Initial Inventory Check on Nazi Looted Books for Public Libraries

The project aims to carry out initial checks in a representative selection of public libraries throughout Germany in order to develop a well-founded assessment of potential Nazi looted property in these holdings, which have hardly been examined yet. This is intended to create a reliable basis for advancing provenance research in this area in a targeted manner.

The project plan foresees initial checks in public libraries with historic holdings of different size and orientation from eight federal states. Collections ranging from a few hundred (Kreisfahrbücherei Celle) to over a hundred thousand volumes (Stadt- und Landesbibliothek Dortmund) will be taken into account. The origin of the holdings is often unknown, but in half of the cases, initial suspicions for Nazi looted books have been raised.

This wide-ranging inventory check can only succeed if the public libraries themselves incur hardly any expense. For this reason, a provenance researcher is to visit 15 libraries for approximately one week each, examine the historic holdings and - if available and accessible - the acquisition documents on site, carry out further research before and after the visit, and summarize the respective results in standardized dossiers, especially with regard to future research needs. With this project structure, an appropriate procedure for the initial check for this target group can be offered and, at the same time, comparable assessments can be achieved through the checking routine of the same project researcher. The institutions themselves will only support the project with staff in the preparation and follow-up work and, above all, in the monitoring of the individual library visits.

(c) Deutscher Bibliotheksverband e. V.