Some pictures show Joseph Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister of the Third Reich. He delivered 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 to “purify” the German spirit. The photos show burning piles of books, cheering students, and Nazi officials – a chilling testimony of the destruction of freedom of expression and intellectual diversity.