To discuss the book burnings a brief summary of the cultural change during the Weimar Republic as a large part of the rise of the nazis was a reaction or a revolution against these cultural changes. After WW1, Germany was in terrible state,stuck with heavy laon payments to the allies. Things would get worse later. Life began as new. The old regime was gone. Millions fought and died for a Germany that no longer existed. A sad, depressed and nihilistic world arose from the rubble. Berlin was the epicenter of this world. The old values were gone. The crippling poverty had turnned many to work in the streets as hundred of thousands of prostitutes were working in just that one city. The most unusual culture arose and some called the city the new Babylon of Europe. There was a street in Berlin purely filled with pregnant prostitutes. Another were disfigured ones, acid scars, hunchbacks It was mostly mother daughter teams who were exactly dressed alike. Homosexuality arise and one famous Brit who had emigrated had call Berlin a bugger's paradise. Thousands turned up from all over Europe to the one city where they felt their life would not only be accepted but also promoted. Drugs were widely available. Many morphine, opium and cocaine. Transgenderism saw the light of the day. Magnus Hirchfield, a homosexual scientist founded an institute of sexual research. Here all the morals of the past were out of the window. People were free to experiment with gender bizarre sexual fetishes or browser collection of sex items. He was known as Einstein of sex. The first occurrence of someone undergoing a full male to female gender reassignement. Surgery was done here. Berlin was essentially liberalism run wild. An important aspect to note is that any or even most of the leading figures of this new liberal culture and new government at charge this time were jews.
The national socialists found it abhorrent. As a result, many of the books on the banned list were indeed by jewish authors. The burning started spontaneously by the German student union. They called for a cleansing by fire. The union published the 12 theses., a reference to Martin Luther's 95 thesis and written in a familiar style. 1 : Language and litterature have their roots in the people. It's the German people responsability that it's language and literature are the pure and unalterated expressions of its people tradition. 2 : At present there is a chasm between litterature and German tradition. This situation is a disgrace. 3: Purity of language and literature is your responsability, your people have entrusted you with the duty of faithfully preserving your language. 4 : Our most dangerous enemy is the jew and those who are his slaves. 5 : A jew can only think jewish is he writes in German. He is lying to the Germans. The German who writes in German but thinks of German is traitor. The student who speaks and writes on German is in addition faultless and has abandonned his duties. 6 : We want to eradicate lies. We want to denounce treason. We want institutions of discipline and political education for us. The students are not mindless. 7 : We want to regard the jew as an alien We want to respect the traditions of the people therefor we demand of the censor jewish writtings are to be published in Hebrew. If they appear in German, they must be identitfied as translations. Strongest actions against the abuse of German's script. German script is only available to Germans. The ungerman spirit should be eradicated from the public libraries. 8 : We demand of the German students the desire and capacity for independant knowledge and decisions.
9 : We demand of German students the desire and capability to maintain the the purity of the German language. 10 : We demand the German students the desire and capability to overcome jewish intellectualism and the resulting liberal decay in the German spirit. 11 : We demand the selection of students and professors in accordance with their reliability and commitment to the German spirit. 12 : We demand that German universities be a stornghold of the German people's tradition and a battleground reflecting the power of the German mind. Nearly a month later the book burnings began at the epicenter of the Weimar culture. Magnus Hirshfeld's institute of sex research, 2 000 books were burned. These types of spontaneous burns continued It became a whole movement of their own. The motive in their eyes are scummed up well by Goebbels in 2 passages from his speech. relating to the burning. " Yes to decency and morality in familyand state. Here the intellectual foundation of the Weimar Republic is sinking to the ground. But from this wreckage the Phoenix of the new spirit will triumphally rise. " After the ever growing nazi movement saw that after the WW1 Germany was taking the wrong path. They felt like their culture had been hijacked by jews, liberals and defeatists. They felt family's values had been given away to rampant individualism. Moral value given away to sexual deviancy. And worse the comparision with our modern times are obvious and barely deserve mentionning. As then it was a battle between the sacred principles of our society in the past and the new liberal and unknown.Communism is the sworn enemy of national socialism. They fought and died against each other ever since the birth of the movement; There was never any doubt the communist work would be the first on the chooping block. To name the most obvious, Karl Marx " Das Capital ". The holy book of communism was sent to flames, as well as Lenin's and Trotsky's works. Communists closer to home like Rosa Luxemburg were also banned. Pacifism was seen as bad while national socialism didn't see war as inherently good. National socialism felt pacifism to be a disease that weakens the wider hole. The book named " All quiet on the western front " was also sent into flames. Oswald Mosley was sent on a tiny cold cell without trial for opposing the WW2 and only released when he was seriously ill. Early transgender theory was sent into flames. Hishfield's library was gutted and sent into flames outside. transgenderism was viwed in all coutries not just in national socialist Germany at the time as something absurd and deranged. Hirschild is the perfect example for what the Germans didn't want in their society. Some books burns titles are : the objective diagnostic of homosexuality ", " transvestites " " the erotic drive to cross dress " " the sexual history of world war ". Along with transgenderism, the burning of homosexual works could be summed up in the character of Hirshcfield and his work. The liberalization of society and the availability for those fighting their homosexual desire no matter how storng to act was everywhere. Even in the early Nazi Party. Under the national socialists, pornography and any kind of work seen as degenerate in that regard was sent into flames. The jews doesn't represent the main problem in that case but they are mainly seen as culmination of historical process that made them overrepresented in literature, art, politic and liberal culture in general. They had been seen as a major part in history of liberalism.
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