Headline

Blacklisted Books To Be Burned In Germany

Sub-Headline
Preparations Made For Huge Bonfires Tonight -- Nazi Official To Speak
Publication Date
Wednesday, May 10, 1933
Historical Event
German Students, Nazis Stage Nationwide Book Burnings
This database includes 930 articles about this event
Tags
Gannett full page downloadable
Early Acts of Persecution
Article Type
News Article
Newspaper
Daily Advertiser
Location
Lafayette, Louisiana
Page Section and Number
1
Author/Byline
AP
Article Text
BERLIN, May 10. (AP)—Blacklisted books from private as well as public libraries were piled high today on "Kultur's altars" throughout Germany for burning tonight.

Schoolboys enthusiastically rushed final preparations for the huge bonfires. Nazi student committees of action have been working at top speed more than a week arranging for the great purging of the libraries of "unGerman [sic] influences."

Government recognition is to be lent to the occasion In a rallying speechc [sic] shortly before midnight by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Nazi minister of public enlightenment.

Works of many American authors—Helen Keller, Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Ben Lindsey, Franz Boaz, Morris Hillquit and others— are among the proscribed volumes.

Some 20,000 books are collected for the big fire to be set off at 11 D. m. in Oiera [sic] Square in Berlin, and Dr, Goebbels will speak.

In place of the prescribed volumes, students advised such books as "The Crime of Freemasonry" by Dr. Alfred Rosenberg, editor of Hitlers newspaper, the Voelkisher Beobachter and head of the new Nazi foreign division. Among books compulsorily introduced is Chancellor Hitler's "Mein Kampf" (My Fight). There must be two to ten copies in each library.

Other books being burned are works of Dr. Albert Einstein, Emil Ludwig, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx. Nikolai Lenine, Leon Trotsky, Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Emil Vandervelde, Bertha Von Suttner and Thomas and Heinrich Mann. A priceless collection of medical books from Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute were seized but may be saved.

All books of a Socialistic, Jewish or Pacifist trend are especially marked for destruction.
History Unfolded Contributor
Patricia P.
Location of Research
Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)

Learn More about this Historical Event: German Students, Nazis Stage Nationwide Book Burnings

Bibliography

Birchall, Frederick T. “Burning of the Books, May 10, 1933.” In National Socialist Germany: Twelve Years that Shook the World, edited by Louis L. Snyder, 101–104. Malabor, FL: Krieger, 1984.

Stern, Guy. “The Burning of the Books in Nazi Germany, 1933: The American Response.” (external link) Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 2, (1985): 95–114.

Stern, Guy. Nazi Book Burning and the American Response: Distinguished Lecture. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University, 1991.

United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Nazi Book Burnings and the American Response. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 1988.

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