Historical Accuracy Of The Book Thief

The Book Thief is located in the fictional town of Molching, just outside of the non fictional town Munich, Germany. The bulk of the text takes place from 1939 - 1945, this was a time when Hitler ruled Germany. One of the main ways to show support for Hitler was to participate in a book burning ceremony, these were often conducted by the "German Student Union", the main concept of these book burnings was to eliminate any books that apposed of the Nazi's. The book burning historically took place on May 10th 1933 all around the world, thus was a key development to the power of Hitler. In The Book Thief the burning of books was instead taken place in 1938, Hitlers birthday (April 20th) when Hitler had already rose to power. The change of dates doesn't show the key delicacy in how Hitler cautiously accelerated into leadership.

In 1936 Hitler wanted to show off he's immaculate race at the Berlin Olympic Games, this was overcast by African American-Jesse Owens, winning four gold medals. In the text, Rudy, Liesel's best friend, paints himself black pretending to be Jesse Owens, he is caught by a local man and taken home, Rudy is then given a lecture identifying the dangers of being caught whilst pretending to be black. The book Thief portrays the racism of different cultures to be at fault, when in fact, historically, this wasn't as much a social issue. Hitler did loathe the Jews, but wasn't as abhorrent towards certain cultures such as African Americans. Therefore different cultures were portrayed much heavier in the book compared to socially in truth. At the end of the text the small town of Molching is tragically bombed in an air raid, this then kills most Liesel's friends and family. Although Molching is a fictional town, in actual events a small town named "Olching" which is located in the same area where Molching was set, was also bombed in an air