“We hope to be spared from the global fire”: the national-socialist book burning as visuality of radicalization

Authors

  • Gabriel Sanches UFRJ

Keywords:

Nazism, Images, Photography

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the radicalization of German society through the photographic series available in the digital collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington, D.C., referring to the book burning that took place on May 10, 1933, in Berlin. Based on the ideas of Ulpiano Meneses regarding the documentary value of photography as a tool for social analysis, the images are understood beyond the motivation for their production, constituting means in which and through which practices and ideologies circulate within societies. The analysis considers the book burning as a performance of symbolic power by the still-recent Nazi government, as both a practice and an expression of its Weltanschauung (worldview). Additionally, the study draws on the analysis of contemporary periodicals related to the episode as a means of characterizing the political and cultural environment of radicalization, as well as the circulation of the event and its images.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

ARENDT, Hannah. Origens do totalitarismo. Trad.: Roberto Raposo - São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1989.

EVANS, Richard. The Third Reich in Power. Nova Iorque: Penguin Press, 2005.

GAY, Peter. Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider. New York: Harper & Row, 1968.

GRIFFIN, Roger, FELDMAN, M. (Ed.). A fascist century: essays by Roger Griffin. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

HERF, Jeffrey. O modernismo reacionário: Tecnologia, cultura e política na República de Weimar e no 3º. Reich. São Paulo; Campinas: Editora Ensaio; Editora da Unicamp, 1993.

KERSHAW, Ian. Hitler: Um perfil do poder. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Editor, 1993.

LIEBEL, Vinícius. O historiador e o trato com as fontes pictóricas — a alternativa do método documentário. Topoi. Revista De História, 17(33), 372–398.

MENESES, Ulpiano T. A fotografia como documento: Robert Capa e o miliciano abatido na Espanha: sugestões para um estudo histórico. Tempo — Revista do Departamento de História da UFF, Niterói, n. 13, p. 131-151, 2002.

MOSSE, George. The crisis of the German ideology: intellectual origins of the Third Reich. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964.

PAXTON, Robert. A anatomia do fascismo. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2007.

REDDY, William. The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions. Cambridge University Press; 2001.

REICHEL, Peter. Der schöne Schein des Dritten Reiches: Faszination und Gewalt des Faschismus. Munique: Carl Hansen Verlag, 1992.

REMARQUE, Erich Maria. Nada de novo no front. Tradução de Helen Rumjanek. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1981.

SONTAG, Susan. Sob o signo de Saturno. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1986.

SORLIN, Pierre. Indispensáveis e enganosas, as imagens, testemunhas da história. Revista Estudos Históricos, v. 7, n. 13, p. 81-96, 1994.

STERN, Fritz R. The politics of cultural despair: A study in the rise of the Germanic ideology. Univ of California Press, 1974.

TOURLAMAIN, Guy. "Völkisch" Writers and National Socialism. A Study of Right-Wing Political Culture in Germany, 1890–1960. Oxford, United Kingdom: Peter Lang Verlag, 2014.

Published

2026-08-03

How to Cite

SANCHES, Gabriel. “We hope to be spared from the global fire”: the national-socialist book burning as visuality of radicalization. Temporalidades, Belo Horizonte, v. 18, n. 1, p. 1–28, 2026. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/temporalidades/article/view/63898. Acesso em: 13 aug. 2026.