Berlin Book Burnings

Hi, this is Pastor Lutzer, and we’re here in Berlin, standing in the square where the infamous book burnings took place. It was here that Joseph Goebbels delivered a fiery speech, if we can call it that, declaring that the books being burned were filled with filth — specifically, what he called “Jewish filth.” In this very square, books by Einstein, Heinrich Heine, and countless other Jewish writers, scientists, and even Helen Keller were set ablaze.

When I read that Helen Keller’s books were burned, I had to ask myself, why her? Remember, Keller was an inspiring figure who overcame severe disabilities, but in Nazi Germany, those with disabilities were deemed worthless to the state. Perhaps that is one reason why her works were targeted.

Now, try to picture this square filled with 40,000 people, watching as approximately 25,000 books were thrown into the flames. Later on, if you look down through a glass panel embedded in the ground, you’ll see rows of empty shelves. These empty shelves symbolize the knowledge and culture that would have filled them, had those books not been destroyed.

I mentioned Heinrich Heine earlier — he was the one who famously said, “Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people.” And he was tragically correct. In my book Hitler’s Cross, I quote him as saying that only the Cross of Christ was preventing Germany from plunging into chaos. He warned that if that cross was broken, a terror would be unleashed that would cause the entire world to tremble. The swastika, or “Hakenkreuz,” literally means “hooked cross” — a broken cross. And indeed, once that moral restraint was shattered, Germany unleashed a terror unlike any the world had seen.

This raises profound questions about censorship, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion — even in our own country, the United States. We witnessed intense debates over these freedoms during the COVID-19 pandemic, when certain information was suppressed or outright censored. Personally, I experienced this when a sermon I preached was blocked online for so-called “medical misinformation.” What I said was entirely true and verifiable, but it was taken out of context. It brings up the question: who decides what is true and what is false? How do we navigate this complex landscape where information can be manipulated?

As Christians, sometimes we need to exercise what some have called “wise hesitancy,” because we might not know the full truth until it is revealed later. But there’s a deeper issue at play: freedom itself can be its own undoing. I remember seeing a sign from a protest that read, “We will use the Constitution to destroy the Constitution.” It was a stark reminder that freedom can be exploited to undermine the very principles it upholds.

Standing here, where Joseph Goebbels delivered his impassioned speech, proclaiming that Germany was being cleansed of all non-nationalist voices, we are reminded of the dangers of becoming arbiters of what can and cannot be said. It’s a complex debate with huge implications for the future.

Thank you so much for joining us here in Berlin. I’m grateful that we have this opportunity to learn from history together. God bless you, and thank you for listening.