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27 February 1933

Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was arrested and charged with setting the Reichstag building on fire. Days later in the election 44 per cent of the population voted for the Nazis, who won 288 seats in the Reichstag – still not an overall majority. Hitler had to join with the nationalists to form a majority.

This enabled him to imprison many communist leaders, which stopped them campaigning during the election. Although the Nazis did not gain the overall majority that Hitler had hoped for in the Reichstag, it gave them enough seats - after Hitler had arrested all the communist deputies and the other parties had been intimidated by the SA - to pass the Enabling Act.