A Brief History
On August 25, 1914, during the opening stages of World War I German soldiers burned the Library of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, destroying a treasure of ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance works. Over 300,000 books were burned, many of them irreplaceable volumes now lost forever. Thousands of manuscripts of various types were burned, along with 1000 Incunabula (printed works made before 1501, the earliest works printed by machine). A specific work that was lost was the Easter Island Rongorongo Text E, a wooden tablet etched with glyphs made by Easter Island natives before invasion by Europeans.
Digging Deeper
This act of barbarity was rightly condemned by the Western Allies for throughout history book burning has cost us a wealth of information that can never be brought back. It is our contention that book burning of any sort is an act of weakness by people who are either too stupid to understand the historical value of all printed works or too insecure in their own beliefs to allow evidence of any other opinions or information. When you see people burn books for religious or political reasons, you can bet those doing the burning are doing so because of a lack of faith in their own ideas masquerading as ultra-faith.
A related and equally barbaric form of behavior is the destruction of works of art, again, the acts of a set of people that feel threatened by the existence of someone else’s work. Today we are seeing priceless treasures in the Middle East destroyed by Islamic fundamentalists bent on the destruction of all things not specifically related to their particular idea of Islam. (But how outraged they are when an idiot burns a Quran!)
We have graphic images of Nazi book burning rallies where all works by Jewish authors were burned in huge bonfires, and we know how that one turned out! The Ray Bradbury novel, Fahrenheit 451 (1953) portrays the idiocy of a society that is so insecure in its own system that all books are burned. This type of behavior is typical of dictatorships and hate filled ideological societies, repressive in nature and resistant to any hint of improvement or change. Besides the Nazi’s of Germany, other societies that have burned or repressed books include Communist China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union, as well as Dynastic China, the Aztecs, and current Islamic states. Apparently, if you do not like historical facts, destroy the records of them and rewrite your own. Even the US has seen piles of burning books.
Probably the most egregious example of a book burning occurred when the Library of Alexandria was burned in in several incidents between 48 BC (by Julius Caesar) and 391 AD (by the Coptic Pope). Another was the destruction of the Library of Baghdad (known as “The House of Wisdom,” the largest library in the world at the time) in 1258 by the Mongols. Both of these repositories of manuscripts, books, histories, plays and records were lost with no back up copies available. Because of this, there is much to ancient history that we can only guess about, as the original documents have been destroyed. Our knowledge of Alexander the Great, for example, is based on writings about 300 years after his death, which of course leaves plenty of room for error. This example is just 1 of many examples of the frustration of historians experience in trying to piece together facts about our past.
Today, we also deal with those that would limit internet information, including the “deletionists” on Wikipedia that are constantly erasing articles that they think are “unnecessary.” Question for students (and subscribers): What do you think about book burners and deletionists? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook and becoming one of our patrons!
Your readership is much appreciated!
Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Zuckerman, Larry. The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I. NYU Press, 2004.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="12734 https://www.historyandheadlines.com/?p=12734">51 Comments
I sort of understand the deletionists job think if anyone could write a Wikipedia about whoever or whatever they want, I personally do not feel like reading a million Wikipedia’s about peoples cats. That being said though I do not agree with book burning so many wonderful historical documents have been destroyed because a few people decided to burn down buildings. Such an irresponsible and senseless act!
Geez that is a lot of books. Sounds like a long and hot fire. Seems like a big mess to but I guess they did not really care if they wanted to burn the books any way.
I think that it’s true that the first sign of the brink of a war is that they will begin to burn the books, burn your opinions.
Why must we destroy the things we do not like. Book burning and Art destroying does not change the fact that other people think and feel differently.
Just because you burn the books does not mean that people will automatically start to think differently. Destroying physical copies of a book does not eliminate the ideas associated with them.
well they were determined to get rid of all the ideas
I agree that book burning and destroying art is barbaric and I do not support deletionist approaches. People have a right to all information.
If you feel so strongly about your own ideology then you shouldn’t fear the exposure of your opposition. You should welcome it as it should in fact prove them wrong. If you burn books then you clearly have something to be afraid of like being all kinds of wrong. It is a huge display of weakness.
The right knowledge is essential to growth
Why burn ideas that could potential let open another world for people? If someone doesn’t like it, they will make sure to get rid of it.
im sure they had intentions on burning them. but i believe history should be kept. not burned to be forgotten.
I think destroying things just because you simply don’t like it is wrong. If everyone did then almost everything would be destroyed.
Booking burning and by extension censorship is a stage for further atrocities
Book burning is such an unfortunate crime, especially as so much information has been lost because of it. I agree that burning books is definitely a sign of weakness.
As someone who is studying English Literature, this really made me sad to read. All those works were destroyed for no good reason. Can you imagine what those ancient, Renaissance, and Medieval manuscripts could have taught us? I think that destroying our history is criminal and it affects everyone.
It is sad that so much information is lost when an individual decides to burn books. I learned about this when I recently went to Germany, there was a nice monument dedicated to all of the books burned by the Nazis when they were in control.
The amount of information being destroyed is definitely a crime because think about all the countless books that contain information people may not agree with that could be destroyed. Imagine if that happened to the Bible.
