May 10, 1933
On the night of May 10, 1933, university students across more than 20 German cities gathered books and burned them. In Berlin alone, 25,000 books were destroyed. Nationwide, more than 20,000 works were burned in organized bonfires.
The German Student Union organized the burnings. The government endorsed them. Joseph Goebbels spoke at the Berlin event. The books targeted were by Jewish authors, pacifists, Marxists, and anyone whose work was deemed “un-German.” Albert Einstein. Helen Keller. Rosa Luxemburg. Erich Maria Remarque.
Among the first targets was Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sex Research, the world’s first institution dedicated to the study of human sexuality and gender. Its library was destroyed. Its research was burned. Hirschfeld, who was Jewish and gay, had already fled the country.
2021 to Present
Since 2021, 22,810 books have been banned from public school libraries across 45 states and 451 school districts, according to PEN America. The American Library Association recorded the second-highest level of censorship attempts in its history in 2025.
25,000 books burned in Berlin, 1933. 22,810 books banned in American schools since 2021.
In 2025, 92% of book challenges came from organized pressure groups, government officials, and institutional decision-makers. Less than 3% came from individual parents. The shift from 72% in 2024 to 92% in 2025 shows an accelerating, organized campaign.
The books targeted are by and about people of color, LGBTQ individuals, and topics related to race, history, gender identity, sexuality, and reproductive health. Toni Morrison. Jesmyn Ward. Angie Thomas. Holocaust memoirs. Civil rights histories. Sex education materials recommended by medical organizations.
The Comparison Is Not Casual
A Stanford lecturer who studies the history of censorship drew the connection directly. “The history of Nazi book burning is one of the most obvious antecedents to the censorship of books in the U.S.”
Director Phil Alden Robinson was more specific. “I chose to compare these American book banners with the Nazi book burners, because I believe their agenda is comparable: the suppression of opposing points of view for the purpose of increasing political control.”
The method differs. Nobody is lighting bonfires. But the function is the same. Identify the ideas that threaten your political project. Remove them from the institutions that educate the next generation. The books are not burned. They are removed from shelves, deleted from curricula, and made unavailable to the students who would have read them.
What Gets Lost
When a school removes a Holocaust memoir, a student does not learn what happened. When a school removes a book by a Black author about growing up in America, a student does not see that experience reflected. When a school removes a book about a trans teenager, a trans student in that school does not see themselves.
The books that are banned are the books that broaden understanding. That is not a side effect of the campaign. It is the point.
Read more on the Education hub and the organized book ban brief.