The biblioclass is called the purposeful destruction of books because of their content. The most striking example of the biblioclass is the pink of books that flared up in Germany when the Nazis came to power. It all started with the public burning of the library and archives of the Berlin Institute for Sexuality Research on May 10, 1933.
The Gutenberg printing machine is undoubtedly the greatest invention of mankind. However, Germany, the birthplace of modern printing, has also recorded in historical analyzes the most striking case of biblioclass or libricide, or deliberate destruction of books, in recent centuries.
The National Socialists, who gained power in Germany at the beginning of 1933, made the cleansing of the nation from harmful influences one of their primary tasks. In their eyes, the Sexuality Research Institute in Berlin was a private research institution that was one of the first in the world to focus on human sexuality, including homosexuality and transsexualism. From the point of view of Nazi ideologues, the categories of people mentioned were “degenerates”, and the whole operation of the institute was detrimental to the “German spirit”.
Burning of books in Berlin on May 10, 1933
Foto: Mary Evans Picture Library/WEIMA, Rights Managed
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Encouraged by the party’s agitators, the institute was invaded by activists from the German Students’ Union. On May 10, 1933, the institute’s library and archives were taken to the large Opera Square and set on fire. The students were joined by other “German spirit” contenders – “brown shirts” from SA and Hitler’s Art Nouveau youth.
Around midnight, the Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Gebels, arrived in the square lit by the flaming pink. At that time, a crowd of about 40,000 already listened to his speech: “The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is over. The success of the German revolution has once again paved the way for German progress…
The German of the future will not only be a man of books, he will be a man of character.
Already today, without fear, watching the flames of ruthless fire, overcoming the fear of death and re-learning to respect death – that is the task of this new generation. That is why at this midnight you are doing a great job of putting the harmful spirits of the past into flames. ”
And then it really started. Books from the nearby Humboldt University and the public library shelves in Berlin joined the Kindle Research Institute. After Berlin, pink books flared in Munich and Heidelberg, Gottingen and Halle, Nuremberg, Münster, Königsberg and elsewhere.
In some places, the actions were postponed until the summer solstice, in order to light real German fire lights from books.
Realized communists – the reflections of Lenin, Trotsky and Lübnehtht; left and pacifists of various other subspecies – plays by Brecht and von Croat, novels by Remark, Hashek and Fehtwanger, even Kestner’s children’s books.
The degrading western decadents of Hemingway and London, Herbert Wales and Andre Jeed did not escape either. And, of course, every author who was known to have had Jews in his ancestors: Einstein and Freud, Kafka and Schnitzler, and also the 19th-century romantic Heinrich Heine. At one time, the great poet did not even realize how prophetic the words from his play “Almanzor” would sound in the next century: “Where books are burned, people soon or late start burning people.”
This day in history
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