As darkness gathered, so did the crowds;
They were like moths drawn to the flame.
The swastikas were everywhere-
All loyal party members came.
The piled the books by Freud and Jung
And untermenchen of their kind
And tossed them on the bonfire there
as part of Hitler’s grand design.
The flames leapt high into the night
Fueled by these UN-German books
As Goebbels watched in rapt delight,
at how he had these people rooked.
As darkness gathered so did the crowd
to witness this unholy scene,
unaware that those who start with books
will end up burning human beings.
Dec 21, 2016
Dec 21, 2016 at 8:11 AM UTC
As darkness gathered, so did the crowds;
They were like moths drawn to the flame.
The swastikas were everywhere-
All loyal party members came.
The piled the books by Freud and Jung
And untermenchen of their kind
And tossed them on the bonfire there
as part of Hitler’s grand design.
The flames leapt high into the night
Fueled by these UN-German books
As Goebbels watched in rapt delight,
at how he had these people rooked.
As darkness gathered so did the crowd
to witness this unholy scene,
unaware that those who start with books
will end up burning human beings.
On the night of May 10, 1933 The **** party burned 20,000 books deemed UN-German and unsuitable at the Bebelplatz in central Berlin. The ending couplet is a reference to a famous quote by the German 19th Century author Heinrich Heine. My deliberate misspelling of the location in the title was intention and meant to evoke the tower of Babel.
"Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people." - Heinrich Heine.
As a lifelong bibliophile, this scene represents my vision of Hell
Request permission to use this poem