On February 27 1933 the building that housed the German Parliament was set ablaze. The arson was quickly blamed on a communist- the resulting outrage allowed Hitler to do away with democracy in Germany and seize complete power. The burning of the Reichstag was a key moment in world history- it was just the final small event in a long series of small events that allowed fascism to completely envelop Germany. The communist that the arson was pinned on was almost certainly innocent of the crime. Witnesses testified that a full decade after the fire Hitler’s right hand man, Hermann Goring, claimed that he set the fire himself.

By setting the fire themselves, and directing the blame to their political rivals, the Nazis were able to quickly gain public support for their coup… and the rest is tragic, horrific, and bloody history.

The American fascists hoped to stage their own Reichstag moment on the 6th of January- they stormed the capitol to put an end to the congress, to do away with our democracy and install Trump as their leader. They later sought to pin the blame for the violence and destruction on anti-fa, but the charade was doomed to fail. They had announced their intentions on social media WEEKS before they executed their crime, they filmed themselves doing it, they made no effort to hide their identities.

If only the Nazis had been so incompetent, so comically inept- millions would not have been murdered, the Nazi party would only be remembered as a silly little footnote in history.
While we can find some relief that OUR fascists were bumbling fools, we need to remember that next time we will not be so lucky…