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Public Libraries in Nazi Germany
Margaret F. Stieg, University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, 1992, ISBN 0-8173-0556-4
This is a fascinating, if scholarly, examination of the impact of Nazism and Second World War on the public libraries and librarians of Germany. Professor Stieg of the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama has made a definitive and well-written contribution to this little known area of the profession's history. War is, paradoxically, a bringer not only of death, horror and destruction but also brings change, development and progress. The Nazi regime transformed German public libraries and librarianship. The Public Library Service was fragmented and neglected under the Weimar Republic. The onset of Nazi involvement and regulations brought substantial and far reaching changes to a formerly moribund service. Like every other aspect of life under the Third Reich, the public libraries were harnessed to the political will and played an...