Bebelplatz in Berlin.

A May night in 1933, the infamous book burnings occurred at the center of Bebelplatz. Today, a window reveals an empty library beneath the square, serving as a memorial to the books lost to the flames.

On the night of May 10th, 1933, Opernplatz (now Bebelplatz) was lit up with hatred. The Sturmabteilung (SA) and Hitlerjugend burned over 20,000 books considered ‘un-German’ while Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels spoke to the 40,000 students there.

Goebbels’ charismatic voice echoed through the square and reached listeners across the airwaves via live radio broadcast:

“No to decadence and moral corruption! Yes to decency and morality in family and state! I consign to the flames the writings of Heinrich Mann, Ernst Gläser, Erich Kästner.”

The book burnings at Opernplatz in 1933.
The book burnings at Opernplatz (Bebelplatz) on May 10, 1933.
Photo by Georg Pahl@Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-14597. CC BY-SA.

A purge of the ‘un-German Spirit’

Just over a month earlier, the Nazi German Student Association’s Main Office for Press and Propaganda (DSt) had announced a national action against the ‘un-German spirit’.

The action was an attack on ‘Jewish intellectualism’ and aimed to ‘purify’ the German language and literature. The students said the ‘action’ was a response to a worldwide Jewish ‘smear campaign’ against Germany.

They targeted the works of socialists like Bertolt Brecht, August Bebel and Karl Marx. Writers who corrupted their idea of a pure National Socialist society were also included in the pool, including Ernest Hemingway.

Jewish writers outnumbered all the others. Franz Werfel, Max Brod and even the poet Heinrich Heine.

The Most Dangerous Jew in Germany

The largest collection of work came from Magnus Hirschfeld’s library.

Hirschfeld was no random person. He co-founded the world’s first LGBT+ rights organization and in 1919 he founded the Institut für Sexualwissenshaft, Institute for Sexual Science.

He studied and defined human gender and sexuality in a new way. He coined terms like ‘transvestite’ and ‘transsexual’ and began early gender confirmation surgeries at his mansion in Tiergarten, where his institute was located.

But he was also gay and Jewish, and his work and lifestyle went against the ‘German spirit’.

Magnus Hirschfeld was proclaimed the ‘most dangerous Jew in Germany’ and on May 6th, 1933, thugs from the SA broke into his mansion and looted his library.

Decades of research on homosexuality and transgender people were also destroyed in the flames on May 10th at Opernplatz.

The looting of the library at Institut für Sexualwissenschaft on May 6th, 1933.
The looting of the library at Institut für Sexualwissenschaft on May 6th, 1933.

Bebelplatz, the Place of the Book Burnings Today

After the fall of the Third Reich, Opernplatz was renamed after August Bebel, a social democrat who also supported gay rights. In 1898, he addressed the German parliament calling for a change to Paragraph 175, the law that made sex between men illegal.

At the center of Bebelplatz, a window reveals an empty library. The vacant shelves symbolize the important works lost forever on that night in May 1933.

The empty library at Bebelplatz, the place of the book burnings in 1933.
The window to the empty library at the center of Bebelplatz where the books went up in smoke.
Photo by Chrissie Sternschnuppe@Flickr. CC BY-SA.

Two identical memorial plaques on each side of the empty library show that the books were burned right there in the middle of the square. The plaques also have a powerful quote from the poet Heinrich Heine, whose works were also targeted:

“THAT WAS JUST A PRELUDE. WHERE YOU BURN BOOKS.
YOU END UP BURNING PEOPLE TOO.”
HEINRICH HEINE, 1820

Memorial plaque at Bebelplatz.
The Heinrich Heine quote at the memorial plaque.
Photo by Chrissie Sternschnuppe@Flickr. CC BY-SA.
Bebelplatz in Berlin.

Where:
Unter den Linden, 10117 Berlin

Family friendly: Yes
Price: Free

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