Project at University Library Frankfurt: more Nazi-looted books than expected

Since autumn 2020, the holdings of University Library Johann Christian Senckenberg at Goethe University Frankfurt have been examined for books unlawfully seized from their owners during the Nazi period. In the first project, supported by the German Lost Art Foundation and now completed, it emerged that the quantity of looted material was greater than expected. Provenance research must therefore continue in order to establish rightful ownership and enable restitution. This project marks the beginning of a long-term, systematic investigation of the library’s holdings.

The undertaking was funded primarily by the German Lost Art Foundation in Magdeburg, with additional support provided by the City of Frankfurt, which owns a substantial part of the holdings of what used to be Frankfurt Municipal and University Library. The latter institution was created after the Second World War by merging several libraries, including the municipal library. Under a 1999 cultural agreement concluded by the City of Frankfurt and the State of Hesse, a portion of the holdings continues to belong to the municipal authorities. Roughly one third of the books published before 1945 are estimated to fall into this category.

Originally planned for two years, the project was extended for a further two years because research proved far more labour-intensive than expected. The project was planned based on experience gained from comparable initiatives, but the situation in Frankfurt proved to be different: with its large Jewish population, the city was more severely affected by persecution and expropriation under the Nazi regime. As the recipients of confiscated cultural property, libraries and other cultural institutions therefore “benefited” from this accordingly, so the share of Nazi-looted property among the university library holdings is higher than elsewhere.

Another factor is that Frankfurt became a central location for Allied restitution efforts after 1945. The collecting point for looted book holdings and books whose owners had been exterminated was first established at the former Municipal and University Library and later relocated to nearby Offenbach, where it was known as the Offenbach Archival Depot. Millions of books were gathered there and, where possible, returned to their rightful owners worldwide. Where this was not possible, the holdings remained in Offenbach and from 1947 onwards were gradually transferred to the University of Frankfurt.

Some of the holdings that entered the University Library during the Nazi period and its aftermath were systematically examined for the first time in connection with the initial provenance research project. In the first stage of the project, the team sought to trace provenance based on stamps, bookplates and handwritten notes in more than 75,000 volumes. Some 7,500 books were identified as belonging to approximately 350 different former owners and are very likely to have been wrongfully expropriated. In view of this share, regarded by experts as unexpectedly high, it was only possible to complete some of the individual case research.

Nonetheless, numerous volumes were restituted to their rightful owners or their heirs during these first four years. The restitution procedures varied considerably in scale, duration and practical resolution. Just and fair solutions in the spirit of the Washington Principles were arrived at in 35 cases, covering a total of 90 volumes. These included restitutions, re-donations and repurchases. Books from Frankfurt University Library were returned not only to private individuals in Germany and abroad but also to a range of organisations, including political parties, trade unions, Jewish congregations and Masonic lodges.

One particularly significant case concerns the holdings of the Baer antiquarian bookshop, a world-class Frankfurt institution liquidated by the Nazi state in 1934. At that time, Frankfurt’s libraries acquired extensive holdings at far below their true value. The purchasers included a number of scholarly libraries that together functioned as a university library prior to 1945 and were therefore the predecessors of today’s University Libraries. Thanks to extensive research, this injustice has now been systematically investigated and documented for the first time. In the initial project alone, provenance researchers at the library identified more than 5,000 volumes from the Baer antiquarian bookshop that are to be regarded as Nazi-looted property. The aim is now to contact the heirs of the Baer antiquarian bookshop in order to jointly develop a just and fair solution. The project team has already begun the search for heirs. Further significant findings relating to the Baer provenance are expected to emerge from the newly launched follow-up project.

This second provenance research project is now due to start and work will continue for a further two years. This project is likewise being funded by the German Lost Art Foundation. The focus has now shifted to new collection groups: in particular early, rare and valuable prints dating from the sixteenth to the twentieth century and belonging to specialised collections that have been established from the 1940s onwards. It is considered certain that even this second project will not bring the investigation of Nazi-looted property in the library to a close, so the University Library is gearing itself up for work that will extend over many years.

To the project Recherche nach NS-Raubgut in den Beständen der Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg [Research into Nazi-looted property in the holdings of the Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library]

Results and graphics of the provenance research at Frankfurt University Library 2025: