Here on the square in front of Humboldt University in Berlin the Nazis, on May 10, 1933, held an infamous book burning session, with the grounds full of people with books by Jewish, Marxist, pacifist and other "un-German" authors to be burned. This showed early on -- four months after the Nazis came to power -- that their regime was not only racist and militarist, but opposed to the free exchange of ideas. Below is a plaque in the center of the square which commemorates the infamy that took place. Any time a government or movement declares ideas as so dangerous that they should be destroyed rather than debated or discussed freely, that is a sign that the government or movement is very dangerous indeed. The plaque reads: "In the middle of this square National Socialist students on May 10, 1933 burned the works of hundreds of free authors, publicists, philosophers and scientists." The Nazis were a fascist party fiercly opposed to socialism, but they combined the term "nationalist" with "socialist" to try to expand their appeal -- clever dishonesty was their trademark. By the early thirties the extremists on the Left (Communists) and the Right (Nazis) were dominating much of German political life, leaving Social Democrats, German conservatives, and moderates little chance to save the first German democracy, the Weimar Republic, which lasted from 1919 to 1933.