Nazi Looting of Europe’s Libraries

SPEAKER: Anders Rydell
EVENT DATE: 2017/10/18

DESCRIPTION:

Anders Rydell discussed his book, the story of the systematic pillaging of Europe’s libraries by Nazis during World War II, and the small team of heroic librarians now working to return the stolen books to their rightful owners. Through extensive new research, Rydell reveals the untold story of how the Nazis began to compile libraries of their own that were used to wage an intellectual war on their enemies. In this secret war, the libraries of Jews, communists, liberal politicians, LGBT activists, Catholics, Freemasons and other opposition groups were appropriated for Nazi research and used as an intellectual weapon against their owners.

Speaker Biography: Anders Rydell is an established journalist, editor and author of nonfiction. His works on the Nazi looting of art and books have been translated into 19 languages. “The Book Thieves: The Nazi Looting of Europe’s Libraries and the Race to Return a Literary Inheritance” is his first book in English.