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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that believes the lessons of the past can

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Speaker 1: guide those in the present toward a better future. I'm

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Speaker 1: Gay Bluesier and today we're talking about a dark day

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Speaker 1: in German history when dozens of towns across the country

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Speaker 1: were lit by the light of burning books. The day

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Speaker 1: was May ten, thirty three. More than twenty five thousand

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Speaker 1: books were destroyed during a series of book burnings held

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Speaker 1: in college towns throughout Germany. Students from sixty two institutions

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Speaker 1: of higher learning participated in the bonfires. The events were

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Speaker 1: staged as part of an ongoing effort to force German

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Speaker 1: arts and culture into agreement with the Nazi Party. All

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Speaker 1: of the books put to flame that evening had been

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Speaker 1: targeted for their supposedly un German spirit. This included works

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Speaker 1: of Jewish authors such as Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein,

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Speaker 1: as well as American authors like Jack London Upton Sinclair,

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Speaker 1: Ernest Hemingway, and Helen Keller. The students who burned these

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Speaker 1: books believed they were helping to purge their country of

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Speaker 1: a corrupting foreign influence. In reality, they were showing the

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Speaker 1: world what the Nazi regime truly stood for, an action

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Speaker 1: that would later prove to be self defeating. It might

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Speaker 1: come as a surprise to some to hear that massive

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Speaker 1: public book burnings were instigated by university students rather than

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Speaker 1: by officials of the Nazi Party, but of course the

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Speaker 1: party's rhetoric had been designed to incite this kind of

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Speaker 1: cultural violence. In the early nineteen thirties, as the Nazi

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Speaker 1: Party continued to grow its military strength, it also worked

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Speaker 1: to make Nazi ideas more appealing to the masses. Key

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Speaker 1: to this task was Yosef Goebbels, the head of the

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Speaker 1: Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. Under his supervision, the

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Speaker 1: Ministry established broad cultural control over the German people, dictating

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Speaker 1: what the national press said, in which books and films

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Speaker 1: were allowed to circulate. The ministry also established the Hitler Youth,

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Speaker 1: an indoctrination program that all Aryan children in Germany over

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Speaker 1: the age of six were required to join. All of

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Speaker 1: these efforts aided the Nazi regime by creating a culture

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Speaker 1: of fear and exclusion, one that many people had been

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Speaker 1: groomed to accept at a young age and then willingly

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Speaker 1: embraced by the time they went to college. The book

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Speaker 1: burnings of May tenth took place in thirty four different

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Speaker 1: university towns, but the evening's largest and best documented bonfire

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Speaker 1: was on Opera Square in Berlin, the site directly between

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Speaker 1: the city's opera House and university. At this intersection of

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Speaker 1: art and education, students prepared to burn a collection of

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Speaker 1: blacklisted books, most of which they had looted from bookstores

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Speaker 1: and libraries. At the center of the square, they erected

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Speaker 1: a five foot high wooden pire around a granite slab

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Speaker 1: and then soaked the logs with gasoline. By the time

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Speaker 1: of the ceremony that evening, a crowd of about forty

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Speaker 1: thousand people had gathered in the rain to watch. They

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Speaker 1: were joined by five thousand torch bearing students, who marched

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Speaker 1: into the square singing Nazi anthems as a live band

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Speaker 1: played along. Once the fire was lit, students made their

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Speaker 1: way to a podium. One by one. Each recited a

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Speaker 1: short fire oath into the microphone, explaining which offending author

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Speaker 1: they had chosen to consign to the flames and why.

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Speaker 1: Then they hurled their chosen book into the fire. Below

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Speaker 1: and yielded the stage to the next student. The hours

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Speaker 1: long event had been organized primarily by local students, both

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Speaker 1: men and women alike, but several professors also helped with

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Speaker 1: the planning, as did Nazi Party officials. When the students

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Speaker 1: contacted Goebel's to be guest speaker at the burning, he

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Speaker 1: was thrilled to see the seeds of his efforts bear

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Speaker 1: such barbaric fruit. Stepping up to the swastika draped podium

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Speaker 1: in Berlin's Opera Square, the Minister of Propaganda declared that quote,

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Speaker 1: the era of morbid Jewish intellectualism is now at an end.

