Van der Lubbe confessed and claimed to have acted alone and have set the Reichstag building afire in an attempt to rally German workers against fascist rule.

After World War II, attempts were made by his brother, Jan van der Lubbe, to have the original verdict reversed.

However, on 6 December 2007 the public prosecutor general Monika Harms nullified the entire verdict and posthumously pardoned van der Lubbe.

Historians disagree as to whether van der Lubbe acted alone, as he said, to protest the condition of the German working class, or was involved in a larger conspiracy.

Responsibility for the Reichstag fire remains an ongoing topic of debate and research in modern historical scholarship.

[8] According to Ian Kershaw, writing in 1998, the consensus of nearly all contemporary historians is that van der Lubbe had in fact set the Reichstag afire.

[9][needs update] Lex van der Lubbe is the colloquial term for the Nazi law concerning the imposition and execution of the death penalty, passed on 29 March 1933.

The name comes from the fact that the law formed the legal basis for the imposition of the death penalty against van der Lubbe.

The Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February 1933 included a list of crimes for which the death penalty was to be imposed instead of a life sentence, as was previously the case.

The toxicology report showed no evidence that van der Lubbe had been administered drugs, although it was noted that due to decomposition it is impossible to scientifically prove one way or the other and that the question remains open.