During the Second World War some 5 million art objects were stolen by the Nazis. Just as important, between 100 and 200 million books, rare or otherwise, were stolen or burned.

While rare books and manuscripts can have a sale value rivaling artworks, most of the books stolen by the Nazis were not financially valuable. The Nazi art theft bureau, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter, had two main purposes: to ‘unarm’ their enemies by taking away the weapons of thought — books, libraries, archives. From the Nszi point of view Poles, for instanvce, were being reduced to slavery and needed neither education nor thought.

Secondly, by looting the libraries and archives of their enemies, the Nazis tried to take control of the memory and history of the victims. Fearful that even if the Nazis won the war, future generations would judge the Nazis for their crimes, the Jews had to be painted as an incarnation of evil for all future generations. The objective was to obliterate the libraries and re-write history according to Nazi ideology. “Real” history books lurking in libraries were like time bombs that could prompt people in the future to question the tailored version of reality.

While a minority of academics, editors, scientists, fact-checkers and students still use books in libraries, regarding them as being reasonably reliable, most people now go online for “facts” and read sites like Wikipedia, which anyone can alter (for better or worse). A contemporary version of the Nazi book theft would be if, say, some presidential candidate — in league with some superpower in opposition to the country where that candidate was running for office — were to somehow take over the entire internet and erase fact-based pages, in order to replace them later on with histories of their choosing. After a generation or so, the world might forget how history had been presented beforehand and learn only this newly imposed version of events. Logistically, a cyber-conspiracy of this sort would be easier to pull off than seizing every single book across an entire continent. (a precised version of a review of “The Book Thieves,” by Swedish journalist Anders Rydell, in the European Review.)

We now have an American Administration for whom the truth is suspect and alternative facts can reliably be promoted over 24 hour news channels thirsty for the next horror. If Trump can casually endanger the whole future of the human race by pulling out of the Paris climate change agreement, calling climate change a “hoax”, and propose to sell millions of acres of beautiful public lands and national parks created by successive Administrations since Theodore Roosevelt to his rich chums for their mineral deposits, what other horrors has he is store for us? A re- writing of history into the bargain?

We should be frightened, very frightened. There has to be a point when all this stops. We cannot wait until 2020.