Exhibition on the search for cultural property expropriated as a result of National Socialist persecution in the special collections at Hamburg State and University Library

The ex­hi­bi­tion shows the ini­tial re­sults of an on­go­ing re­search project fund­ed by the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion which is ex­am­in­ing cer­tain spe­cif­ic ac­qui­si­tions made in the years 1933-45 to ver­i­fy whether they are Nazi-loot­ed as­sets. Dur­ing the Na­tion­al So­cial­ist era, tar­get­ed pur­chas­es from auc­tion hous­es and an­ti­quar­i­an book­shops led to the li­brary’s spe­cial col­lec­tions ac­quir­ing doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to a group of Ham­burg po­ets – the Ham­burg­er Dichterkreis – as well as a num­ber of old prints and rare books. The ac­qui­si­tions were of­ten the re­sult of forced sales by cit­i­zens who were per­se­cut­ed as Jews. The li­brary ben­e­fit­ed from this prac­tice: in 1942, for ex­am­ple, li­brary di­rec­tor Wahl not­ed “very grat­i­fy­ing ad­di­tions”, in­clud­ing a large col­lec­tion of au­to­graphs “pre­vi­ous­ly owned by an evac­u­at­ed Jew”.

On show at the State Li­brary un­til 22 Septem­ber, the ex­hi­bi­tion traces the in­tri­cate paths that led to ac­qui­si­tion as well as ex­plain­ing how prove­nance re­search works, pre­sent­ing cas­es that have been solved as well as oth­ers that re­main un­solved. It tells of the bi­ogra­phies be­hind the manuscripts and books, such as that of Berlin writ­er and lit­er­ary schol­ar Hein­rich Spiero, who was heart­bro­ken at hav­ing to sell his beloved au­to­graphs.

Since 2006, the State Li­brary has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed books that were added to its col­lec­tion be­tween 1933 and 1945 and are sus­pect­ed of hav­ing been Nazi-loot­ed prop­er­ty.
For more in­for­ma­tion see: https://blog.sub.uni-ham­burg.de/?p=33628