Teaching Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Nazi Book Burnings

1. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Teaching Fighting the Fires of Hate: Americaand the Nazi Book Burnings Doug Wadley, Regional Education CorpsBradley-Bourbonnais Community High SchoolBradley, Illinois

2. Fighting the Fires of Hate Possible Opening Questions: • Why are books important? • What would you do if someone took away or denied you access to your favorite books? • What does it say about a society that burns books?

3. Fighting the Fires of Hate Where one burns books, one will, in the end, burn people. ~Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

4. Fighting the Fires of Hate The following slide contains a list of randomly selected books, from political treatises to books of religion to fiction to comic books to classical literature. What might someone find offensive in these works?

5. Fighting the Fires of Hate • The Holy Bible, King James Version • The Koran • Night by Elie Wiesel • Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain • a Captain America comic book by Joe Simon or Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby • Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler • The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels • Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy • The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith • various Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling

6. Fighting the Fires of HateThe Nazi Revolution Uniformed Nazi party officials carrying confiscated books. Hamburg, Germany, May 15, 1933.BildarchivPreussischerKulturbesitz / USHMM#71515

7. Fighting the Fires of HateThe Nazi Revolution Between 30 January and 10 May 1933, Germany changed dramatically on many different levels It was not just a political revolution but a cultural one as well

8. Fighting the Fires of HateThe Nazi Revolution The Nazis began to target groups they considered to be troublesome to their mission, the creation of an Aryan nation, pure and strong. Those who found themselves now on the outside as not only citizens but even as humans included:

9. Fighting the Fires of HateThe Nazi Revolution Public humiliation of Jews. Tarnow, Poland, 1940.

10. Fighting the Fires of HateThe Nazi Revolution Close-up of a Gypsy couple sitting in an open area in the Belzec concentration camp, July 1940

11. Fighting the Fires of HateThe Nazi Revolution Five handicapped Jewish prisoners, photographed for propaganda purposes, who arrived in Buchenwald after Kristallnacht, 1938. [Photograph #13132]

12. Fighting the Fires of HateThe Nazi Revolution A group of Jehovah's Witnesses in their camp uniforms after liberation. These men were imprisoned in the NiederhagenbeiWewelsburg concentration camp. NiederhagenbeiWewelsbug, Germany, 1945.

13. Fighting the Fires of HateThe Nazi Revolution Identification pictures of a prisoner, accused of homosexuality, who arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp on June 6, 1941. He died there a year later. Auschwitz, Poland.

14. Fighting the Fires of HateThe Nazi Revolution Three Soviet POWs who were captured near Wisznice, stand with their hands tied behind their back. They were later executed in the Lyniewski Forest. [Photograph #03835]

15. Fighting the Fires of Hate Students in the Nazi Revolution Students and members of the SA with armfuls of literature deemed "un-German" during the book burning in Berlin. Germany, May 10, 1933.USHMM #69031

16. Fighting the Fires of Hate Students in the Nazi Revolution Many students, feeling young, disenfranchised, and out-of-touch with the Weimar Republic embraced Nazi ideology.

17. Fighting the Fires of Hate Students in the Nazi Revolution Students and members of the SA unload books deemed "un-German" during the book burning in Berlin. The banner reads: "German students march against the un-German spirit." Berlin, Germany, May 10, 1933.National Archives and Records Administration / USHMM #45032

18. Fighting the Fires of Hate Students in the Nazi Revolution German university students led an organized campaign against the “Un-German Spirit” within Germany • Twelve Theses (evoked Luther’s 95 Theses) • Invitation to a book burning

19. Fighting the Fires of Hate Students in the Nazi Revolution 4. Our most dangerous enemy is the Jew and those who are his slaves. 5. A Jew can only think Jewish. If he writes in German, he is lying. The German who writes in German, but thinks un-German is a traitor, the student who speaks and writes un-German is, in addition, thoughtless and has abandoned his duties.

