On May 10, 1933 there occurred across Germany a mass destruction of some of Germany's most valuable creative works. Nazi party leaders and student groups from various universities gathered to burn books which they considered to be "un-German" in spirit. The biggest bonfire was in Berlin where more than 70,000 people went to see the burning of 20,000 books by notable intellectuals, scientists and cultural figures, most of whom were Jewish. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister declared that "Jewish intellectualism is dead" and he gave his public approval for the students to "clean up the debris of the past".
