The German National Library in Frankfurt

A place of written heritage

Today the German National Library has two locations, Leipzig and Frankfurt. Founded in Leipzig in 1913, Frankfurt was chosen as a replacement location after the division of Germany in the post-war period. Since 1945 every printed work published in Germany has been collected there - from magazines to scientific books. Even advertising brochures and club magazines are kept. Publishers must hand in two copies of each printed work - one for Frankfurt and one for Leipzig. Every day, about 2000 new writings arrive at the library. Today there are 34 million objects on the shelves - in

the chronological order and sorted by size, so that more fits into the 30000 m² of storage space. The first book from 1945 is “Meine Hunde im Nordland” von Egerton Young about a journey with a dog slide through the north of Canada. This is not one of the works that are in demand on a regular basis. Only 5% of the works are actually brought into the reading rooms, because nobody can borrow the books. The task of the 634 employees is to collect, document and make available the collection – and, in principle, to preserve the written heritage for the future. In addition, there is a special collection of literature about Germany (including that from other countries), translations of German works into other languages, and the Exile Archive, which collects the estates and literature of the people who had to flee Germany between 1933 and 1945.