The burning of books

Book burning in Berlin

Why would someone burn books?

In the 30s and 40s, the Nazi government in Germany used many methods to oppress other political viewpoints than their own, one of them being book burnings. They're not the only ones who has used this method, but they are the most known example. One of the things thats special about the Germany case, is that normal people would be a part of these book burning rituals, and cheer while the books were being burned. This does off course not mean that all Germans accepted the burnings, but the Nazis didn't need to stop riots while doing it.
So what would the Nazis achieve by doing it? They did have one thing in mind, remove all literature being critic to Nazism, and remove all "Jew and Socialist literature", even if the books were neutral in politics. We must remember that the Nazis were elected legally with over forty percent, and that because of the hard times, and economic crisis, people needed someone to blame. Today we are starting to see similar things in Greece, Spain, Hungary etc.
When people wants to blame someone (in the ww2 case, Jews and left wing politicians), and it starts to escalate, there's easy for the people who's in power, or wants to be in power, to use this hate and escalate it even more. The Nazis called it "Action against the Un-German Spirit". The book burnings are therefore not only something the people wants, but the government gets to erase all other viewpoints. It's actually brainwash at a high level.