Bebelplatz

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The Bebelplatz looking north towards the Unter den Linden. To the right, the State Opera. To the left, Humboldt University. The artwork depicting a large pile of books in the middle distance is a temporary exhibit and is not connected with the book-burning which took place in the centre of the square in 1933.

The Bebelplatz (formerly Opernplatz) is a public square in Berlin, the capital of Germany. The square is on the south side of the Unter den Linden, a major east-west thoroughfare in the centre of the city. It is bounded to the east by the State Opera building (hence its prewar name), to the west by buildings of Humboldt University, and to the south by St. Hedwig's Cathedral, Berlin's oldest Roman Catholic church. The square is named after August Bebel, a leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in the 19th century.

The Bebelplatz is best known as the site of the book burning ceremony held on May 10, 1933 by members of the S.A. and Nazi youth groups, on the instigation of the Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels. The Nazis burned around 20,000 books, including works by Thomas Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx and many other authors. Today a glass plate set into the Bebelplatz, giving a view of empty bookcases, commemorates this event.

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