Letter from Berlin Derek ScallyCrowds of tourists gather at the Brandenburg Gate in the chilly, winter gloom. A lone flag flutters in front of the French embassy.
Exactly 75 years ago, on January 30th, 1933, it was quite a different scene after Adolf Hitler assumed the office of Reichschancellor. "Thousands of uniformed Nazis and adherents, delirious with joy, shouted and sang for hours this evening as they thronged the government quarter of Berlin in celebration of their leader's triumph," reported The Irish Times.
As night fell, a torchlit march passed through the Brandenburg Gate, marking the birth of the Third Reich. At the same time, furious communists spilled on to the streets shouting, "Down with the government and death to Hitler". They clashed with Nazi supporters and The Irish Times noted that "several of the Nazis in the procession had freshly bandaged heads".
The symbolic march was restaged a few months later so that the Joseph Goebbels propaganda machine could capture the moment on film - this time without the bandaged heads. Now, three-quarters of a century on, a new round has begun in a long-running debate about how Germans talk about their slide into disaster.
Hitler's rise to power is often described in Germany as the Machtergreifung, meaning a takeover or seizure of power. That was how Der Spiegel magazine termed it last week in its biannual attempt to boost circulation with a Hitler cover story.
In front of the Brandenburg Gate yesterday, there was no shortage of critics of the term. "It's ridiculous how some people still describe it as a Machtergreifung," said Thomas Gerhardt (45). "It's like they still want to pretend the German people had no responsibility: 'We're not guilty, he took power by force.'"
As Hitler's rise to power retreats into history, the academic argument over the term Machtergreifung has become part of the mainstream debate about how Germans today want to frame this infamous event.
This was clear in the critical - and self-critical - letters to Der Spiegel this week.
"Even 75 years on," wrote one reader, "the wrong term is being used. The fact is that [ president Paul von] Hindenburg handed over power to the anti-democrat, Hitler."
Another complained: "Your article does not consider one aspect: the German mentality and slavish need to follow rules . . . once Hitler was in power, all guidelines and 'laws' were obediently followed as a way of legitimising it for one's own conscience."
One of Germany's most eminent historians, Heinrich August Winkler, is critical of the unquestioning use of the term Machterergreifung. "The revolutionary- sounding term is a creation of the National Socialists and only made sense in the period after January 30th, 1933, when Hitler expanded and cemented the legally transferred power," he said. "The transfer of power on January 30th took place within the framework of the Weimar constitution, so that historians prefer to speak of a 'power transfer' rather than 'power seizure'."
Hitler was barely a month in office when the real power grab began, following the infamous Reichstag fire of February 27th.
To this day, historians are bitterly divided over the role of Marinus van der Lubbe, a simple-minded, unemployed bricklayer found inside the building that night who confessed to setting the fire. One camp sees him as the sole perpetrator; the other as a stooge set up by the Nazis. Either way, within hours of the fire, Hitler's cabinet handed him full control of the police, allowing a purge of Nazi political enemies to begin.
Van der Lubbe was put on trial, sentenced to death and executed in January 1934. Now, 74 years later, the German federal prosecutor has overturned the conviction, noting that it was based on laws "created to implement the National Socialist regime [ which] enabled breaches of basic judicial concepts".
In the case of van der Lubbe, the charge of arson could only be punished with a death sentence when an emergency decree was rushed through a day after the blaze and applied retroactively to his case.
The belated justice for the Dutchman came thanks to Berlin lawyer Reinhard Hillebrand and a 1998 law that allows for the dismissal of politically motivated Nazi-era verdicts.
"Nobody else seems to have come to this idea in the last 10 years," said Hillebrand. He points out that the move does not settle the question of van der Lubbe's guilt or innocence.
"Personally, I consider it extremely likely that van der Lubbe really wanted to set fire to the Reichstag," he said. "He was arrested at the scene and said that he wanted to make a statement based on his own [ communist] convictions. On the other hand, there are clear indications that he wouldn't have been able to act alone."