Reichstag fire case. Psychological expertise of reliability of testimony in Germany

Abstract

The scientific discussion that has been going on in recent decades about the possibility and admissibility of examination of the reliability of testimony demands the study of some leading foreign countries experience, where such examination has long become a fact of practical jurisprudence. The goal of the study is to analyse the theoretical insights of German scientists and experts into the most resonant facts from the perspective of modern psychological expertise. The object of the study is the case of the Reichstag fire, 1933. Marinus van der Lubbe, a worker from the Dutch Leiden, was accused of setting the Reichstag on fire and then sentenced to death. In 2007 the law on “Abolition of unjust judgments of the national socialist regime” (1998) granted a pardon to van der Lubbe without revision au fond. To this day, there are disputes about the involvement of van der Lubbe in organizing the arson and his guilt. The German psychologist Hartmut Böhm made an attempt to evaluate van der Lubbe’s testimony from the perspective of modern psychology and forensic psychological examination of the reliability of testimony. The article briefly outlines some results of this attempt to give a general idea of the logic of the developed and recognized tools applied.