- Headline
-
Nazi Bonfires
- Publication Date
- Saturday, April 15, 1933
- Historical Event
-
German Students, Nazis Stage Nationwide Book Burnings
This database includes 930 articles about this event - Article Type
- Newspaper
- Page Section and Number
- 6
- Author/Byline
- --
- Article Text
- THE reports of a nationwide plan in Germany to burn all books and publications by Jewish writers on May 10, tax the power of belief; for Germany is a land of broad culture and intellectual tolerance. Yet the stories are circumstantial and seem well founded and must have some basis. If they are true, they indicate that Nazi anti-Semitism has reached an extraordinary peak of hysteria.
Fortunately there probably is little danger that even a far reaching orgy of incendarism will have any serious effect on the World's stock of literary knowledge. The situation today is not as it was in the ancient circle of civilization when the Alexandrine library went up in flames; or as it was in Mexico and Yucatan when zealots and bigots destroyed every scrap of native writing they could lay their hands on, and all but blotted out the records of a great culture.
Today the printing press and the international scope of publication for nearly all really important works, would defy anything less than an intercontinental conflagration; except with respect to volumes still in manuscript, and it is unlikely that even extreme Nazi destructiveness would reach those.
If bonfires are lighted on May 10, Germany alone will suffer materially, and it will be injured principally by the effect upon its reputation. - History Unfolded Contributor
- Anne R.
- 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.
Download the full newspaper page
See full image on newspapers.com
Newspaper images provided by Newspapers.com