20. Fighting the Fires of Hate Students in the Nazi Revolution The burnings were well organized and planned in advance

21. Fighting the Fires of Hate Authors and Their Books The condemned authors included many Germans, many of whom were Jewish • Freud • Einstein Sigmund Freud

22. Fighting the Fires of Hate Authors and Their Books But also the works of non-Germans were burned • H.G. Wells • Upton Sinclair • Jack London Upton Sinclair “The Jungle”

23. Fighting the Fires of Hate Authors and Their Books Banned categories: • pacifists • communists • socialists • Jewish • opposed to Nazism • “pornographic” The Nazis burned Jack London's socialist-leaning works

24. Fighting the Fires of Hate Immediate American Responses Anti-Nazi groups in the U.S. hoped to use the May 10 book burnings as a unifying cause • Massive protests were organized on May 10 in cities across the U.S.

25. Fighting the Fires of Hate Immediate American Responses On the day of book burnings in Germany, massive crowds march from New York's Madison Square Garden to protest Nazi oppression and anti-Jewish persecution. New York City, United States, May 10, 1933.National Archives and Records Administration / USHMM #69040

26. Fighting the Fires of Hate Immediate American Responses American newspapers nationwide reported both the Nazi bonfires and the American protests Political cartoons –

27. Fighting the Fires of Hate Immediate American Responses This cartoon shows two pyres, the "altars of the Nazis"--Nazi victims, and condemned books. The piece was printed in the Daily Worker (Chicago), May 11, 1933. United States Department of Labor / USHMM #2003CLFP

28. Fighting the Fires of Hate Immediate American Responses Newsweek cover – The interior article labeled the burnings as a “Holocaust”

29. Fighting the Fires of Hate Immediate American Responses

30. Fighting the Fires of Hate Immediate American Responses The expulsion of Jews and other political opponents from German universities, the book burnings, and the continuing acts of oppression prompted writers, artists, doctors, and other professionals to flee Germany

31. Fighting the Fires of Hate America At War During the war, Nazi Germany and its intolerance of ideas and the burning of books was often contrasted with America’s freedoms

32. Fighting the Fires of Hate America At War Patriotic wordsmiths spawned a vocabulary and slogans that militarized literature. Books were mightier than the sword, and became weapons, bullets, and thinking bayonets. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, N.Y. / USHMM #2003ZWHR

33. Fighting the Fires of Hate America At War FDR delivered the “Four Freedoms” speech in 1941 – freedom of speech, of religion, from fear, and from want. Wide World Photo / USHMM #00870

34. Fighting the Fires of Hate America At War This 1942 poster from the federal Office of Emergency Management incorporated a photograph of a typical New York City newsstand. German, Russian, Yiddish, French, and English language newspapers appear in the display. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, N.Y. / USHMM #2003138E

35. Fighting the Fires of Hate America At War The Office of War Information poster "This is the Enemy" gives the Bible prominence, intended to appeal to deeply-held religious convictions. Rumors that Bibles were burned seized the American imagination. Office of War Information, 1943 / USHMM Collection #2003VENZ

36. Fighting the Fires of Hate America At War The Office of War Information made use of the press, radio, motion pictures, exhibitions, and public programs in the United States and abroad. The Council on Books in Wartime distributed this poster to bookstores and booksellers for window displays to expose "the nature of the enemy." Records of the Office of War Information, Record Group 208, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, N.Y. / USHMM #2003TRP7

37. Fighting the Fires of Hate The Recurring Symbol Americans have to the present used the Nazi book burnings as a powerful metaphor of censorship, demagoguery, and suppression

38. Fighting the Fires of Hate The Recurring Symbol Public destruction of Nazi flags, pamphlets, and insignia occurred during the early postwar occupation of Germany. Cologne, Germany, 1945. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md. / USHMM #BB853

39. Fighting the Fires of Hate The Recurring Symbol • The iconic image of the Nazi book burnings has continued to appear and to be referenced within American popular culture even today • Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

40. Fighting the Fires of Hate The Recurring Symbol Alamogordo, New Mexico, December 30, 2001. Pat Vasquez-Cunningham/USHMM #BB546

41. Access to this PowerPoint is available on the web at: www.bbchs.org/Teacher_Pages/Wadley