In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

by Erik Larson

On January 9 the primary defendant in the Reichstag trial, Marinus van der Lubbe, received word from the public prosecutor that he was to be beheaded the next day. “Thank you for telling me,” van der Lubbe said. “I shall see you tomorrow.” The executioner wore top hat and tails and, in a particularly fastidious touch, white gloves. He used a guillotine. Van der Lubbe’s execution provided a clear if gory punctuation point to the Reichstag fire saga and thereby quelled a source of turbulence that had roiled Germany since the preceding February. Now anyone who felt the need for an ending could point to an official act of state: van der Lubbe had set the fire, and now van der Lubbe was dead. Dimitrov, still alive, was to be flown to Moscow. The way was clear for the restoration of Germany.