- Headline
-
Burn 'UnGerman' Books Tonight
- Sub-Headline
- Blacklisted Works to Make Huge Bonfire in Berlin as German Libraries are "purged" of Un-German influences
- Publication Date
- Wednesday, May 10, 1933
- Historical Event
-
German Students, Nazis Stage Nationwide Book Burnings
This database includes 930 articles about this event - Article Type
- Newspaper
- Location
- Page Section and Number
- 2
- 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 public burning to night.
Schoolboys enthusiastically rushed final preparations for the huge bon fires. Nazi student committees of action have been working at top speed more than a week arranging for the great purging of the libraries of "un-German influences."
American Works Included
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 p. m. in Opera Square in Berlin, and Dr. Goebbels, Nazi minister of public enlightment [sic], will speak.
In place of the proscribed volumes, students advised such books as "the crime of Freemasonry" by Dr. Alfred Rosenberg, editor of Hitler's newspaper, the Voelkisher Beobachter and head of the new Nazi foreign division. Among books compulsorily introduced is Chancellor Hitler's "Mein Kampi" (my fight).
Other books being burned are works of Dr. Albert Einstein, Emil Ludwig, Sigmund Freund, Karl Marx, Nikolai Lenine, Leon Trotsky, Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Emil Vandervelde, Bertha Von Suttner and Thomas and Heinrich Mann.
All books of a Socialist, Jewish or Pacifist trend are especially marked for destruction.
To Save Valuable Tomes
As insurance against student zeal doing irreparable harm, a commission of college professors will "separate the wheat from the chaff," preserving valuable and semi-rare tomes. - History Unfolded Contributor
- Karen B.
- Location of Research
- Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)
Learn More about this Historical Event: German Students, Nazis Stage Nationwide Book Burnings
- Book Burning (Encyclopedia Article)
- Immediate American Responses to Nazi Book Burnings (Encyclopedia Article)
- Culture in the Third Reich: Overview (Encyclopedia Article)
- Book Burning (Timeline)
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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