Some images show Joseph Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister of the Third Reich. He gave a speech that evening at the Berlin Opera Square (today Bebelplatz), in which he lamented the “decline of German literature” and portrayed the book burning as a symbolic act of “cleansing” the German spirit. The photos depict piles of burning books, cheering students, and Nazi officials – a horrifying testimony to the destruction of freedom of expression and intellectual diversity.