The Book Thieves

On May 10, 1933, in many cities, the Nazi Germany Ministry of Propaganda staged a public book burning as part of the campaign “against un-German spirit.” During the event, students, professors, and local leaders of the Nazi Party burned tens of thousands of books whose authors were persecuted by Nazi Germany. Yet this story is about something else. It is the story of the systematic looting of European libraries by the Nazis and a small team of librarians working to return the stolen books to their rightful owners.

Books that ended up in the hands of Nazi soldiers after the raids on European libraries and bookstores were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began assembling their own library, which they could use to wage an intellectual war against the world of literature and history. In this secret war, the libraries of Jews, communists, liberal politicians, LGBT activists, Catholics, and many other disgraced groups of people were appropriated for Nazi research and used as an intellectual weapon against their owners. But when the war ended, most of the books were never found.