VISIONARY WORDS
September 25th, 2009 | 10:55 am
German poet Heinrich Heine said: “Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bucher verbrennt, verbreent man auch am Ende Menschen.” (“This was only foreplay. Where books are being burned there will eventually be humans burned.”) That was in 1821!!!! How did he foretell the events that 110 years later would lead to the greatest war the world has ever known?
Of course, the gap between burning books out of fear and ideology and the taking of human lives is thinner than any of us want to consider. Events in Nazi Germany proved that point in painful detail. Heine could have also expanded his observation to include the burning of paintings because that, too, was part of Hitler’s determination to influence how people thought, what they believed in, and who they obeyed.
The importance of Heine’s observation is timeless: they are words of warning to us all…to pay attention…to think for ourselves, and to speak up and act when the very freedoms all people of good will cherish are under attack.
