Literature between pyres, hatred and ashes. The burning of books in National Socialist Germany.

Abstract

The main objective of this essay is to review some of the most representative passages of what is
known as the "National Socialist Literature" during the period in which the National Socialist German
Workers' Party (NSDAP) held power in Germany (1933-1945), a period (Zeitgeist) in which both
language and literature were hijacked by Nazi ideology and eschatology. To do this, the most
important participating agents of that period are used: writers, intellectuals, academics, booksellers,
students and associations related to the publication and dissemination of information, as well as the
role that Nazi ideology played mainly in the repeated "book burnings". ” that were carried out all
over the German territory, in particular in the universities and against Jewish writers, but also against
those they considered “degenerates”, such as the Romantics, the Marxists or socialists and the
defenders of the Republic of Weimar and democracy. We carried out the foregoing by reviewing the
main proclamations, manifestos and extracts that appeared at the time in magazines, newspapers
and newspapers, and considered for the preparation of this text from the review of books and
compendiums that had the wisdom to recover the most representative narrative elements of the
aforementioned period.