Reichstag building In World War II The building caught fire on 27 February 1933, under circumstances still not entirely known . This gave a pretext for the Nazis to suspend most rights provided for by the 1919 Weimar Constitution in the Reichstag Fire Decree in an effort to weed out communists and increase state security throughout Germany. During the 12 years of National Socialist rule, the Reichstag building was not used for parliamentary sessions. Instead, the few times that the Reichstag convened at all, it did so in the Kroll Opera House , opposite the Reichstag building. This applies particularly to the session of 23 March 1933, in which the Reichstag disposed of its powers in favour of the Nazi government in the Enabling Act , another step in the so called Gleichschaltung ("coordination"). The main meeting hall of the building (which was unusable after the fire) was instead used for propaganda presentations and, during World War II ,
