Nazi book burnings
Nazi book burnings refer to a series of public events that took place in Germany during the summer of 1933, initiated by the Nazi Party as a means of enforcing ideological conformity and suppressing dissent. Following their rise to power, the Nazis sought to eliminate works deemed contrary to their beliefs, particularly those authored by Jews and other marginalized groups. On May 10, 1933, thousands of books—over twenty thousand in total—were gathered and ceremoniously burned in large bonfires across various German cities. This act was framed as a cultural cleansing, with Nazi officials, including Joseph Goebbels, leading the public events and promoting a narrative that denounced Jewish intellectualism.
The book burnings were not just physical acts of destruction; they also symbolized a broader attempt to control thought and limit access to diverse viewpoints in German society. Many prominent intellectuals fled the country out of fear for their safety and the implications of the Nazi ideology. Historians now view these events as a crucial precursor to the more severe atrocities that followed, including the Holocaust, highlighting the destructive power of censorship and the dangers of unchecked political propaganda. The legacy of the Nazi book burnings serves as a reminder of the importance of intellectual freedom and the vigilance required to protect it against similar acts of ideological repression.
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Nazi book burnings
The Nazi book burnings occurred in the early summer of 1933. The Nazi Party came to power after harsh sanctions that resulted from World War I caused a severe economic depression in Germany. The depression allowed a populist leader, Adolf Hitler, to rise to power. Hitler blamed the problems of the German people on Jews, Romanies, and others whom conservative Germans felt were inferior. 
Before the Nazi Party could completely take control of Germany, they had to win over the German people. One of the ways they accomplished this was through propaganda. A major form of propaganda used by the Nazis was book burning. During the book burnings of 1933, Nazi students gathered more than twenty thousand literary, philosophical, and scientific works. Jewish authors wrote many of these works. All of the texts were publicly burned during a large celebration.
The Nazi book burnings limited the access that German people had to opposing viewpoints. This made it difficult to find texts that represented any other ideology, and it was extremely unpopular for anyone to reference such texts in public. The protest also drove many prominent intellectuals out of Germany.
Looking back, historians view the Nazi book burnings as a major warning sign of the future crimes that would occur. It showed that the Nazi Party was blatantly hostile to any other views and willing to destroy any evidence of those views. The event also publicly demonstrated their anti-Semitism.
Background
After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles harshly penalized Germany for its role in the war. Many German people resented these penalties. Some of them formed the German Workers’ Party in 1919. The party promoted German nationalism, an intense pride in the German nation. It also promoted anti-Semitism and expressed an extreme dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Versailles.
Adolf Hitler joined the German Workers’ Party the year it was founded. He was a charismatic speaker and a skilled politician. Hitler used populist politics to rally many people behind him, blaming Germany’s economic struggles on Jews and Marxists. The party quickly renamed itself the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party. Hitler became leader of the Nazi Party just two years after joining.
After taking control of the Nazi Party, Hitler continued to blame Germany’s problems on the Marxists and Jews within the nation. His speeches and his message that Germany’s economy could be improved by expelling minorities from the country caused many young disadvantaged Germans to join the Nazi Party.
Hitler and his followers attempted to stage a coup d’état in Bavaria in 1923. The power grab failed, and Hitler was convicted of treason. After his release from prison, Hitler resumed control of the Nazi Party. As Germany’s economy declined, Hitler and the Nazi Party’s influence grew. In 1932, Nazis were elected to more than a third of the seats in the German parliament. The following year, the Nazi Party seized complete control of the German government.
Once the Nazis had control of the government, they immediately began taking over every part of German society. Undesirable social groups were rounded up and forced into concentration camps, where they were sent to die. Soon afterward, Hitler began invading nearby countries, conquering new land for Germany. When he invaded Poland, Hitler also began a war with France and Great Britain. This sparked the beginning of World War II.
Overview
Hitler’s ideological hold over Germany did not happen through military might. Instead, he utilized propaganda to combat other ideologies. One of his more successful propaganda tools was book burning.
Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, wanted to remove any evidence of other ideologies from Nazi Germany. They also wanted to stop German students from learning anything that would cause them to question Nazi policy. Before Hitler’s rise to power, Germany had been renowned for its scholars. However, the Nazi Party taught the public to associate intellectualism with Jewishness and Jewishness with being anti-German.
On May 10, 1933, young members of the Nazi Party gathered in Berlin. Many were students from prominent universities. They brought more than twenty thousand books that contained ideas the Nazis claimed were contradictory to the ideals of Germany. These included the works of Jewish scientists, such as Albert Einstein. However, the books also included the works of Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, and Bertolt Brecht. All of these books were thrown into a massive bonfire.
Minister Goebbels gave a speech as the intellectual works burned. He declared the era of Jewish intellectualism over, and he said that the German people would be people of character, not books. He argued that burning the books was the students’ way of cleaning up the debris of the past. During the burnings, students took “fire oaths” to the Nazi Party. Nazi storm troopers ensured that no one would interfere with the burnings, and festivities took place after the burnings were complete. Other book burnings occurred in June of that year as well.
The international literary community condemned the book burnings. Authors, thinkers, and teachers were repulsed by the destruction of so many books and the wider implications of the burnings. Public protests took place in major cities across America. Newspapers around the world condemned the act as an attack against intellectual freedom. Many prominent educated individuals—including doctors, artists, and writers—fled Germany. They no longer felt safe expressing views contrary to the Nazi Party’s platform, and they did not want to compromise their integrity by supporting the party.
As the Nazis’ crimes grew more obvious, historians pointed to the book burnings of 1933 as a warning sign of things to come. The act showed that the Nazi Party celebrated the destruction of any ideas contrary to their own. It was also an open display of anti-Semitism, showing the world that they thought the opinions and thoughts of Jewish people should be destroyed. Over time, this progressed to the idea that Jewish people should be destroyed. Those ideas directly led to the Holocaust.
Since the Nazi book burnings, many people have been wary of book burning protests in general. In 2010, Pastor Terry Jones planned to publicly burn two hundred copies of the Qur’an. Many media outlets compared the protest to the Nazi book burnings, noting the protest’s outright hostility to the Islamic faith. Jones called off his planned protest due to public outcry.
Bibliography
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“Book Burning.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2018, www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1933-1938/book-burning. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.
“Book Burnings.” Holocaust Online, 2014, holocaustonline.org/significant-events/book-burning/. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.
“The Burning of Books.” History Place, 2001, www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-bookburn.htm. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.
“80 Years since the Nazi Book Burnings.” The National Library of Israel, 2013, web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/digitallibrary/gallery/Humanities/Pages/book‗burning.aspx. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.
Henley, John. “Book-Burning: Fanning the Flames of Hatred.” Guardian, 10 Sept. 2010, www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/10/book-burning-quran-history-nazis. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.
“Nazi Party.” History.com, 14 Sept. 2018, www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/nazi-party. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.
“1933 Book Burnings.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2018, www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/1933-book-burnings. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.