In Germany, the Nazis stage massive public book burnings.

The Nazi public book burnings, most infamously on May 10, 1933, were a series of coordinated events across Germany where thousands of books deemed “un-German” were ceremonially burned in public squares. These events were driven by the Nazi regime’s desire to control ideology and culture, targeting works by Jewish, Marxist, pacifist, and liberal authors—names like Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Erich Maria Remarque, and Helen Keller were among those purged. Orchestrated mainly by the German Student Union and supported by high-ranking Nazi officials like Joseph Goebbels, the burnings were symbolic acts of censorship and cultural cleansing, aimed at eliminating dissenting voices and establishing a homogenous national identity aligned with Nazi ideology. These spectacles were not just about destroying books—they were about consolidating power through the erasure of intellectual diversity and reinforcing Nazi propaganda through fear and public conformity.