Document Type
Honors Project
Publication Date
6-13-2025
Abstract
During the twenty-year interwar period from 1919-1939, two vastly different nations faced their own personal wars with the censorship of booksellers. Germany—at first the Weimar Republic, then later the Nazi Regime—underwent such a transformation that Berlin went from one of the literary capitals of the world to the site of the most infamous of censorship crimes: the book burnings. Meanwhile, the United States was a long-standing democratic nation in which freedom of speech was one of its cornerstone tenants. Despite the differences of governments and the scope and scale of the censorship, there were major similarities between the tactics and methods used by each country in order to enact censorship. Using Boston and Berlin as examples, this paper looks at how censorship legislation, anti-vice groups, police forces, and the intentional molding of the internal censor all worked in tandem to create very similar processes of censorship in both countries. What it contends is that these similarities are important to acknowledge as today the United States continue to fight against literature censorship. With the return of legislation pushing censorship, it's important to see the history of censorship in the US itself and the history of censorship in one of the world's most infamous censorship states, and recognize the red flags that are currently rising in this nation.
Level of Honors
cum laude
Department
History
Advisor
Gregory Milano
Recommended Citation
Jimerson-McKinnies, Aleksandra, "Burned in Berlin – Banned in Boston: Censorship of Booksellers During the Interwar Period in the U. S. as Compared to Germany, 1919-1939" (2025). Lawrence University Honors Projects. 215.
https://lux.lawrence.edu/luhp/215