American Time Magazine documenting the Nazi book burning of works by Jewish authors in Germany. May 22, 1933.
Shocking Documentation of the Nazi Book Burning of Jewish Works in Berlin’s Opera Square. The Time correspondent describes a procession of trucks loaded with confiscated books arriving at Opera Square in Berlin, where a massive bonfire had been prepared. Into the flames were thrown books written by Jewish authors, while a loudspeaker blared the names of the condemned writers: Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, and others, as their books were hurled into the fire. The writer recounts the presence of Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels and his central role in the ceremony: “As the flames blazed at their peak, onto a small platform draped in flags stepped little Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, with his twisted legs and wild eyes—the Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment in the Nazi Cabinet… “Jewish intellectualism is dead!’ he shouted. ‘National Socialism has cleared the path. The soul of the German people can now express itself again!”. The report goes on to detail widespread book burnings across Germany, especially at universities, where Jewish texts were dragged from the shelves and set alight. In response, mass protest marches were held in several American cities by Jewish communities denouncing Hitler and the Nazi regime. Among other things, the correspondent quotes American journalist and renowned radio broadcaster Dorothy Thompson (with her portrait featured at the center of the article), who responded to the events by stating: “I was wrong about Hitler before this visit. I once bet he wouldn’t last a year. Today, I wouldn’t take any chances on how long he might last. I still believe Hitler is a small man, but I now see that he is truly a great demagogue.” She goes on to recount severe cases of Jews who arrived wounded at hospitals throughout Germany as a result of spontaneous Nazi assaults: “In the hospital ward: severe cases of beaten Jews—one permanently injured, one nearly blind, one who had to be committed to an asylum, one with numerous stab wounds in his arm, another shot repeatedly in the leg.” Another article in the same issue covers the activities of Nazi war criminal Alfred Rosenberg, who at that time had been sent to Britain to negotiate Germany’s claim to rearm. The correspondent mocks the man who only recently had been a street agitator in the Brownshirts, now suddenly transformed into a senior diplomat. The British press received Rosenberg—known by the nickname Der Judenfresser (“the Jew-devourer”)—with sharp condemnation, recalling his infamous remark: “From Munich to Berlin, there ought to be a Jewish head hanging from every telegraph pole.” Throughout the article, Rosenberg is consistently referred to by the epithet “the Jew-devourer.”
Among the book-burning events that took place in Nazi Germany during April–May 1933, the event reported here was the most prominent of all mass gatherings. The burning of books at Opera Square in Berlin on May 10, 1933, was organized by the German Ministry of Propaganda and personally overseen by Joseph Goebbels. At this event, the Nazis threw over 20,000 books—most of them written by Jews—into the flames. These books were looted from nearby libraries and numerous private collections. The event was followed by a wave of brutal anti-Jewish violence across Germany.
52 pages. Complete issue. Light stains to the cover. Good condition.
