Lisa turned and stared at her father as all across the square the Brown Shirts and the university students roared their approval. Her eyes were troubled, full of questions. Hans shook his head. He had no answers. Then Jo turned around and looked at her parents. Her eyes were filled with tears and she looked frightened.
Goebbels’s voice came back on. “We thank you, our Führer, for that stirring and powerful message. We shall take it into our hearts and let it burn there with red hot heat until we become what you have in mind for the youth of our nation.”
Goebbels went on, his voice now calmer, almost serene, “Tonight, my young friends, we undertake a great and symbolic endeavor. It is an undertaking that shall prove to all the world that the intellectual foundations of the corrupt November Republic have now been overturned. To already have the courage to face the pitiless glare, to overcome the fear of death, and to regain respect for death—this is the task of this young generation. And thus you do well in this midnight hour to commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past. This is a strong, great, and symbolic deed—a deed that should document the following for the world to know. Here the intellectual foundation of the November Weimar Democratic Republic is sinking to the ground, but from this wreckage the phoenix of a new spirit will triumphantly rise.”
Applause started but it quickly died again as Goebbels’ voice rose sharply and he hammered out every word, making the speakers crackle. “This new spirit is unleashed on this very night. Danke schön, my young comrades. The time has come. The books that have filled the minds of our youth with philosophical garbage and Jewish intellectualism shall go up in flames THIS VERY NIGHT!” He shouted out the last three words, making the speakers crackle like lightning. “So go, my young friends. Take up your torches. Let us light up the night with the fires of a new day.”
The applause was instantaneous and thunderous. Dorfuss was instantly up and to the microphone again, shouting over the crowd. “You heard our esteemed leader. Storm troopers, you have your orders. Light up the night! Youth and young adults of the Third Reich, stand by to do your duty.”
Everyone’s heads whipped around as an animal roar exploded from the hundreds of storm troopers and the students that had marched there from Marienplatz. Two storm troopers snatched the torches from the hands of the young men closest to them and broke into a run toward the giant pyramid of books. Other troopers were hauling cans of petrol from nearby trucks. They uncapped them and began splashing the liquid across the pyre. When they were done, they stepped back, tossing the cans aside. A torch came arcing in, gracefully tumbling end over end. Dozens more were now flying in behind it. The first one landed squarely on the massive stack of books and there was a mighty WHOOSH! The explosion seemed to suck the oxygen from the air all around them, and people gasped and fell backward.
Instantly the entire tower was ablaze, sending out waves of searing heat that made people turn away. No one spoke. No one clapped. The sight was mesmerizing, hypnotizing, stultifying.
Lisa felt a sob rush up from deep inside of her and she turned her head away. She could not bear to look.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and winced as fingers dug into her flesh. She turned her head, her face twisted in pain, and found that she was looking into her father’s eyes.
“No, Lisa!” Hans hissed. “Don’t you turn away.” Suddenly his voice caught in his throat and became a sob of its own. “Face the avalanche!” he whispered hoarsely. “We cannot turn away.”
10:06 p.m.
The heat from the immense pyre of books was so intense that the crowd had to move back. Storm troopers rushed in and helped the Eckhardts and the Zeidners move their chairs back to where they could bear it. Lisa sat motionless, staring numbly into the fire, trying not to think what each of those glowing black shapes represented. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. At the base of the flames, it looked like the asphalt was bubbling with the heat.
She jerked upright as the overhead loudspeakers suddenly blasted out again. It was Herr Dorfuss’s nasal voice again, but now it was hushed and filled with awe.
“Ladies and gentlemen, words fail me. I am left speechless at what we see before us. What an inspiring sight.”
He stopped as the upper part of the pyramid gave way and the stacks of flaming books collapsed in on itself, sending towering, whirling columns of sparks and flames into the night sky.
“Now,” he went on, “while the fire is still blazing, we have a request from the Führer himself. Would all of the youth, ages twelve to eighteen, gather around the trucks and carts parked on the grass to my left?”
“No!” Lisa wasn’t sure if she had cried it out loud or just in her mind.
“Quickly, children!”
The party leader waited and watched as streams of young people pushed through the crowds out into the center of the plaza.
