Author of A Fiction Writer's Guide to Peace: Crafting Nonviolent Heroism
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Editor-in-Chief for The Peace Chronicle
Copy Editor for Drifting Sands Haibun
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Brief Biographical Statement
Gabriel Ertsgaard is Editor-in-Chief for The Peace Chronicle and Copy Editor for the poetry journal Drifting Sands Haibun. He has taught university English courses for the past decade, and is the author of numerous poems, short stories, and nonfiction articles. He holds a Doctor of Letters with a concentration in Global Studies from Drew University.
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Bonfires of the Third Reich
(First appeared in The Peace Chronicle, fall 2025)
“Any burning of books is a sign of sickness in a nation, and any attempt to influence the editorial policy of an encyclopedia is but another sign of the same disease.”
Robert Collison, Encyclopedias: Their History Through the Ages (2nd edition), 1966
I grasp now that the battle over books
Will never end. Each generation must
Defend their right to read, to think, to recognize
Perspectives that their leaders would suppress.
So let us undertake a pilgrimage
Into the past to better understand
The civic controversies of our present.
We’ll start in spring 1933:
Hitler’s Sturmabteilung (Storm Division)
Attacked a newspaper and bookstore
That served the opposition to the Fuhrer’s
New dictatorship (still in it’s infancy). [1]
Then from the pamphlets, books, and magazines
Seized in that raid, they built the prototype
For all the wicked bonfires of that cruel,
Malevolent regime. The flame was lit.
The torch passed to the German Student Union,
Pride of their nation’s universities,
To stoke and steer the fiery purge of books. [2]
They targeted a research institute
That studied human sexuality. [3]
Nine decades later, we are still relearning
What those careful interviews and studies
Already were prepared to bring to light
Regarding homosexuality,
Transgenderism, and related topics.
The scholarship blazed bright, then burned to ash.
From physics to psychology, all books
By Jewish authors—great and minor works
Alike—were options for incineration.
This pattern spread to other blacklist groups
Disparaged by the dictator’s regime.
The pyres, ironic beacons in the dark,
Illuminated that the Nazis’ goal
Was to erase from human memory
All records of the voices and the views
Of those who fell outside the Nazi myth
Of master race, of German folk and state.
The groups whose books were targeted and burned
In time would see their bodies seized as well,
Then trafficked into concentration camps. [4]
The tragic end of these events is known
And infamous. The holocaust of books
Became the Holocaust of human flesh. [5]
The call to censorship too often proves
Seductive, for the spell of zealous hate
Arouses our desire to stigmatize
Those designated undesirable.
Just notice how the authors and the themes
Of many banned or challenged books today
Keep company with what was burned before.
So in each age we must resist the wheel
That fervid and relentless tries to roll
Us toward a new dictatorship of ash.
[1] “Bücherverbrennung der Nazis: Dresden war vorn mit dabei – Diskussionsabend.” Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten. 3 September 2023. https://www.dnn.de/lokales/dresden/buecherverbrennung-der-nazis-dresden-war-vorn-mit-dabei-diskussionsabend-GRD5K2P6EZG27IZCN6Z24DBKPE.html; “Nazi book burnings.” Wikipedia. Accessed 19 August 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings
[2] “Nazi Book Burnings.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial. Last updated 28 July 2025. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/book-burning
[3] “Magnus Hirschfeld.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial. Last updated 17 December 2021. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/magnus-hirschfeld-2
[4] “Concentration Camp System: In Depth.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial. Last updated 22 August 2023. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/concentration-camp-system-in-depth
[5] In his play Almansor, the 19th century German poet Heinrich Heine warned: “Those who burn books will in the end burn people.” Heine was of Jewish ancestry, and his works were among those targeted by the Third Reich. See the summary of Sholomo Avineri’s lecture on this topic: “The Tale of Two Book Burnings: Heine’s Warning in Context.” Central European University. 13 March 2014. https://www.ceu.edu/article/2014-03-13/tale-two-book-burnings-heines-warning-context