Book Burning Humboldt Uni Berlin 1933 3

Description

Book burning at University Berlin on May 10, 1933; Photo; Licensed article; Original: 5740×4315; Photographer: Unknown; Licensable; Rights: © Bleek/zb Media. The photos document the book burning at the University Berlin on May 10, 1933, a shocking event of National Socialist cultural policy. Organized by the German Student Union and supported by the NSDAP, thousands of books were publicly burned, including works by Jewish, Marxist, and other authors branded as “un-German” such as Heinrich Heine, Erich Kästner, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and Thomas Mann. This action was part of a larger campaign to ideologically synchronize art, science, and literature in the Nazi state.
Some pictures show Joseph Goebbels, the Third Reich’s Minister of Propaganda. He gave a speech on Berlin’s Opernplatz (today Bebelplatz) that evening, lamenting the “decay of German literature” and portraying the book burning as a symbolic act of “cleansing” the German spirit. The photos show burning book piles, jubilant students, and Nazi officials – a terrifying testimony to the destruction of freedom of expression and intellectual diversity.
The book burning stands today as a monument to the suppression of knowledge and critical thinking by totalitarian regimes. Bebelplatz in Berlin today hosts a memorial by artist Micha Ullman, which commemorates this grim chapter of history.