Today's Broadcast

Topic: Where books are burned

Back on this date in 1933, under orders from Chancellor Adolf Hitler, university students (first in Berlin, then throughout Germany) collected books from the libraries and other collections—stole them, really—that were considered un-German. On May 10th (and on the days following throughout the fatherland) thousands of books were thrown onto bonfires. In front of the German state opera house in Berlin, the burning of the books was accompanied by a speech by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

That night, Goebbels spoke "against class conflict and materialism . . . against decadence and moral decay . . . against a rascally attitude and political betrayal . . . against soul-fraying overestimation of the instinctual life . . . against Jewish-democratic influenced journalism alien to our people . . . against literary betrayal of the soldiers of the world war . . . against condescending debasement of the German language . . ." and "against cheek and arrogance." He praised "discipline and propriety in family and state, dedication to Volk and state," and "the aristocracy of the human soul"; he tossed in books while speaking of "respect for our German past, responsible collaboration in the work of national reconstruction, education of the people in the spirit of truthfulness," and "for care of [our language], the most precious property of our people"; finally, he destroyed literature while honoring "respect and reverence for the immortal German volk-spirit."

We'll close with words from Heinrich Heine, the 18th century poet whose books were consigned to the fires that day: "Where books are burned," prophesied Heine a century earlier, "in the end people are also burned."

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