Bebelplatz

This square is notorious for being one of the locations where the academics faithful to the Nazi party burnt 20,000 books from any author that was dismissive of their ideals and doctrine.
There is an amazing sculpture under glass in the middle of the square which depicts a series of book shelves that are all painted white and that would have held 20k books.
The shelves are empty and painted white to symbolize the fact that this knowledge will never be replaced and that it is lost forever...it is a very powerful image and our tour guide informed us that a dutch philosopher 100 years earlier said that first you burn books and then you burn people and in the case of the holocaust this became a prophecy.Read more