On the battlefields of Verdun the dead find no peace... On the battlefields of Verdun the dead stand up and speak... On the battlefields of Verdun the war leaves a legacy behind. The choir of the dead says everyday: have a better memory! -Verdun, viele Jahre später (On the Battlefields of Verdun), 1931

Erich Kästner WORKS BURNED All works published before May 1933 except Emil und die Detektive (Emil and the Detectives)   German writer Erich Kästner (1899-1974) first gained popularity in the 1920s as a political satirist. He was one of the most successful left-liberal authors of the Weimar Republic. Through his writings and lectures, Kästner stressed the brutality of World War I. He was also the author of a number of popular children's books. At the book burning of 1933 in Berlin, which Kästner attended, his books were thrown into the fire to the accompaniment of a "fire oath": "Against decadence and moral decay! For discipline and decency in family and state!" What caused the Nazis to burn his books was not his highly successful children's book Emil and the Detectives but his protest novel Fabian and some of his socially conscious journalistic pieces and satiric poetry.