Marines van der

Marinus van der Lubbe was born in Leiden, 13-01-1909, with learning difficulties and apparently had a fascination with fire. His parents were divorced and, after his mother died when he was 12, he went to live with his half-sister's family. In his youth Van der Lubbe worked as a bricklayer. He was nicknamed Dempsey after the boxer Jack Dempsey, Dempsey died age 87, on 31-05-1983,

    because of his great strength. He made many international walking trips. At his work, van der Lubbe came in contact with the labor movement; in 1925, he joined the Dutch Communist Party, and its youth section the Communist Youth Bund. In 1926, he was injured at work, getting lime in his eyes, which left him in the hospital for a few months and almost blinded him. The injury forced him to quit his work, so he was unemployed with a pension of only 7.44 guilders a week. Not being able to live off this, he was forced to take occasional jobs. After a few conflicts with his sister, van der Lubbe moved to Leiden in 1927. There he learned to speak some German and founded the Lenin house, where he organized political meetings. While working for the Tielmann factory a strike broke out. Van der Lubbe claimed to the management to be one of the ringleaders and offered to accept any punishment as long as no one else was victimized, even though he was clearly too inexperienced to have been seriously involved. During the trial, he tried to claim sole responsibility and was purportedly hostile to the idea of getting off free. Afterwards, van der Lubbe planned to emigrate to the Soviet Union, but he lacked the funds to do so. He was politically active among the unemployed workers' movement until 1931, when he fell into disagreement with the CPH and instead approached the Internationalist Communist Group. In 1933, van der Lubbe fled to Germany to take action in the local communist underground. He had a criminal record for arson. According to the Berlin police, van der Lubbe claimed to have set the Reichstag building on fire as a cry to rally the German workers against fascist rule. Under torture, he confessed again and was brought to trial along with the leaders of the opposition Communist Party. At his trial the drugged van der Lubbe was sentenced to death for the Reichstag fire. The other four defendants Ernst Torgler, died age 69, on 19-01-1963, Georgi Dimitrov, died age 67, on 02-07-1949, Blagoi Popov, died age 66 in 1968 and Vassili Tanev, at the trial were cleared.    

                                                                                                                                       Marinus on the left of mother Petronella. 

Hitler (see Adolf Hitler) (did you know), Hermann Goering (see Goering) (did you know) and Joseph Goebbels (see Goebbels) (did you know) and Martin Bormann (see Bormann)) needed only one communist offender for their planes. 

           He was guillotined in a Leipzig prison yard on 10-01-1934, three days before his 25^th birthday. He is buried on the Südfriedhof, South Cemetery, in Leipzig, Field 8, Row E, but the gravestone is removed a 75 feet and a grave of honor raised close by.