Tag Archives: dictatorship

Dictators came to power in many European countries during the twenty years following World War I. About 9:20 P.M. on February 27, 1933, the rumble and clang of fire engines echoed through the heart of Berlin, capital city of Germany. Down the broad avenue called Unter den Linden the trucks roared toward the Reichstag building where the German legislature met, but the firemen were too late; they could not check the flames which licked savagely from the windows. Within a few hours the big building was no more than a smoke-stained skeleton. The Reichstag fire was a grim prophecy of what lay ahead for Germany. …

IT WAS almost midnight in Berlin — a strange hour for a parade in any city, but down the street called Unter den Linden paraded thousands of students, carrying torches that flickered in the darkness. In the big square near the University of Berlin, they gathered around a great pile of books. They cheered as the books were set on fire and flames rose toward the sky. For this was the night of May 10, 1933 — less than five months since Hitler had become head of the government — the night when books were being burned in a number …