Book burning Berlin University on May 10, 1933. The photos document the book burning at the University of Berlin on May 10, 1933, a shocking event of Nazi 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 labeled as “un-German” such as Heinrich Heine, Erich Kästner, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and Thomas Mann. This action was part of a larger campaign for the ideological alignment of art, science, and literature in the Nazi state.