Some of the pictures show Joseph Goebbels, the Third Reich’s Minister of Propaganda. That evening, he gave a speech at Berlin’s Opernplatz (now Bebelplatz) in which he lamented the “decline of German literature” and presented 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 terrifying testimony to the destruction of freedom of expression and intellectual diversity.