User:Mayahettleman/sandbox

Nazi-Era Germany
During the Second World War, the German Nazi party hosted frequent book burnings following seizures of property belonging non-Nazi Germans. The burnings were organized along with the efforts of an all-powerful Aryan Race that were being instated in the government by Joseph Goebbels; the Nazi Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. These events were seen as a symbolic cleanse for the German people, ridding their country and Aryan identity of anything that was 'un-German' in its ideals. The materials included in the burning were not limited to works made within the Weimar Republic of the time, and the blacklist being followed reached to American authors as well as socialist and communist works. Ultimately, the blacklist for book burnings was focused on any content that would threaten the totality of Nazi power in Germany. More than anything else, these book burnings were remove Jewish cultural influences in Germany, at the order of the rising Nazi regime.

Ireland's Censorship of Publications Act of 1929
Ireland's relationship with censorship was connected to the passing of the Censorship of Publications Act in 1929 as a result of an all-encompassing effort on the part of the Catholic Actions groups. The 1929 act would not be repealed until 1967. For the 38 years before the act was repealed, the status of Irish works was left completely at the whim of members of the Catholic Church. In accordance to the act, the censorship board put into place would be composed of a member of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland (CTSI) or a Knight of St. Columbanus as well as three additional Catholics and a final Protestant. This congregation were tasked with deciding whether or not a work had any tendency towards the "indecent or obscene". For a work to be prohibited there was a required four-to-one majority following an intense analysis of the work for any potentially problematic content. Works that were deemed too provocative would be banned by the deciding board.

Apartheid South Africa
The nearly 50 year period of Apartheid in South Africa, under influence of the severe policies of racial segregation, silenced the voices of many who were critical of the government. The censorship of such writings was legalized under the institution of the 1950 Suppression of Communism Act. This act was the governments tool to refute any anti-government propaganda being released against the Apartheid, allowing the works of any person who had left the country or who was considered to have acted against the state to be prohibited entirely. Banned people were marked with a Communist label, making it clear that no works being produced on their behalf were to be consumed by a South African Citizen.

It was not until the early 1990s, the South African Government began a process of evaluating the banned materials looking to decide if certain works should still be considered prohibited in the country. This evaluation led to much of the considerations for prohibited materials to become limited to explicit topics instead of politically driven messaging. Though some materials remained undesirable following this reevaluation, there were major publications that were then allowed to be distributed in South Africa. Especially notable was the country's growing openness to various works of political thinkers such as Nelson Mandela, Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. Credit for this new perspective can be offered towards an increasingly liberal political climate coming into place during the early 1990s.