America Memorial Library

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
America Memorial Library
America Memorial Library
View of the main building

founding 1954
Duration > 1,000,000
Library type Regional library
place Berlin coordinates: 52 ° 29 ′ 47.6 ″  N , 13 ° 23 ′ 32.5 ″  EWorld icon
ISIL DE-109 (as part of the ZLB)
operator Central and State Library Berlin Foundation
management Volker Heller (zlb)
Website www.zlb.de
“The foundation is based on the unlimited freedom of the human spirit. Because here we are not afraid to follow the truth in all ways and to tolerate the error ourselves, as long as reason can fight it freely and unhindered. ”Say by Thomas Jefferson in the entrance area of ​​the terms and conditions

The America Memorial Library (AGB) is one of the largest public libraries in Berlin . It was a gift from the United States to Berliners. Financed with funds from the Marshall Plan , it was founded in West Berlin in 1954 to enforce freedom of education and freedom of expression . It has been part of the Central and State Library Berlin (ZLB) since 1995 . It is located at Blücherplatz  1 in Berlin-Kreuzberg .

history

The Blücherplatz in 1937 with the construction site for the Kreuzberg town hall , which was closed during the war and later became the AGB site

The foundation of the America Memorial Library was a result of the split in Berlin in 1948/49. Almost all of the regional public and academic libraries in East Berlin were located in divided Berlin . Of the 12 million volumes in Berlin's libraries in 1939, 5.2 million were still available after the Second World War . At the time of the split, about 1.3 million of these were in the western sectors of Berlin and 3.9 million in the Soviet sector. There were Berlin's central libraries, such as the Berlin City Library , the control of the SED -dominated German Administration of Public Education was, now Public Scientific Library called State Library , the Council Library , the Library of the National Academy of Sciences and the well-preserved university library Humboldt University of Berlin . The holdings of the only important library in West Berlin, the library of the Technical University , had been almost destroyed because it was not relocated during the war. In addition to the quality of life of those interested in education, this adversely affected, above all, professional training and the supply of business and administration in West Berlin with all kinds of literature. The Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) had already ordered a ban on imports of western press products and brochures into their zone or Berlin sector in autumn 1947.

First of all, the West Berlin magistrate decided in December 1948 to create a complete Berlin catalog to record all library holdings in the western sectors. In June 1950 the scientific central library opened in a villa in Dahlem .

The Marshall Plan contained a "fund for the promotion of common goals of the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany", from which 5 million DM for the "establishment of a cultural center" as an expression of the recognition of the American people for the attitude of the West Berliners during the Berlin -Blockade 1948/49 were planned. At the initiative of Mayor Ernst Reuter , the decision was made to use the 5 million DM to build a library on Blücherplatz. The name should remind of the blockade winter of 1948/49 and the airlift .

Like the Amerika-Haus , the radio station RIAS , the Henry Ford Building of the FU, the Studentendorf Schlachtensee , the Congress Hall and the Academy of Arts , the AGB are among the institutions with which the American occupying power wanted to promote the democratization of German society. Its architecture symbolized the conscious turning away from the National Socialist past and turning towards liberal modernity . With this in mind, Secretary of State Dean Acheson underlined at the laying of the foundation stone on June 29, 1952:

“Today we are laying the foundation not just for a building, but for a symbol of our common cause and our common action, which - perhaps more importantly - shows how much the freedom we strive for is basically a very simple, undemanding one and is personal matter. It is the freedom to learn, study, seek the truth. It is the essential feature of a free social order and the origin of our greatest strength [...] In America the Public Library symbolizes this view. "

A novelty in the German library landscape was the concept of the public library , which meant the openness towards the users who could directly access the book collections, which were mostly freely accessible. The closed magazines were located directly below the audience area and orders for the books there were processed in a short time. Music events, lectures and discussion series as well as readings by famous writers such as Gottfried Benn , Thornton Wilder , Luise Rinser and Uwe Johnson in the auditorium enriched Berlin’s cultural landscape . At the beginning of the 1980s, there was no longer enough space in the building, so stocks had to be stored in external stacks. Since then, there have been considerations to expand the library, which has also been partially implemented: The auditorium has been converted into another open access area.

