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Revisiting the past: the restitution of Nazi loot in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
Looted books
The Preußische Staatsbibliothek as Distribution Centre for Nazi Loot
The Nazi regime started an enormous redistribution of cultural assets – including book collections. This mainly affected the political opposition, Jewish religious communities and private persons as well as Masonic lodges. The Preußische Staatsbibliothek was the most important library of the German Reich and was home to the Reichstauschstelle (Reich exchange office), another distribution centre. In 1934, a ministerial decree designated the library as the receiving institution for confiscated literature in Prussia. However, the Preußische Staatsbibliothek had to face increasing competition from Nazi institutions, including upcoming new players closely affiliated to the Nazis.
The media station provides an overview of Nazi loot in libraries and the role of the Preußische Staatsbibliothek, which as the largest research library in the German Reich became the centre of operations for receiving and distributing confiscated literature.
The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, formerly the Preußische Staatsbibliothek, is committed to working through and making restitution of the cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution and not only in their own collections; it also aims to find out where the cultural property came from by doing provenance research.
