This is the Royal Library of Humboldt University. Founded in 1810 the main building was originally meant to be King Frederick II's home but he decided Potsdam, Berlin's Versailles, was much lovelier so he gave this to his kid brother as a wedding present. Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Schelling, Einstein, Planck, Marx, Engels, de Saussure, Bismarck, WEB Du Bois -- all went here. Goebbels burned 20,000 books here in 1933. There's a library full of empty shelves fit to hold the books that were lost and a plaque bearing a quote by Heinrich Heine, also a Humboldt alumnus, with these prophetic words:"Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen".
"That was only a prelude, where they burn books, they eventually burn people".
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