Lisa turned around and looked at her parents. Their faces were like flint and they were staring at the ground. She pulled her shoulders back and took her sister’s hand. “Come, Jo. Let’s go.” Jo nodded and wiped at the streaks on her cheeks. Erika and Leyna joined them, and all four linked arms and started across the street to where the trucks were parked.
“Very good,” Dorfuss shouted. “Now it is your turn, youth of the Third Reich. Load your arms with the decadence of the past and throw it onto the flames of the future.”
As they got into a line leading to a large dump truck with its back flap down, Jo gripped Lisa’s hand so tightly it felt like it was going numb. “I can’t do this,” she cried, weeping openly now.
Lisa stepped around to face her. “You can, Jo. You must.”
“Over here!” a male voice shouted.
They turned and, to Lisa’s amazement, she saw that it was the boy from the marchers, the one with the brown eyes that had made her knees go a little weak. He was standing atop a pile of books in a small pickup truck where only a few others boys and girls were waiting. “Come!” he called, looking directly at Lisa and smiling at her. “I’ll load you up.”
Still in half a daze, the four girls went over. As they reached the truck, the boy hopped down and lowered the back flap. He scooped up an armful of books and put them in Leyna’s outstretched arms. “Here. Throw them on the fire. But don’t get too close.”
He loaded up Erika next and then stepped past Lisa and filled Jo’s arms. Only then did he get some books for Lisa. As he put them in her arms, his finger brushed lightly across her hand. “Hi again,” he said, flashing her that incredible smile.
Lisa barely heard him as she took the books and fell in behind Jo.
By the third trip to the flames, Lisa felt like a zombie, like there was not a single breath of life left in her. Her face was feverish from the heat and her feet felt as though they were made of lead. The pickup truck was almost empty now, and as the four of them came back for more books, the young man waved them off toward the next truck. But before Lisa could turn away, he quickly picked up a few books and strode over to her. “Here,” he said. Again his fingers brushed across her hand as she took them from them.
As she started to turn away, he grabbed her elbow. “Hey, what say we grab a beer after this is over?”
She turned gaping at him. Had she heard him right?
He flashed his brilliant smile and lowered his voice. “Hi, I’m Peter. What’s your name?”
It wasn’t his audacity that triggered what happened next inside of her. It was the sheer absurdity of the moment. The absolute, colossal, unbounded absurdity of the moment. They were burning books, and he was flirting with her? A towering rage swelled up inside her.
Forcing a smile, Lisa leaned in closer to him and pointed with her free hand. “Do you see those people over there sitting in the chairs?”
He turned and squinted. “Ja. What of it?”
“The man in the black suit. Do you recognize him?”
He squ
inted again. “Nein. Should I?”
“Well, that’s my father.”
“Oh.” He reared back.
“He is a very high-ranking member of the Nazi Party.”
“OH!” He paled a little.
“So why don’t you come over with me and explain to him why you are asking me to go get a beer with you when we are supposed to be cleansing the Fatherland of the filth and dross that endangers our nation? Do you think you could do that?”
Without a word he turned and fled.
10:38 p.m.
Hans told the Brown Shirts that they would wait for the crowds to empty the square and the traffic to subside because standing too long with his crutches was painful for him. Now the plaza had only a few people still standing around, and the towering pyre of flames was now a pile of glowing, smoking ashes nearly fifty feet in diameter.
When they finally stood to go, Lisa didn’t move. “Not yet, Papa,” she pleaded.
He nodded and then moved over to her mother, Jo, and the Zeidners. He spoke quietly to them for a few moments. When he finished, they turned and walked away. He came over and sat beside Lisa again. “Alemann will take the others home. Mama is anxious about the young ones. Then he’ll come back for us.”
She reached out and took his hand. “I’m sorry, Vati. But I can’t yet.”
“I know.” And he sat back and said nothing more.
The lieutenant, who obviously had orders to attend to her father, stood some distance away, smoking and occasionally glancing in their direction.
After quite some time, Hans touched Lisa’s shoulder. “It’s time to go.”
She stood. “Give me two more minutes?”
“All right.”
She got to her feet and went over to the dying flames. She walked slowly, her eyes fixed on the ground. She was surprised at how many books there were scattered around. Some were badly charred, some were still smoldering, some had missed the flames completely. She kicked at them absently, her mind far away. Off to her right she saw that the lieutenant had straightened and was watching her closely. They had announced more than once that no books were to be rescued from the fire. Was that what was worrying him? It made her smile. What was there left to take?
