I’m always troubled when politicians or commentators attempt to link the authoritarianism of the Trump administration to 1930s Germany. The years that led to the Holocaust were unique in modern history, a systematic plan imposed by Hitler’s government to identify, persecute, segregate, impoverish, expunge and ultimately annihilate an entire group of people based on underlying racial laws.

There are however, specific and isolated events during that period that can warn us today. One such occurred in Berlin, exactly 92 years ago: the Reichstag fire of Feb. 27, 1933.

The fire served as a convenient crisis for Hitler’s government to declare a state of emergency and begin dismantling what had been a constitutional democracy. And similar events have been frequently replicated in the authoritarian playbook.

Almost a month after Hitler was installed as chancellor, an arson attack engulfed the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament. Firefighters and police found and arrested Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch communist. That night, Hermann Goring told Hitler, “This is a communist outrage!” Hitler called the fire a “sign from God.” The head of the Berlin fire department later presented........

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