“Action against the non-German spirit” in 1933 as a commemorative ritual

Abstract

The article  analyzes the  “Aktion  wider den undeutschen Geist” organized by the German Student Union, which began in April 1933 and ended on the 10th of May with the public book burnings  in Berlin and in many other German  cities as a commemorative ritual.  The author proceeds  from the fact that  such actions  pursued  on the  one hand  a practical  purpose  – the  subordination of the academic  community in the framework  of the policy of Gleichschaltung (unification), and on the other  – were clearly symbolic and were designed  to reinforce  the  legitimacy  of the  national  socialist  dictatorship, as well as to demonstrate a kind of continuity of actions aimed at “purification” of the German spirit. That  was confirmed in a reference to the Wartburg festival, organized  by German  students in 1817, and through it to the public burning of Martin Luther’s  papal  bull by Martin Luther  in 1520. Thus,  the  burning of books on May 10, 1933 was built  into  the  normative field of the  German historical  and cultural tradition. The action was considered as a ritual practice and was fixed as a symbol, with positive connotations, for the formation  of the necessary ideological collective ideas of a large part of the population.