At a
luncheon on the birthday of Hitler in 1942 the conversation turned
to the topic of the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I
heard with my own ears when Goering 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 - Franz Halder
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. - Herman
Goering
Evidence
on the Reichstag Fire given at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial in
1946.
