Bebelplatz Memorial

When you enter Bebelplatz, in addition to looking at the sides and to the sky for a closer look at the buildings, you must also look at the floor, as in the center of the square there's a large crystal with a floor under with some empty shelves. This is the memorial to the book burning of May 10, 1933, by brownshirts and the Hitler Youth. It was at the instigation of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and more than 40,000 books were burned. The crystal has a plaque with a quote from author Heinrich Heine 1817 that says: "Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen." (That was only a prelude, there where they burn books, they end up burning people too).