Benn Zimmerlin, Alsatian Jew, was sentenced to one year imprisonment by a Berlin court. He is alleged to have said that the Nazis themselves set fire to the Reichstag building.
Charges that the Nazi leaders set fire to the Reichstag building in order to discredit the German Communists were made openly at the London mock trial held before the opening of the trial of the Communists accused of the crime in Berlin.
Even the five judges trying the case took cognizance of the charges and devoted several sessions to disprove the accusations contained in the “Brown Book of the Hitler Terror”, which charges that the Reichstag was set on fire by Nazi incendiaries, who entered the building through the residence of General Goering, at that time Speaker of the Reichstag, and whose official residence is connected with the Reichstag by a secret passage.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
