“Anyone who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself.” On May 10th, 1933, out on a dark street with anxiously gathered Germans, a public book burning took place. This was in effort to rid the German culture of any ‘un-German’ ideas. Anything that went against the German ideals was instantly shunned. Many writers were banned to write anything because of their beliefs. However, not only were Jewish writers works destroyed in the furnace, but also some American, British and Indian books were not allowed to be present in the German culture. Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, wrote mentioned in his play Almansor , “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen" or roughly translated into English: "Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people." A horrifying thought, yet his prediction came true. Although this is not the main focus of the article, people burned as well as books. This is called cultural destruction. Now, considering the ideals and motivations behind the historical book burnings, was it really necessary to destroy the works of art from writers from all over the world? Hitler believed so. He used his influence as a ‘comforting’ and …show more content…
Whether it be good, bad or ugly, a human being has the natural and unalienable right to be able to choose what to believe, whether it be right or wrong. When that choice is taken away, such as the burning of influential books that could sway the minds of the Germans and the common man in general, people tend to just listen to what they are being told is correct rather than research the topic further. And if there is no subject matter to study upon, people don’t usually feel the need to ask any questions at all. They will simply rely on information through respected individuals, which in this case, is