Bought a book from Germany that was banned in 1933 and customs held it for 6 weeks

I ordered a copy of this old sci-fi novel from a dealer in Berlin back in January. Turns out the book was listed on some historical banned list from the Nazi era and customs flagged it for review. They actually made me write a letter explaining why I needed it for personal research. Six weeks later it finally showed up, but by then I had already read a digital scan online. Has anyone else dealt with customs over imported books that were banned decades ago?

2 comments

2 Comments

umabailey1mo ago

A friend of mine ordered a psychology book from the 1930s that got held up for a month because it was on some old Soviet banned list... customs made him prove it wasn't political propaganda.

tylerr391mo ago

Was the book actually rare or just stuck in some bureaucratic black hole? I feel like these historical banned lists get thrown around by customs agents who don't even know what they're looking at. Like they probably just ran the title through some database and hit pause without checking if the ban even applies today. I had a similar thing happen with a beat up copy of a 1920s anarchist pamphlet - took five weeks and two letters before they let it through. The irony is that book was available for free online the whole time. Makes you wonder how many other harmless old books are sitting in some customs warehouse right now.