page_title: Kosančićev Venac
section_title: National Library
hierarchical_section_title: Kosančićev Venac / Features / National Library
caption_attribution_description: English: Remains of the National Library in Belgrade, Bombed on April 6. 1941
context_page_description: Kosančićev Venac is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Stari Grad. It has been described as the most valuable and most representative veduta of Belgrade.
context_section_description: National Library of Serbia was located in the neighborhood from 1925. Building was constructed in the second half of the 19th century, it was owned by Milija Marković Raspop and artist Stevan Todorović held singing and painting classes in the house. Czech painter and émigré Kirilo Kutlik opened the Serbian drawing and painting school in the house in 1895. Industrialist Milan Vapa bought the house in 1910 and opened a paper mill. In 1921 Vapa sold the house to the Ministry of education specifically for the National Library. Project of the building's adaptation was conducted by Branko Tanazević and the new library was officially opened in 1925. During the German bombing of Belgrade on 6 April 1941, it was heavily hit and then burned to the ground by the ensuing fire. The library burned for 4 days and remains the only national library in Europe destroyed in planned attack and one of the largest book bonfires in European history.
  Some 500,000 books perished, so as 1,500 Medieval Cyrillic manuscripts, charters and incunables dating from 12th to 17th century, 1,500 maps, 4,000 magazines, 1,800 newspapers, vast Turkish sources on Serbia during Ottoman rule, and personal correspondence of some of the most important people in cultural history of Serbia, like Vuk Karadžić, Đura Daničić, Pavel Šafarik and Lukijan Mušicki. The site of the library was left in ruins with the commemorative plaque. In the 1970s, the archaeological digging was conducted on the library's location. Tens of thousands of charred books were dug and handed over to the National Library. Since 2012, regular literary evenings are being held in the open, within the remnants of the building.
  Commander of the attack was the Generaloberst Alexander Löhr. When he was captured and trialed after the war, he said that Hitler personally ordered for the National Library to be destroyed first: In the first wave we were suppose to destroy the National Library, and only then to bomb what was of military importance to us. Asked why the library, he replied: Because in that institution was kept what made cultural identity of these people for so long. Löhr, who committed numerous war crimes not only in Yugoslavia, kept the attitude during the trial, asking for the public to be removed from the courtroom, disliking the way they looked at him, like I am some kind of a criminal. He was sentenced to death and on 26 February 1947 executed by the firing squad in Belgrade, city which he tried to destroy.
caption: Destroyed in April 1941 German aerial bombardment of Belgrade during invasion of Yugoslavia, the National Library remains are shown here in 2008
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