The Nazis Influenced Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

Evan Washalski 3/28/23

ELA Mr. Scarzfava

How the Nazis Influenced Fahrenheit 451

The Nazi book burning influenced Ray Bradbury’s book Fahrenheit 451 by showing how people in power can stay in power by silencing the free thinkers, by distracting the population to what is really happening, and by brainwashing the population to make them into what the Nazis wanted them to be. Inorder for the Nazis to stay in power and keep the population unaware of what was happening they distracted the people by blaming everyone that was against the Nazis for all the hardships that were happening in Germany at the time. After they distracted the population, they started to change the schools by indoctrinating the kids into the ideology, then

The Nazis blamed the Jews for all the hardships of the German population, which rallied everyone behind the Nazis because they needed to blame someone for their troubles. The Nazis started with propaganda destroying all opposing parties and voices, “Inasmuch as the first task of the National Socialists was to destroy simultaneously all trade unions as well as all liberal democratic institutions, it was necessary to make the people believe that these were devilish inventions, cleverly designed by malicious persons to ruin the German people” (Yorman 149). The Nazis needed to instill fear into the people without the people knowing they were afraid. The Nazis made the people afraid of all other parties and voices to the point they destroyed them. Yorman stated, “With people convinced that communism had been forced on them by a ‘degenerate’ and ‘malicious’ cabal of ‘alien enemies’ to create their misery, they could then rally all good Germans around the Fuehrer, who promised to protect his people by waging relentless war on these ‘enemies of Germany’” (Yorman 149). The enemies of Germany that Yorman mentioned are other political parties that may be against the Nazis, as well as the Jews and other religions. The Nazis rallied the fear, the anger, and the insecurities of the German people and focused it on the enemies of the Nazi party, securing their

The Nazis usually stopped this by burning books that taught people to think about what was happening in the Nazi Germany. Some of the people wanted to get away from all the propaganda by reading books, “Consequently many used their leisure hours to find respite from these pressures by reading escapist novels” (Haag 279). The German people reading books allowed them to get away from the indoctrination from the Nazis. The Nazis hated this because it slowed down the Nazi’s campagin to indoctrinate the people. Their solution to this was to burn books that allowed people to escape the Nazis, “Once the bonfire was primed with gasoline, uniformed representatives stood forward and proclaimed their so-called ‘fire-incantations’ —little planned speeches in which they attacked the books they held responsible for the collapse of Germany” (Fishburn 223). The Nazis would hold bonfires, and talk about how books caused the fall of Germany and how they should prevent such a thing from happening again by burning the books. The Nazis prevented the people from rising up against them by burning books and attacking places of literature. When the people fought back against the Nazis they destroyed their literature, “Next ‘the inhabitants were ordered out of their homes … and soldiers furnished with bombs set fire to all parts of the city.’ Loubian’s