Budweiser.
And when "King of Rock 'n' Roll" is mentioned, Elvis Presley comes to mind.
But when somebody talks about the "King of False Flag Operations," ten to one they're referring to the Reichstag Fire.
In 1933--just a week before general elections that might place enough Nazis in office to make Hitler defacto dictator--the Reichstag, which housed the parliament of the German Empire, was set on fire.
It wasn't a wastebasket variety fire, either; by the time the firemen and police arrived, that thing was a smoking hugeonic conflagration.
Fear Mongering Nazis Der Fuhrer of the Nazi party, Adolf Hitler, assured everyone that Communist terrorists started the fire.
Hitler's partner in villainy, Hermann Göring, said he had secret evidence that would soon be made public--evidence that proved Communists did it.
These proclamations came on top of weeks of Nazi-organized street violence designed to whip the public into a pathological fear of communists.
The next day, the Nazis convinced a senile President von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Decree.
The decree, using defense against terrorism as an excuse, suspended just about every major civil liberty set forth in the Weimar Constitution: habeas corpus (the right to know why you're being put in jail)? Gone.
Freedom of opinion? Gone.
Freedom of the press? Not any more.
Freedom to organize and assemble? You gotta be outta your Commie-paranoid skull--without a doubt, gone.
The Reichstag decree even allowed the government to spy on it's own citizens' personal mail and telephone conversations without a warrant...
something most Americans today could hardly begin to fathom (at least before President George W.
Bush signed a secret order in 2002 ordering the National Security Agency to do just exactly the same thing.
) The Slippery Slope to Fascist Dictatorship So, after scaring the bejeezus out of the masses with dramatic warnings of impending attacks from Communist terrorist bogeymen, the Nazis were elected by German citizens convinced that trading in their constitutional rights was necessary for the Nazis to protect them.
Once elected, the Nazis wasted no time beginning the slide to dictatorship.
Less than a month later they passed the Patriot Act--oops, I'm sorry, the Nazis called their legislation the Enabling Act.
Regardless the title, the law allowed Hitler and his cabinet to enact legislation without the consent of parliament.
Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels wrote: "Now it will be easy to carry on the fight, for we can call on all the resources of the State.
Radio and press are at our disposal.
We shall stage a masterpiece of propaganda.
" And they did.
But What About the Fire? The only thing historians seem to agree on is that Marinus van der Lubbe, a former Dutch Communist and mentally disturbed arsonist hungry for fame, was found inside the building.
Despite the Nazi attempt to blame the fire on a group of Communists, the Communists were later acquitted by the Nazi government itself.
After years of extensive investigation, most historians believe the Hitlerites themselves set fire to the Reichstag using van der Lubbe as their patsy--they knew a nut was going to try to burn down the building, and not only did they let him do it, but they may have befriended him, encouraged him, and even helped the blaze spread by scattering gasoline and incendiaries.
Most Germans, feeling safe from terrorism again, didn't mind that their freedom and liberty had been stolen, or that so much of their life and work had become so strictly controlled.
On the contrary, they felt very enthusiastic and patriotic about the new government because they ignorantly believed the new government cared about them.
And as long as the average citizen worked hard, kept his mouth shut, and let his kids take part in the Hitler Youth organization, he stayed out of the detention camps.
But, from an outsider's point of view, German citizens were clearly content frogs in a slow-heated cauldron of boiling water.
By the time the detention camp populations grew from thousands to millions, the Nazi cancer was terminal.
And that's how a false flag operation handed one nation to a really neat guy...
a celibate vegetarian who neither smoked nor drank...
who liked cars and planes, eating out, watching films...
a charming man who was kind to animals, and sickened by the sight of blood...
an insomniac who liked Schubert, Beethoven, and Wagner...
a guy who pretended to listen to advice, then always made his own decisions.
That's how it happened.
And when "King of Rock 'n' Roll" is mentioned, Elvis Presley comes to mind.
But when somebody talks about the "King of False Flag Operations," ten to one they're referring to the Reichstag Fire.
In 1933--just a week before general elections that might place enough Nazis in office to make Hitler defacto dictator--the Reichstag, which housed the parliament of the German Empire, was set on fire.
It wasn't a wastebasket variety fire, either; by the time the firemen and police arrived, that thing was a smoking hugeonic conflagration.
Fear Mongering Nazis Der Fuhrer of the Nazi party, Adolf Hitler, assured everyone that Communist terrorists started the fire.
Hitler's partner in villainy, Hermann Göring, said he had secret evidence that would soon be made public--evidence that proved Communists did it.
These proclamations came on top of weeks of Nazi-organized street violence designed to whip the public into a pathological fear of communists.
The next day, the Nazis convinced a senile President von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Decree.
The decree, using defense against terrorism as an excuse, suspended just about every major civil liberty set forth in the Weimar Constitution: habeas corpus (the right to know why you're being put in jail)? Gone.
Freedom of opinion? Gone.
Freedom of the press? Not any more.
Freedom to organize and assemble? You gotta be outta your Commie-paranoid skull--without a doubt, gone.
The Reichstag decree even allowed the government to spy on it's own citizens' personal mail and telephone conversations without a warrant...
something most Americans today could hardly begin to fathom (at least before President George W.
Bush signed a secret order in 2002 ordering the National Security Agency to do just exactly the same thing.
) The Slippery Slope to Fascist Dictatorship So, after scaring the bejeezus out of the masses with dramatic warnings of impending attacks from Communist terrorist bogeymen, the Nazis were elected by German citizens convinced that trading in their constitutional rights was necessary for the Nazis to protect them.
Once elected, the Nazis wasted no time beginning the slide to dictatorship.
Less than a month later they passed the Patriot Act--oops, I'm sorry, the Nazis called their legislation the Enabling Act.
Regardless the title, the law allowed Hitler and his cabinet to enact legislation without the consent of parliament.
Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels wrote: "Now it will be easy to carry on the fight, for we can call on all the resources of the State.
Radio and press are at our disposal.
We shall stage a masterpiece of propaganda.
" And they did.
But What About the Fire? The only thing historians seem to agree on is that Marinus van der Lubbe, a former Dutch Communist and mentally disturbed arsonist hungry for fame, was found inside the building.
Despite the Nazi attempt to blame the fire on a group of Communists, the Communists were later acquitted by the Nazi government itself.
After years of extensive investigation, most historians believe the Hitlerites themselves set fire to the Reichstag using van der Lubbe as their patsy--they knew a nut was going to try to burn down the building, and not only did they let him do it, but they may have befriended him, encouraged him, and even helped the blaze spread by scattering gasoline and incendiaries.
Most Germans, feeling safe from terrorism again, didn't mind that their freedom and liberty had been stolen, or that so much of their life and work had become so strictly controlled.
On the contrary, they felt very enthusiastic and patriotic about the new government because they ignorantly believed the new government cared about them.
And as long as the average citizen worked hard, kept his mouth shut, and let his kids take part in the Hitler Youth organization, he stayed out of the detention camps.
But, from an outsider's point of view, German citizens were clearly content frogs in a slow-heated cauldron of boiling water.
By the time the detention camp populations grew from thousands to millions, the Nazi cancer was terminal.
And that's how a false flag operation handed one nation to a really neat guy...
a celibate vegetarian who neither smoked nor drank...
who liked cars and planes, eating out, watching films...
a charming man who was kind to animals, and sickened by the sight of blood...
an insomniac who liked Schubert, Beethoven, and Wagner...
a guy who pretended to listen to advice, then always made his own decisions.
That's how it happened.