Bebelplatz Berlin:
History, Book Burning & the Memorial Beneath the Square
What is Bebelplatz in Berlin?
Bebelplatz is a historic square in Berlin-Mitte, directly on Unter den Linden. The square is surrounded by major landmarks including the Berlin State Opera, St. Hedwig’s Cathedral and the Old Library. Its history dates back to the reign of Frederick the Great.
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Why is Bebelplatz famous?
Bebelplatz is best known as the site of the Nazi book burning on May 10, 1933. That evening, tens of thousands of books by banned authors were burned on what was then Opernplatz. Today, the “Sunken Library” by Israeli artist Micha Ullman commemorates the event.
Bebelplatz Berlin – Facts at a Glance
- Location: Berlin-Mitte, directly on Unter den Linden
- Built: from 1740
- Commissioned by: Frederick II, Frederick the Great
- Architect: Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff
- Historical context: Forum Fridericianum
- Former names: Platz am Opernhaus, Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Platz
- Current name: named after August Bebel since 1947
- Key historical event: book burning on May 10, 1933
- Memorial: “Library” by Micha Ullman, inaugurated in 1995
- Notable buildings: Berlin State Opera, Old Library and St. Hedwig’s Cathedral
Alright, friends,
I’m a Berliner, born and raised around Warschauer Straße, close to Volkspark Friedrichshain and Boxhagener Platz.
For most Berliners, Bebelplatz doesn’t play much of a role in everyday life. Unless, like our colleague, you work at Hotel de Rome – or regularly sit on the hotel’s beautiful rooftop terrace with a refreshing cold drink in summer.
There is one sentence, though, that has probably stayed with me forever since a school trip to this place in secondary school. A sentence I knew back then, but only really understood years later:
“Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people.”
Heinrich Heine wrote these words long before the Nazi era. But when you hear them in the exact place where books were actually burned in 1933, they hit differently.
Like so many places in Berlin, this square is shaped by beautiful architecture and significant history. Many Berliners probably know it mainly from the Festival of Lights and historically associate it with the Nazi book burning of 1933. Tourists sometimes even know more about this square than Berliners do.
But very few know the full, pretty fascinating history of this place. For me, the memorial embedded in the ground today is also a powerful reminder that something like this must never happen again. But more on that later.
Why was Bebelplatz built?
Today’s Bebelplatz was created from 1740 under Frederick II as part of the Forum Fridericianum. Frederick the Great wanted to create a prestigious ensemble near his Berlin City Palace that would showcase royal power, but also art and science.
Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff was commissioned to design it. However, the Forum was originally planned on a much larger scale and was never fully realised according to those initial ideas. Instead of a monumental royal square, an ensemble of different prestigious buildings was created – which is why it is sometimes described as a “royal square without a royal residence.”
The first major building was the Royal Opera, constructed between 1741 and 1743. It was followed by the Catholic St. Hedwig’s Church and the Royal Library, among others.
Even today, the original planning is surprisingly easy to recognise. If you arrive from nearby Museum Island and step onto Bebelplatz, you’re not simply standing on some open space: the square itself was part of a deliberately planned architectural ensemble.
What was Bebelplatz called before?
Bebelplatz has had several names throughout its history. After the Royal Opera was completed, it was initially called Platz am Opernhaus, later Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Platz, and finally named after Social Democrat August Bebel in 1947.
The name Opernplatz, however, remained in use for generations and is still sometimes used today. This is also important because historical accounts of the 1933 book burning often refer to Opernplatz – meaning what is now Bebelplatz.
In 1910, the square was officially named after Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I. After the Second World War, that name disappeared again. On August 31, 1947, the square was renamed August-Bebel-Platz in honour of the co-founder and long-time leader of German Social Democracy, who had died in 1913. It was later shortened to Bebelplatz.
The changing names tell a small piece of German history in themselves: the Prussian monarchy, the German Empire and, finally, the political reorganisation after the Nazi era.
Bebelplatz didn’t always look the way it does today
Anyone who knows Bebelplatz today will mainly know it as a large paved square. But for a time, that appearance had almost completely disappeared.
