Reichstagsgebäude (The Reichstag) : Berlin
World War II
After Adolf Hitler had been appointed Reichskanzler on January 30, 1933, the building was set on fire on February 27, 1933, under circumstances not yet entirely clear (see Reichstag fire). This proved to be a valuable excuse for the Nazis to suspend most Human Rights provided for by the 1919 constitution in the Reichstag Fire Decree.
Contrary to popular belief, during the 12 years of the Third Reich, the Reichstag building was not used for parliamentary sessions at all. Instead, the few times where the Reichstag convened at all, it did so in the Kroll Oper building, a former opera opposite the Reichstag building. This applies as well to the session of March 23, 1933, in which the Reichstag disposed of its powers in favor of the Nazi government in the Enabling Act another step of the so-called Gleichschaltung, the legal steps through which the Nazis seized power. The building (which was unusable after the fire anyway) was instead used for propaganda presentations and, during World War II, for military purposes. It was also considered to be turned into a Flak Tower, due to its general similarity, but was not found to be structurally suitable.
The building was further damaged by air raids. During the Battle of Berlin in 1945, it became the central target for the Red Army for reasons not entirely clear, since it served no political, military, or strategic purpose at all. In fact, the Nazis had mostly ignored the building. The famous photo of the Soviets hoisting their Red Flag on one of the towers of the building on May 2, 1945, is a fake, in the sense that it was staged a few days after the soldiers actually entered the building.
