10 Key Features of Conspiracy Theories

On p 117 of his book The Hitler Conspiracies Richard J Evans says

Attempts to prove that the Nazis started the [Reichstag] fire display many key features of event conspiracy theories: 

1. The assumption that because an incident or occurrence was of enormous political importance it must have been planned in advance.
2. The claim that witnesses to the event have mysteriously disappeared or been murdered so that they are no longer able to tell the truth about it.
3. The belief that the people who benefit from an event must have caused it.
4. The feeling that to make the claim that a tragic or criminal event was more or less a matter of chance somehow excuses or exculpates the perpetrators (or, again, those who benefit from it).
5. The refusal to accept that a major historical event may have been triggered by a lone, obscure individual and not an organized group.
6. The involvement of occult forces of some kind.
7. The forgery of documentary evidence in the conviction that it is allowable because the forger knows what really happened and is justified in creating the proof for his view in a situation where other, decisive proofs are for whatever reason not available.
8. Also p 133 The missing correspondence, if it emerged, would most likely reveal the truth. But unfortunately no such correspondence has turned up. Speculation of this kind can be found in many other conspiracy theorists' writings.
9. And p 134 As an alternative to claiming the truth is buried in missing documents, conspiracy theorists also frequently cite genuine sources then accord them a weight far beyond what they will actually bear. They join the dots between authentic pieces of historical evidence to create a picture that isn't in the least plausible.
10. And p 150 The involvement of the ex-King Edward VIII is another characteristic example of the tendency of some conspiracy theorists to try to arouse interest in their work by involving famous people.