Literature

1
Literature

• Burning of the books During the Reign of Hitler

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Intro

• In the 1930s and 40s, Hitler decided on the idea
  that any books that were thought to not
  correspond with the beliefs of the Nazis were
  considered immoral and corrupt.
• When books are ordered to be collected by the
  authorities and disposed of, it may not be just
  the burning of books, but the destruction of
  cultural and intellectual heritage.

3

• Students carrying banners toured the streets,
  libraries, synagogues, and private homes. Works
  of philosophers, rationalists, poets, and
  internationally acclaimed authors, which had
  until then been part of universal studies, were
  thrown into the flames.

4
Destroying History

• May 10, 1933, German university students launched
  an "Action Against the Un-German Spirit
• Albert Einstein, Harvelock Ellis, Lion
  Feuchtwanger, Sigmund Freud, André Gide, Franz
  Kafka, Erich Kästner, Hellen Keller, Alfred Kerr,
  Jack London, Heinrich Mann, Thomas Mann, Karl
  Marx, Hugo Preuss, Marcel Proust

5

• Walter Rathenau, Erich Maria Remarque, Margaret
  Sanger, Arthur Schnitzler, Upton Sinclair, Jakob
  Wasserman, H. G. Wells, Stefan Zweig, and Emile
  Zola.
• These are just a few of the authors that had
  their books burned and destroyed.

6

• This is a speech given to the participants during
  the book burning by Reich Minister Dr. Goebbels
• "My fellow students, German men and women, the
  era of exaggerated Jewish intellectualism is now
  at an end. The triumph of the German revolution
  has cleared a path for the German way and the
  future German man will not just be a man of
  books, but also a man of character and it is to
  this end we want to educate you.

7

• To have at an early age the courage to peer
  directly into the pitiless eyes of life. To
  repudiate the fear of death in order to gain
  again the respect for death. That is the mission
  of the young and therefore you do well at this
  late hour to entrust to the flames the
  intellectual garbage of the past.

8

• It is a strong, great and symbolic undertaking,
  an undertaking, which shall prove to all the
  world that the intellectual basis of the November
  Republic is here overturned but that from its
  ruins will arise victorious the lord of a new
  spirit." (The Opernplatz in Berlin)

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H.G Wells

• The 1930's found H.G. greatly disturbed by the
  growing commotion of Nietzschean nationalism from
  Nazi Germany and dictatorship in Italy. His
  significant writings on the aggressive "Krupp cum
  Kaiser" Imperial Germany joined with his outright
  vicious attacks on Adolf Hitler and his
  accomplices earned H.G. Wells the distinction of
  having his "anti-German" books burned by Goebbels
  during the book bonfires at German universities.

10
Fahrenheit 451

• Fahrenheit 451 is a science fiction novel by Ray
  Bradbury that was published in 1953. The book is
  a good example of The book burning that took
  place in Berlin. The book is about a world that
  is not open for change, and whose government has
  ordered all books to be burned. In the book,
  there are fire fighters committed to only
  starting fires and burning books. Anyone caught
  with books would be immediately taken to jail. In
  some ways, the book is similar to what actually
  took place.

11
Bibliography

• Found during computer lad, library or home.
• www.ushmm.org
• www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org
• www.wikipedia.org
• Where they have burned books, they will end in
  burning human beings." (German "Dort, wo man
  Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch
  Menschen.")Heinrich Heine, from his play
  Almansor (1821)