The Burning of the Books
(May 10, 1933)
| Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. |
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—Heinrich Heine
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In May 1933, the Nazi Party decreed that any book, “which acts subversively on our future or strikes at the root of German thought, the German home and the driving forces of our people...” was to be burnt.
On May 10, German students carrying banners toured the streets, rifling libraries, synagogues, and private homes burned tens of thousands of books nationwide. Works of philosophers, rationalists, poets, and internationally acclaimed authors, which had until then formed part of universal studies, were thrown into the flames. These book burnings marked the beginning of a period of extensive censorship and control of culture in Adolf Hitler’s escalating reign of terror.
Some of the authors targeted in the book burning campaign are listed below.
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Albert Einstein Harvelock Ellis Lion Feuchtwanger Sigmund Freud André Gide Franz Kafka Erich Kästner Hellen Keller |
Alfred Kerr Jack London Heinrich Mann Thomas Mann Karl Marx Hugo Preuss Marcel Proust Walter Rathenau |
Erich Maria Remarque Margaret Sanger Arthur Schnitzler Upton Sinclair Jakob Wasserman H. G. Wells Stefan Zweig Emile Zola |
Source: Holocaust Memorial Center
© 1998 Holocaust Memorial Center, [email protected]
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