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 Book Burning Memorial - Berlin, Germany
N 52° 30.983 E 013° 23.567
33U E 390941 N 5819689
A memorial advocating freedom of expression and remembering the burning of 20,000 books by German Nazis in 1933.
Waymark Code: WMTAYR
Location: Berlin, Germany
Date Posted: 10/25/2016
Views: 26
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This memorial defies being put in a certain category - as did the brutal act that happened here in 1933.
We were not sure in which category we should put this, but we wanted to give it more recognition than just a Wikipedia-Entry. And since the freedom of expression and the freedom of information - including the rights to write anything you want and to read anything you want - are inalienable civil rights, we think it fits the spirit of this category.
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On May 10, 1933, nationalist students - under the cheers of 70,000 onlookers - burned as many as 20,000 books in front of the former Royal Prussian Library on Opera Square in Berlin.
The well organized and orchestrated Book burnings took place simultaneously in 22 German cities, but the one most widely published and hence best known to the world was the Book Burning in the German capital Berlin.
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The books burned were considered "subversive" or representing ideologies opposed to Nazism. Most of the authors targeted were German or German-Jewish (Like Bertolt Brecht, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Heinrich Heine, Franz Kafka, Heinrich Mann, Karl Marx, Carl von Ossietzky, Bertha von Suttner, Kurt Tucholsky and Arnold Zweig), but the list also included renowned international artists like Victor Hugo, Romain Rolland, Ernest Hemingway, H.G. Wells, Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Fyodor Dostoyevsky or Maxim Gorki.
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 August-Bebel-Square, former Opera Square, today |
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 Plaque
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Today, a plaque marks the place. It is quoting the prophetic words of famous German poet Heinrich Heine from 1820:
That was only a prelude,
there where they burn books,
they burn in the end people.
Since 1995, the place is also the location of Berlin's best hidden monument.
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In 1995, Israeli sculptor Micha Ullman created a rather unique monument. All one can see from the outside is a piece of glass at the location of the atrocity. Looking down through the glass, one finds empty book shelves - many of them. Is is an empty library with room for 20,000 books - the number of books burned by the Nazis at this place.
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When we visited the monument, the sun was not in our favor and the ugly fence of a construction site obstructed the view. Our pictures didn't turn out as good as we hoped. That's why we borrowed three pictures (above center and the two below) from Wikipedia to paint a better picture of this remarkable place. All other pictures are our own.
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The burning of books is always a bashful act violating human and civil rights. Our own recent history (like the burning of the books of Wilhelm Reich by the US FDA in 1956) serve as a painful reminder that Heinrich Heines words are still prevailing today:
There where they burn books,
they burn in the end people.
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Civil Right Type: Class Equality
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Visit Instructions:
You must have visited the site in person, not online.
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