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April 10, 2026
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"What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books."
"Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen. (Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.)"
"Nazi Germany sought control over people's beliefs, not just their bodies and territory. From the 1933 state-sanctioned book burnings in Germany to the purging of libraries across Europe as nations were conquered by the Nazis, "un-German" reading material was threatened with extinction. The scale of destruction was impressive. By V-E Day, it is estimated that Germany had destroyed over 100 million books in Europe."
"On May 10, 1933, thousands of the banned books were collected in Berlin's Opera Square for an event called Feuersprüche, or "Fire Incantations." … As each book was thrown in, a student announced the reason this particular book was being "sentenced to death." The reasons were stated like criminal charges. The books of Sigmund Freud, for instance, were charged with spiritual corruption and "the exaggeration and unhealthy complication of sexuality." After reading the charge, the student threw the book into the pile while declaring, "I commit to the flames the works of Sigmund Freud!" Other charges included "Judeo-democratic tendencies"; "mutilation of the German language"; and "literary betrayal of the soldiers of the Great War." Once the pile was complete, it was drenched with gasoline and set on fire."
"It has been estimated that over 100 million books were destroyed during the Holocaust, in the twelve years from the period of Nazi dominance in Germany in 1933 up to the end of the Second World War."
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.