In 1845, Frederick William IV commissioned the famous landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné to transform the square into a green space. Shrubs and other plantings significantly changed what had originally been designed as an open architectural square. In 1895, the Empress Augusta Monument was added in the centre.
The construction of the Lindentunnel changed the square even more dramatically. From 1914, an access ramp was built on the square for the tunnel beneath Unter den Linden. As a result, the original interplay between the square and its surrounding buildings became even less visible.
In 1928, the Berlin Magistrate and the Prussian State Government finally decided to open up the square again. The Empress Augusta Monument was relocated, the tunnel ramp was removed and the square was repaved.
This brought what was then Opernplatz closer again to the appearance Frederick the Great had envisioned almost two centuries earlier.
What buildings are on Bebelplatz?
Architecturally, Bebelplatz is defined above all by the buildings that surround it. Some of them have been part of the Forum Fridericianum since the 18th century and have been repeatedly altered following destruction, fires and renovations.
Berlin State Opera
Today’s Berlin State Opera was built between 1741 and 1743 as the Royal Opera, based on plans by Knobelsdorff. It was one of the first major buildings of the Forum Fridericianum and gave the square its original name.
In 1843, the opera house was almost completely destroyed by fire. After being rebuilt, it was severely damaged again during the Second World War and reconstructed in the 1950s under the direction of Richard Paulick. Paulick deliberately based the reconstruction on Knobelsdorff’s historic architecture. Following another extensive renovation, the Berlin State Opera reopened in 2017.
Old Library – why Berliners call it the “Kommode”
The Old Library stands on the western side of Bebelplatz. Frederick the Great had it built as the Royal Library. Because of its curved façade, Berliners gave it a rather unacademic nickname: Kommode.
From the founding of Berlin University in 1810, students were also able to use the library. Large parts of the building were destroyed during the Second World War. The historic exterior was reconstructed, while a more modern structure was created inside.
Today, the former Royal Library is mainly used by the Faculty of Law at Humboldt University.
St. Hedwig’s Cathedral
St. Hedwig’s Cathedral was also part of the original vision for the Forum Fridericianum. The foundation stone was laid in 1747, but a lack of funds and the Seven Years’ War delayed construction. The church was finally consecrated in 1773.
It was almost completely destroyed during the Second World War and subsequently rebuilt over a period of several years. From 2020 to 2024, the interior underwent an extensive and, in some respects, controversial redesign.
Just a few minutes away, Berlin Cathedral offers another monumental trace of Berlin’s religious and architectural history. Along the short stretch between the cathedral, Museum Island and Bebelplatz, very different chapters of the city’s history sit unusually close together.
What happened at Bebelplatz on May 10, 1933?
On May 10, 1933, tens of thousands of books were publicly burned on what was then Opernplatz in Berlin. The event was part of the Nazi campaign “against the un-German spirit” and targeted Jewish, communist, liberal, pacifist and other authors considered undesirable.
Weeks earlier, the German Student Union had already begun mobilising at universities. Books were singled out using so-called blacklists, while libraries and collections were searched. During the raid on Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science, more than 10,000 works were seized in Berlin alone.
On May 10, students marched through the city with torches towards Opernplatz. Trucks loaded with books were waiting there. Tens of thousands of people gathered, including students, professors and members of the SA, SS and Hitler Youth.
It was raining. A brass band played, so-called “fire oaths” were read aloud and the books were thrown into the flames. Because the fire kept going out, petrol was used to keep it burning.
In the heart of Berlin, the destruction of literature was staged as a public spectacle.
Why did the Nazis burn books?
The book burning was intended to drive authors and ideas that did not fit the Nazi worldview out of public life. It was not a spontaneous action by a few students, but part of an organised campaign of political and cultural exclusion.
The works targeted included those of writers, scientists and political thinkers. Among them were Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Kurt Tucholsky, Heinrich and Klaus Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger, Stefan Zweig, Erich Maria Remarque and many others.
The book burnings did not take place only in Berlin. Books were burned in more than 20 German cities on May 10, 1933 and in the weeks that followed.