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Speaker 1: The future German Man will not just be a man

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Speaker 1: of books, but a man of character. It is to

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Speaker 1: this end that we want to educate you, and thus

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Speaker 1: you do well in this midnight hour to commit to

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Speaker 1: the flames the evil spirit of the past. The fiery

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Speaker 1: speech wasn't directed only at those in attendance. In helping

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Speaker 1: coordinate the event, the Nazi Party ensured it would receive

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Speaker 1: full scale media coverage, not only in Germany but across

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Speaker 1: the entire world. Word of the planned book burnings had

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Speaker 1: reached the US by late April, and as a result,

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Speaker 1: American newsreel cruise were on the scene in Berlin right

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Speaker 1: alongside the Germans. In addition, radio stations broadcast all the speeches, songs,

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Speaker 1: and fire oaths from that evening, sparking praise from like

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Speaker 1: minded listeners and fear and outrage from virtually everyone else.

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Speaker 1: Many American authors spoke out against the book burnings, both

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Speaker 1: before and after they took place. One especially notable reaction

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Speaker 1: came from author and disability activist Helen Keller. Her writing

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Speaker 1: had been judged un German on multiple counts. Not only

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Speaker 1: did Keller champion the rights of disabled persons, industrial workers,

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Speaker 1: and women, her very existence was a reproach to Nazi ideology.

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Speaker 1: Keller had lost her hearing and sight after contracting a

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Speaker 1: high fever as a child, but despite these challenges, she

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Speaker 1: went on to live a rich and rewarding life and

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Speaker 1: helped countless others by example. She was living proof that

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Speaker 1: eugenics was both unscientific and unethical. So, of course, Nazi

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Speaker 1: officials were quick to suppress her writings. When Keller learned

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Speaker 1: her books were scheduled for destruction, she responded by penning

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Speaker 1: an open letter to German students. She warned that their

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Speaker 1: efforts would inevitably fail. Writing quote. History has taught you

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Speaker 1: nothing if you think you can kill ideas. Tyrants have

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Speaker 1: tried to do that often before, and the ideas have

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Speaker 1: risen up in their might and destroyed them. You can

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Speaker 1: burn my books and the books of the best minds

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Speaker 1: in Europe, but the ideas in them have seeped through

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Speaker 1: a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds.

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Speaker 1: I deplore the injustice and unwisdom of passing on to

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Speaker 1: unborn generations the stigma of your deeds. That may sound

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Speaker 1: like idealistic sentiment, but Keller was proven right in short order.

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Speaker 1: After the bonfires, on May tenth, more than a hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand people marched in New York City to protest Nazi policies,

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Speaker 1: and similar demonstrations were held in numerous other towns and cities.

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Speaker 1: The book burnings took place a world away and had

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Speaker 1: no direct impact on American life, but the image of

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Speaker 1: the flames and what they represented provoked a powerful response

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Speaker 1: from millions of observers. The memory of that disgust took

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Speaker 1: root as well. By the time World War Two began

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Speaker 1: a few years later, The imagery of the book burnings

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Speaker 1: had become a catch all symbol for all the tyrannies

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Speaker 1: of Nazism. That symbolism lived on well after the defeat

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Speaker 1: of the Nazi Party in Germany, thus fulfilling Keller's prediction

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Speaker 1: that the stigma of the Burnings would long outlive those

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Speaker 1: who struck the match. In that sense, all of the

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Speaker 1: pomp and stagecraft in Berlin backfired big time. It may

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Speaker 1: have won the Nazis some new supporters, and it certainly

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Speaker 1: sent a strong message to opponents of the regime, but

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Speaker 1: by serving as a not so subtle policy statement, the

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Speaker 1: book Burnings also tipped the hand of the Nazi Party.

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Speaker 1: Columnists Walter Lippmann explained this best when reporting the bonfires

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Speaker 1: for the New York Tribune. He warned that, quote, the

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Speaker 1: ominous symbolism of these bonfires is that there is a

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Speaker 1: government in Germany which means to teach its people that

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Speaker 1: their salvation lies in violence. Many others picked up on

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Speaker 1: that message and began pushing their leaders to take the

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Speaker 1: growing threat of Nazism more seriously. To varying degrees of success,

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Speaker 1: these early warners knew that anti intellectual violence was just

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Speaker 1: the beginning. As German poet Heinrich Hein once wrote quote,

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Speaker 1: where one burns books, one will soon burn people. That's

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Speaker 1: the notion that may have given some German readers pause

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Speaker 1: following the events, but a last the works of Heinrich

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Speaker 1: Hein were part of the bonfire. I'm Gay Blusier and

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Speaker 1: hopefully you now know a little more about history today

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Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. If you want to keep up

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Speaker 1: with the show, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at t d i HC Show and if

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Speaker 1: you have any comments or suggestions, you can always send

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Speaker 1: them my way at this day at ihart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank

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Speaker 1: you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow

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Speaker 1: for another day in History class