Bertha Probst de Linga

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Bertha Probst de Linga (born March 13, 1891 in the Allgäu ; † October 26, 1982 in Hamburg ) was the founder of the Linga Library Foundation in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. When the foundation was established in 1967, it has ensured the continued existence of the Linga library for Latin America research to this day .

Life

Bertha Probst, born in the Allgäu as the daughter of a teacher, had a diverse education and spoke several languages. She had earned a teaching degree in Paris and later in Chicago. From 1914 to 1927 she worked as governess in Chicago and was temporarily active as a secretary for the local branch of the General German Language Association. During the First World War, she became a US citizen. In 1927 she married Carlos Linga , a businessman from Hamburg-Altona who had lived in Mexico since 1894 and whose passion for bibliophile book editions she shared. During the following decades she lived with her husband in Mexico and helped him expand his important bibliophile collection, the 6,000 volumes of which formed the basis for the Linga library founded in Hamburg in 1957. In order to maintain contacts with German Latin American scholars such as Franz Termer and to promote the expansion of the library collection, the couple now traveled to Hamburg every summer. The library, today one of the largest libraries for Latin American research in Germany, gained international importance in the following years thanks to its valuable old holdings. In order to continue the work of her husband, who died in 1963, Bertha Linga founded the Linga Library Foundation in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg in 1967. Despite moving to Munich that same year, she maintained an emotional relationship with the book collection, which Bertha saw as a kind of substitute for children. She had learned bookbinding while still in Mexico and bound many of the bibliophile works herself. Therefore, she bequeathed most of the assets of the couple who remained childless to the foundation, the purpose of which is to promote the further expansion of the library.

The Linga Library

literature

  • Hellmut Braun: The Linga library and the founder of the Linga Foundation: Bertha Probst de Linga . In: Information: Zeitschrift für Bibliothek, Archiv und Information in Norddeutschland 3 (1983), ISSN  0720-7123 , pp. 164-165.
  • Wiebke von Deylen: Between books and balance sheets: the Hamburg businessman Carlos Linga and his library . In: Jörn Arfs and Ulrich Mücke (eds.): Traders, pioneers, scientists: Hamburgers in Latin America . Berlin u. a. 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-10617-9 , pp. 89-107.
  • Linga Library Foundation . In: 100 forays: private funding in Hamburg's cultural life . A publication by the Elsbeth Weichmann Society. Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-9813044-0-4 , p. 121.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Probst de Linga, Bertha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Linga, Bertha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American founder of the Linga Foundation
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Allgäu
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 1982
Place of death Hamburg