This is what makes Bebelplatz an important site of Berlin’s culture of remembrance to this day. Much like the Holocaust Memorial, it is not simply about the fact that something horrific happened here. The site forces us to confront where political exclusion, dehumanisation and the systematic silencing of other voices can lead.
Erich Kästner watched his own books burn
One story in particular is pretty shocking and hard for us to forget: Erich Kästner himself was on Opernplatz that evening.
While the works of other persecuted authors were being burned, Kästner stood unrecognised among the crowd and watched as his own books were thrown into the flames.
He later described the atmosphere with one word that fits that evening remarkably well: “funeral weather.”
The fact that Kästner himself was standing there suddenly makes the abstract numbers feel real. These were not simply old books being burned. People watched as the thoughts and works of living authors were publicly declared something that was meant to disappear from Germany.
One year later, more than 3,000 titles were already on blacklists.
“Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people”
Heinrich Heine’s words were not written as a prophecy about the Nazis. They come from his early 19th-century play Almansor and were written more than 100 years before the book burning at Bebelplatz.
And yet today, they are inseparably linked to this place.
That is exactly why the sentence has stayed with me ever since that school trip. As a student, you obviously understand what the individual words mean. But at least for me, it was only later that I truly understood what lay behind them.
In 1933, books were burned. Authors were then persecuted, driven out and stripped of their rights. And Nazi persecution ultimately ended in the systematic murder of millions of people.
Today, Heine’s words are inscribed on one of the bronze plaques beside the memorial at Bebelplatz.
What is underneath Bebelplatz?
Underneath Bebelplatz is the “Library” memorial by Israeli artist Micha Ullman. Since 1995, the underground room with completely empty bookshelves has commemorated the book burning of May 10, 1933.
The memorial is actually pretty unspectacular – and that is exactly what makes it so powerful.
In the middle of the paving is a glass panel. Look through it and you’ll see a white room measuring five by five by five metres. Its walls are lined with empty shelves, symbolically providing space for around 20,000 books.
You cannot enter the room.
There is no huge statue, no dramatic staging. You simply look at what is missing.
The “Sunken Library” was inaugurated on March 20, 1995. Right beside it, bronze plaques commemorate the book burning and also bear Heinrich Heine’s words.
Here you’ll find the website for the memorial.
What happened to Bebelplatz after 1945?
The Second World War also left Bebelplatz severely damaged. During the reconstruction of East Berlin’s city centre, the historic buildings were partially reconstructed, with modern building structures created behind their historic façades.
The square was given its current name after August Bebel as early as 1947.
Its actual use was less ceremonial: for decades, the large open space mainly served as a car park. It was only after German reunification that the way this historic site was treated changed significantly. The book burning memorial was added in 1995, and since 2004, cars have been parked in an underground car park beneath the square.
Today, Bebelplatz is once again closer to what it was originally intended to be: an open architectural square in the heart of Berlin.
What can you discover at Bebelplatz today?
Today, Bebelplatz can easily be included in a walk through Berlin’s historic centre. From Alexanderplatz Station, a beautiful route takes you past the Red City Hall, towards Museum Island and finally along Unter den Linden to the square.
If you continue along Unter den Linden afterwards, you’ll reach the Brandenburg Gate and, a little further on, the Reichstag with the Bundestag. Within just a few kilometres, Prussian urban planning, the German Empire, Nazi Germany, the GDR and today’s Federal Republic sit remarkably close together.
But at Bebelplatz itself, it’s worth looking beyond the buildings.
Stop for a moment at the glass panel in the middle.
Because beneath all that magnificent architecture lies an empty room. And perhaps that empty room tells you more about the history of Bebelplatz than any of the monumental buildings surrounding it.
Berlin is not a tourist attraction. Berlin is a city.
See you in the real Berlin – or here in the next blog.
Take care 🖤
Sources: Book "Die Bücherverbrennung. 10. Mai 1933" by Gerhard Sauder | Website "https://www.memorialmuseums.org/memorialmuseum/denkmal-zur-erinnerung-an-die-bucherverbrennung" | Website "https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebelplatz" | MOST IMAGES IN THIS ARTICLE ARE EXAMPLE IMAGES AND WERE NOT TAKEN AT THE LOCATION FEATURED.
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