Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgaryborn
The Nazi's burnt other peoples books they took away by force. This church is burning books they presumably purchased.
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LOL.
Whose books they are isn't exactly the issue here.
"Christianity has somewhat mitigated that brutal Germanic love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals. (...) Do not smile at my advice -- the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously.
Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll."
Those are the words of Heinrich Heine, who is also the source of the "where they burn books they will also burn people" quote.
The book the quoted passage comes from was burned, 99 years later, by the Nazis. Hence the ubiquity of the second quote, which "commemorates" the event.
Burning books is one of the most vile acts committed by humanity.