However, the AGB did not become the central city library for Berlin because the actual city libraries or city libraries were organized by district. As the deposit copy library of the State of Berlin, the university library of the Free University of Berlin was commissioned with archiving regional book production from 1965 to 1994 .

From the late 1960s to the late 1980s, opponents of US politics chose the library because of its name as a target for bomb threats and attacks, including an arson attack with Molotov cocktails in 1969 .

After the reunification of Germany , the America Memorial Library and the Berlin City Library in East Berlin were combined to form the Central and State Library Berlin (ZLB). This consists of the buildings of both libraries and is a legal foundation under public law . The ZLB is a member of the Association of Berlin Public Libraries (VÖBB).

On September 17, 2004, the America Memorial Library celebrated its 50th anniversary.

Stock offer

In addition to books, the library also offers a large selection of CD-ROMs , DVDs , CDs , cassettes, videos and sheet music for all age groups. A special feature is the possibility of borrowing pictures and sculptures in the Artothek . Records were one of the big innovations at the opening of the library.

20 years ZLB - sculpture at the main entrance

The holdings of the Central and State Library in Berlin are divided according to subjects between the America Memorial Library and the Berlin City Library . The America Memorial Library contains the following departments:

  • music
  • Art, stage, media
  • Humanities and Social Sciences
  • Literature, languages, countries

There is a separate department for children and young people, the “Hallescher Komet” children's and youth library , with its own access and opening times.

40 Pfennig - special stamp of the Bundespost Berlin (1954) , permanent series of Berlin buildings

management

Others

With regard to the roof lettering “Memorial Library”, there is a modern myth in Berlin according to which the part of the name “America” is said to have been dismantled in the 1990s or early 2000s. In fact, historical recordings show that this was never part of the roof lettering. Only in the context of an art exhibition that took place in the library building from September 9 to October 13, 2016, was the word “America” briefly emblazoned above the neon sign, installed by the artist couple Nina Fischer and Maroan el Sani.

Corona virus pandemic

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic , the terms and conditions will remain closed from March 13th until April 19th, 2020.

literature

Web links

Commons : America Memorial Library  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ From a letter to his friend William Roscoe . The passage relates to the establishment of the University of Virginia ; see Fritz Moser : Die Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek Berlin. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1964, p. 42.
  2. ↑ See Klaus Körner : Political Brochures in the Cold War .
  3. ↑ Berlin General Catalog (BKG). In: Press and Information Office of the State of Berlin (ed., Red. Horst Ulrich and Uwe Prell): Berlin manual. The lexicon of the federal capital . FAB-Verlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-927551-27-9 , p. 101 f.
  4. ↑ Libraries . In: Press and Information Office of the State of Berlin (ed., Red. Horst Ulrich and Uwe Prell): Berlin manual. The lexicon of the federal capital . FAB-Verlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-927551-27-9 , pp. 137-140, here 139
  5. ↑ Kathrin Chod, Herbert Schwenk, Hainer Weißpflug: Berliner Bezirkslexikon. Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. Haude and Spener, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-7759-0474-3 , p. 73
  6. ^ Heinrich Kaak: Kreuzberg , Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1988 (= history of the Berlin administrative districts. Volume 2), ISBN 3-7678-0357-7 , p. 37
  7. ↑ Dorothee Brantz, Adrian von Butlar: Announcement of the lecture series Presents from the Americans in the America House in Berlin on June 25, 2009 Archive link ( Memento from December 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/archiv/mutmacher-aus- Amerika, 10810590,10570418.html
  9. ^ 50 Years of the America Memorial Library
  10. ↑ Information on the Hallescher Komet youth library : visitberlin.de ( Memento from December 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ Fritz Moser , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 52/1982 of December 20, 1982, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
  12. ↑ Michael Angele: How I Almost Became a Truther. In: Friday , 35/2015
  13. ↑ Press release from the America Memorial Library on the "Public Library" art project