Far-right attacks on libraries

Berlin – Defaced and destroyed, books torn up and political messages scrawled across their pages: the evidence of an alleged far-right vandalism spree at a city library in Berlin covers an entire table.

“The first reaction was confusion, then outrage, when we realised what had happened here,” said Boryano Rickum, chief librarian for Tempelhof-Schoeneberg district.

The incident – the work of a single suspect – was not however a one-off.

The library at Berlin’s Technical University is also thought to have been targeted by far-right vandalism while, elsewhere, extremists have crashed events and threatened staff.

The cases illustrate what campaigners call a “cultural struggle” as extremist ideas gain purchase and the far-right climbs in the polls. The increased threat has prompted efforts to better arm public spaces against attack and protect them as a space for dialogue.

Staff at the library in wellheeled Tempelhof-Schoenberg were used to finding the odd scribbled swastika but the vandalism crossed a line, said Rickum.

Destroying books was, in his eyes, tantamount to an “attack on democracy”.

“The moment we discovered the damage, it was clear that we couldn’t just go back to business-as-usual.”

The topics dealt with in the books gave some indication of the possible motivation: the history of feminism, critical analyses of far-right groups and the autobiographies of prominent green politicians.

“We had to assume that it was an attempt to prevent a critical discussion of right-wing extremism and National Socialism,” said Rickum.

Acts of violence against books have a particular resonance in Germany, where the Nazis, who ruled up to 1945, ceremonially burnt publications they deemed to be subversive or deviant.

The acts of radical censorship are commemorated in central Berlin on Bebelplatz, the site of such a bonfire in the 1930s.

In recent times, many cultural institutions have had run-ins with extremists, said Bianca Klose from MBR, an advisory group, which offers help dealing with the far-right.

“But now we’ve noticed that in particular public libraries are increasingly noticing a so-called cultural struggle from the right,” said Klose.

By targeting libraries, “the extremist right is trying to change the boundaries of what can be said”, according to Klose, whose organisation printed a pamphlet with advice for librarians last year.

The publication details confrontations with the far-right, such as threats made last year against a reading to children by two drag queens at a Munich library. –