The ZfL Library is a specialized academic library for interdisciplinary literary and cultural research, with a total collection of approximately 54,000 volumes. It primarily serves the research needs of ZfL staff.

The ZfL was established 1996, it originated from the Central Institute for Literary History (Zentralinstitut für Literaturgeschichte, ZIL), founded in 1969 in the GDR under the Academy of Sciences. The ZIL, in turn, incorporated parts of several associated institutes, editorial and research projects of the Academy, and their respective libraries.

Following the discovery that a small collection of French-language books included items confirmed to be Nazi-looted property and the well-founded assumption that the library may hold additional books that were unlawfully seized, this project is now focused on conducting a systematic provenance research of the ZfL’s library collection.

In the course of this project, the part of the library’s collection published before 1945 –more than 5,000 titles in total – is being systematically examined for problematic provenances. Relevant provenance markers and further research results will be incorporated into online databases relevant to provenance research. The project’s goal is to determine which objects were confiscated as part of Nazi persecution in order to return them to the rightful heirs.

In addition to the physical volumes, 70 existing accession books from the various predecessor libraries provide relevant information on different acquisition routes and questionable provenances. This includes, for example, volumes that were distributed through the Central Office for Old Academic Collections (Zentralstelle für wissenschaftliche Altbestände, ZwA) of the GDR.

In June 2025, the ZfL returned 93 volumes as part of the restitution of a total of 221 books to the heirs of the Jewish Parisian lawyer Henry Torrès (1891–1966), whose library in Paris had been looted by the German occupiers. The restitution took place at the conference Konferenz Recovered Memories of the French Commission for the Restitution of Property and the Compensation of Victims of Anti-Semitic Spoliations (CIVS) in Paris.

Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin (ZfL)
Geisteswissenschaftliche Zentren Berlin e.V.
Pariser Straße 1
10719 Berlin

https://www.zfl-berlin.org/project/nazi-looted-books.html

Contact:

Dr. Dirk Naguschewski
Position: project lead, knowledge transfer & communications
Email: naguschewski@zfl-berlin.org
Tel: +49 / (0)30 / 20192-180

Dr. Anne Haeming
Position: project researcher
Email: haeming@zfl-berlin.org
Tel: +49 / (0)30 / 20192-172