![Book burning in Switzerland in 1965: the people of Brugg look on as so-called “inferior” literature – comics, cheap novels and tabloid newspapers – is consigned to the flames.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/schundliteratur-verbrennung-brugg-1965-keystone-459561383-300x225.jpg)
Mickey Mouse goes up in flames
Comics smoulder, books burn: in Aargau in 1965, mounds of so-called “trashy fiction” ended up on a fire. The campaign was called “Fight the trash", and it was intended to set the scene for further book burnings. But the scheme backfired.
![Classified by Hans Keller as “trash”: “Mickey et Guillaume Tell” comic, c. 1970.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/comic-mickey-et-guillaume-tell-um-1970-gbe-100538-lm-80426-225x300.jpg)
The prototype campaign: “Kampf dem Schund”
![A VW bus with loudspeakers and the message “Kampf dem Schund” leads the procession through Brugg.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/schundliteraturverbrennung-brugg-1965-keystone-459561053-300x232.jpg)
The menace: Buffalo Bill and detective novels
![In East Germany too, there were campaigns to burn “trashy literature", as here in Berlin on 2 June 1955 to mark International Children’s Day.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/verbrennung-von-schmutz-und-schundliteratur-in-ost-berlin-am-vorabend-des-internationalen-kindertags-1955-300x206.jpg)
The legal basis: between fighting trash, and freedom of the press
![Book burning on the Opernplatz in Berlin on 10 May 1933.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/bucherverbrennung-auf-demopernplatzinberlinam-10-mai-1933-300x190.jpg)
The burning: beginning of the end
The organisers’ initial delight at the presence of television crews quickly faded: the coverage of the event was “in a deliberately ironic tone” and the reporting didn’t present the positive aspects of the incineration campaign (in German). SRF