THILO SARRAZIN

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Germany: The burning of books under the Nazi regime reloaded

Thilo Sarrazin’s book “Germany Abolishes Itself” is once again the focus of controversy.

Plans by a Czech artist to collect, destroy and recycle copies of the book have been severely criticized for perceived Nazi connotations.

Martin Zet has not described exactly how he'll recycle copies of the book, which he views as xenophobic. But with the aid of the public, he wants to come up with a new purpose for the recycled tomes at at the Berlin Biennale art exhibition that runs between the end of April and July.

The book, which was published in 2010 and contends that Muslims are largely incompatible with German society, has sold 1.3 million copies and sparked a wide ranging debate about immigration.

Zet's plans have been slammed as being insensitive in light of German history. Historian Werner Treß, who has researched the Nazi regime’s burning of books, told the DPA news agency that every book, regardless of its content, was a cultural good and should not be publicly destroyed.

Almost immediately after taking power in 1933, the Nazis began ceremonially burning books that did not correspond to their fascist ideology, including titles by Jewish and Communist authors.

And Professor Julius H. Schoeps, director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam, said on Friday: “This is not an act of art, rather one of embarrassment, which should be prevented.”

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