Reading this article made me feel so sad especially since I work in a library. We talk about killing and stealing as crimes, but I believe that book burning is a crime as well. Burning books of such great value destroys culture and valuable lessons and information for generation to come. I would love to be able to visit a library that old and be able to read those old books that unfortunately were burned for no reason.
Sad story to see such important books burned and gone forever. The importance of technology would of helped to have the information of the books but still would not keep the acaul book from burning.
I agree that mass book burning is an egregious, unforgivable, cowardly crime. “…lack of faith in their own ideas masquerading as ultra-faith.” This is a great quote and even better point.
This article makes me want to cry! I can’t even imagine how much history we’ve lost out on because some idiots thought they could erase history by burning priceless books. I can’t imagine burning a book that could holds the secrets of humanity’s past. Who would do such a thing? It’s also terrifying a dictatorship may burn history and replace it with their own twisted history. I can’t imagine being fed lies that way and being so ignorant of the truth.
It truly is so sad that we will never be able to solve so many of our worldly mysteries. But at the same time part of the fun will be always being able to ask the questions. The burning of books is a terrible tragedy and as a world we need to condemn those actions.
Couldn’t imagine all the wonderful works in that library burn to ashes, never to be seen again. Such a sad story. Who knows the ideas and stories that were told in those books.
The worst part about book burning throughout history is that often times there was only one copy of the works that were being burned. As a result, many popular works were lost during these acts of burning libraries. It would not be as big of a deal today because there are few works, if any, that only have one copy today.
The written word has been one of the most useful creations throughout human history. Writing is one way that we can leave our mark and beliefs down for the next generations. When a burning of the written word occurs it has no use to anyone and really is a disadvantage to society. It is a shame that book burning has been used to control societies.
There is no good reason for all the books to be burned. Whether it was for not having a faith or unable to understand what the books were about, neither are a good reason. Like the article says that that was history and can never be brought back again.
Book burning is terrible. We would know so much more about history had events like Nazi Germany burning books written by Jewish authors not occurred. Like the author said, this shows a sign of weakness because the destroyers are getting rid of something that goes against what they believe, instead of just strongly standing by what they believe no matter what else is said.
Book burning is something that has deprived us all of information that could have been very interesting or useful to learn about the world’s past. I think all information is useful and no matter what you believe religiously or politically you should allow those who think differently to have their own thoughts and be able to read the words of those who have come before them. Those who burn books are weak in their own thoughts and beliefs.
The idea of book burning greatly infuriates me. We would know so much more about the history of our world if it was not for selfish, self-centered people burning books. Imagine all the information we would know if only some of these book burnings had not occurred. Truly sad.
Obviously the people that are burning books have no respect for history and where we came from. in instances like the Nazis burning Jewish author books they are burning them because they cannot accept the fact that people are meant to be different.
Book burning is tragic because so much history has been lost throughout the years. From Alexandria to modern day, the act of burning books is egregious. Destroying literature is wrong and the world has lost so much because of the few people who decided to burn books.
Book burning is an act of disrespect. It is unfortunate that people would burn books that only had one copy. This leaves us guessing on many things in ancient history because the original and only documents have been destroyed.
To be honest, I feel that book burning is not only an act of disrespect to the authors who took time out to write, but completely pointless in the end. There was truly no real purpose for this act of tomfoolery to take place.
Burning books and destroying art is one of many acts that is intolerable. What a stupid and irresponsible way to act as humans. All of that is information that we can use to sculpt our past.
To destroy something that will educate people in the future is truly a crime. Education is the soul of our future and in my opinion just as bad as murder. Destroying someone’s chance for a better future should never be the goal of any military.
Destroy things like books and art is wrong. All of these things can be used to educate and remember the past, so why destroy.
It is unfortunate that such a vile act was committed by the Germans. I remember the same happened in WWII and was expanded to destroying art. It would be nice to have an ability to go back and recover those forever lost texts.
I wish we could reflect and look at the things that were destroyed, but we can’t.
I completely agree with you. Some people are too afraid to learn something that contradicts their beliefs. Most people just don’t acknowledge facts, but it is horrendous to burn history like this.
Once books start to get burned you know your in big trouble and that’s a sign of tyranny.
What is up with Germany burning books. I mean for heavens sake they burned books in WWI and in WW2. Now I’m not huge fan of books but I mean we could’ve learned so much from them!!!
just that alone being burned , have already let you know that some of our history as the universe is gone and may not be able to get back , but people will make up stories even if that was not what happen.
I wonder how much of our history is unknown because it was burned. Saddens me that a lot of Jewish history was lost due to dictatorship causing the burning of books.
Burning books is such a waste! they can be locked away or something. So much history and knowledge was lost
I can only imagine all of the information we’ve lost and will never gain again due to book burning. When I was a sophomore in high school we had some problems with book censorship with some parents.
Such a shame by how much knowledge lost
Well we can say goodbye to what ever was in that book that got burned.
As a history major, it just makes me furious that people would decide to burn books that could contain valuable information about the past.
I love books so much it hurts me to think of all the information that was lost forever in these burnings.
It’s a shame all that history that was burnt and now we don’t know anything about some of these historical people.
All of that history down the drain… that’s sad.