Marinus van der Lubbe

Dutch labourer, radical activist and communist.

Marinus van der Lubbe was the youngest of the five children of the maiden Petronella van Handel (5 November 1870 5 AM, Gemert - 17 June 1921, Den Bosch). His mother, who had already four living children from her earlier marriage to Johannes Peute (27 December 1851, Zierikzee - 18 June 1919, Utrecht) , married his father, the hawker Franciscus Cornelis van der Lubbe (31 October 1863 11 AM, Den Haag - 1933, Leiden) on 1 June 1904. The family moved a lot because of debts and impossibility to pay the rents. In 1914 his father left the family. They now were extremely poor. After the death of his mother, he was only 12, he lived with the Christian half sister of his mother, the family Peute in Oegstgeest.

Marinus became a stonemason after finishing the primary school with poor results and was called "Dempsey" after the boxer Jack Dempsey, because of his great strength. Via his work he came in contact with the labour movement. In 1925 he joined the youth section of the Dutch Communist Party (CPN).

In 1925 and 1927 he got alkaline lime dust in his eyes at work, that lastly blinded him for 75%. In 1927 he spent in hospital for months and definitely lost his job. He lived his life in poverty with an invalid pension of only 7.44 guilders a week. He went to Leiden in 1927, got politically involved and was arrested twice: Because of resistance against the police during a demonstration and throwing a brick-stone at the "Maatschappelijk Hulpbetoon" (now Social Affairs). He needed more money to get along. Van der Lubbe preferred to work to earn his money, but he was also very sensitive to social injustice. He wanted to sacrifice himself for this. During a strike, while working for the Tielmann factory, he took the sole responsibility for it. And for the Reichstag fire he also took full responsibility, though many other agitators played a role in it.

In April 1931 he left the Communist Party.