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 trashu0022, and it was intended to set the scene for further book burnings. But the scheme backfired.
Menoa Stauffer
Menoa Stauffer studies Contemporary History and German Language and Literature at the University of Zurich and is part of the editorial team of the student magazine Elfenbeintürmer (etü).
The prototype campaign: u003cemu003e“Kampf dem Schund” u003c/emu003e
The Brugg campaign was the dress rehearsal for a fight against immoral writing that was intended to mobilise the entire country. According to the plan prepared by a task force made up of representatives of cantonal youth associations, on 1 August, Switzerland’s national holiday, a traditional bonfire was to be lit in every canton, burning trashy books and comics. Even Switzerland’s Federal Department of Home Affairs, wanted in on the movement to declare war on this literary rubbish.
The debate had been raging since the late 19th century, but there was still no consensus on what actually constituted “trash”. While “smut” referred to pornographic texts and images, “trash fiction” encompassed everything that was considered indecent, which allowed plenty of latitude. Time and again, this sparked discussion both within and outside the social morality movement, from right to left. What everyone did agree on, though, was the harm that trashy literature would inflict on the nation’s adolescents.
The menace: u003cemu003eBuffalo Billu003c/emu003e and detective novels
However, American comic books imported from Germany satisfied the desire for youth literature which for a long time was not catered to by Swiss publishers. Anyone in Switzerland who managed to get hold of a Nick Carter comic surreptitiously passed it on. There was a thriving business in comic trading. One teacher, who admitted to having previously read trashy literature himself, was surprised to find that there were “also bright pupils” among the readers of this filth. Even so, this sort of thing had to be stopped.
The legal basis: between fighting trash, and freedom of the press
However, this didn’t mean the subject was entirely off the table. Twice, in 1948 and 1959, the federal government asked what actions the cantons were taking to safeguard against trashy literature. For Federal Councillor Philipp Etter, the “deluge of trash and smut” was a “boil” and a “canker” – old-fashioned terms from the field of medical hygiene. In 1963, Etter therefore set up the "he documentation centre for printed matter that was harmful to young people and the public at large". This organisation maintained lists of banned smutty and trashy literature as a basis for searches in the cantons. It was an attempt to establish binding criteria. But what was considered indecent or obscene continued to be a highly controversial issue; there were very few criminal convictions based on these lists. The committee’s decision-making practice came in for more and more criticism up to 1974, and freedom increasingly took precedence over morality in public opinion.
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