Then suddenly, a book just ahead of her on the pavement caught her eye. It had a black cover and it was facedown on the pavement. But something about it drew Lisa closer. About a third of the book had burned, and it was still smoking a little. She glanced at the lieutenant. He had turned away for a moment, so she quickly bent down and turned it over.
When she read the title, she gasped and shot to her feet again. Now the lieutenant was watching her closely.
Lisa turned and called to her father. “I’m ready, Papa. Why don’t you go tell that nice officer thank you for all he’s done for us tonight, and I’ll be right there.”
Hans reared back, staring at her quizzically.
Please, Papa. Don’t ask. Just do it!
To her immense relief, after a moment, he nodded, picked up his crutches, and hobbled away, headed for the lieutenant. Surprised, the officer turned when he saw Hans approaching. That was all Lisa needed. She dropped to one knee, snatched up the smoking book, and was back up straight as the man turned in her direction again. She raised a hand and waved. “I’m coming,” she called brightly. “Be right there.”
11:12 p.m.—Outside the Zeidner Home
As Alemann opened the door and started to get out of the car, Hans reached over and grabbed his arm. “Hold on a sec,” he said. Then he turned around and looked into the back seat. “All right, young lady. What book was it?”
Lisa gulped. So he had seen her pick it up.
“We can smell it, Lisa. What was so important that you risked getting arrested?”
Ashamed now, she reached under her jacket and pulled it out. She handed it up and Alemann took it. He peered more closely at the cover and then gave her a questioning look. “Das Buch Mormon,” he read. “What is this?”
“Ahhh,” Hans said. “So that’s it.” Then he just shook his head. Finally he turned to a very puzzled Alemann. “It’s a book that the Mormons believe is scripture. Like the Bible.”
“Oh.” Alemann turned back to Lisa. “And it is worth the risk you took?”
“Yes! It was.”
He nodded. “I understand.” He opened the door and got out. “Thank you, Hans.”
“And thank you, Alemann.”
He started to shut the door but then, on impulse, opened it again and leaned down. He was looking at Lisa. “There was another great irony tonight, Lisa. One of the books on the list to be burned was by a playwright who lived over a hundred years ago. His name was Heinrich Heine.
“Jewish?” Hans asked.
“Yes, but it isn’t a book about religion. It’s a book of plays. But here is the irony. In one of his plays he has one of the characters speak this line:” He paused, and then he quoted it with great sadness. “‘Where they burn books, there they will also ultimately burn people.’”
Chapter Notes
Joseph Goebbels did speak to the rallies held on May 10, 1933, around the country, and the words here are his (see The History Place: The Triumph of Hitler: The Burning of Books, p. 1 http://www.historyplace.com/world
war2/tr-bookburn). The quote by Hitler about youth was given at another time and not as part of the broadcast. We do know that a book burning rally was held at the Königsplatz in Munich.
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) was a Jewish-German writer. He was one of the authors on the list of “un-German” works drawn up by the Minister of Public Opinion and Propaganda. Heine’s quote about burning books leading to burning people was therefore in one of the books burned that night. There is now a memorial in Berlin of the book burning. It is in Opera Square (though its name has been changed to Bebelplatz). Heine’s quote is etched in stone for all the world to see (see https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article
.php?ModuleId=10005852).
As near as we can tell, the Book of Mormon was never on the formal list of banned books in the Third Reich. However, in the sweep of libraries and bookstores, someone likely noticed that the book mentioned Jews, Israel, Jerusalem, and other such unacceptable words. So some copies of the Book of Mormon were brought to the fires and burned.
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Scharffs, Gilbert. Mormonism in Germany: A History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany between 1840 and 1970. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1970.
Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. 30th Anniversary Edition. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.
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Young, Norma Perkins. Anchored Lariats on the San Juan Frontier. Provo, Utah: Community Press, 1985.
About the Author
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Gerald N. Lund received his BA and MS degrees in sociology from Brigham Young University. He served for thirty-five years in the Church Educational System, and he served as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy from 2002 to 2008. He is a prolific and bestselling author of both fiction and nonfiction and is best known for his historical novels, including The Work and the Glory series, Fire of the Covenant, The Kingdom and the Crown series, and The Undaunted. He and his late wife, Lynn, are the parents of seven children.
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