Library of the German Reich Assembly

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The library of the German Reich Assembly (also: Reich Library) was the reference library of the Frankfurt National Assembly from 1848/1849, i.e. the parliamentary library . In some cases it was considered to turn it into a national library of all German works.

The six thousand volumes were brought to Nuremberg in 1853/1855, where the Germanic National Museum kept them as a parliamentary library. In 1938 they came to the Deutsche Bücherei in Leipzig , where they are still presented today as a separate collection.

Foundation and first years

The National Assembly itself initially seemed to have had no need for a parliamentary library. The committees acquired the works themselves and had a budget for them. Publications received via the Petitions Committee were distributed to the appropriate committees or put on file.

Moritz Veit , MP and bookseller from Berlin

The publisher Heinrich Wilhelm Hahn d. J. made the offer to the National Assembly that it should choose works from his program which it could use for its own reference library. On August 31, 1848, the National Assembly treated the offer positively. The National Assembly thus decided to set up a reference library. The MPs Moritz Veit and Carl Gustav Schwetschke , themselves publishers, offered the same thing as Hahn. Towards the end of October, Veit proposed the establishment of an imperial library, a national library , to which all publishers should send a copy of all their works. But the National Assembly could not oblige the publishers, who remained skeptical because the end of the National Assembly was in sight. Only relatively few and smaller publishers responded to an appeal. Furthermore, Belgium , for example , which had recognized the German central authority, donated many works on Belgian parliamentarism.

The holdings of the library of the German Federal Assembly (since 1821) came into the possession of the National Assembly after 1848. It was about law and government gazettes, legal comments, orders, etc. of the individual German member states. They were then the basis for the reference libraries of the Frankfurt Reich Ministries.

The employed librarian was the sinologist Johann Heinrich Plath from October 1848. Three members, including Karl Bernhardi , formed a library commission. The library was installed on the gallery of the Paulskirche , on both sides of the Germania painting. A card catalog (later summarized in five volumes) divided the holdings into 30 subject groups, the first being: "Law collections, constitutions and contracts". In the few months of its existence, the Reichsbibliothek had around 6,000 volumes with 4,500 titles. After the summer of 1849, librarian Plath tried unsuccessfully to single-handedly continue to run the library as the General German National Library.

Caricature of the administrator of the National Assembly, the deputy Friedrich Siegmund Jucho

The Reichsbibliothek does not appear in the memoirs of parliamentarians and was therefore forgotten after 1849. Even Eduard Simson , President of the National Assembly and the Reichstag, did not mention them when the Reichstag library was established in 1871. After the end of the National Assembly, the former MP Friedrich Siegmund Jucho had authority over the Reich Library. In 1850/1851 he negotiated with the Federal Central Commission and the Bundestag, which refused because the German Confederation saw in it no national necessity. Nevertheless, the volumes were brought to the Palais Thurn und Taxis , the Federal Palace of the Bundestag, in December 1851 .

Germanic National Museum Nuremberg

The Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg, founded in 1852, wanted to build a national library itself. In the first decade she made intensive efforts to maintain its German-historical national library , but remained dependent on the patriotism of the publishers, associations and private individuals who were supposed to deliver their publications. The focus of the Nuremberg library was on German history, art and literature from the Middle Ages to 1650.

In the spring of 1853 the Nuremberg residents had received ten volumes of the Monumenta from Frankfurt ; Donor Hahn was happy about it. In September 1854, the National Museum asked the Bundestag for the remaining holdings of the Reich Library, which the Bundestag's Complaints Commission supported. After all, the donors wanted to create the foundation for a national library. In January 1855, the Bundestag decided to hand it over, and in April the move to Nuremberg began. The holdings remained together as the parliamentary library , with the exception of a few titles that were included in the German-historical national library.

The volumes from Frankfurt gave an important impetus to the establishment of a national library in Nuremberg. In 1863, when over six hundred publishers committed to deliver, the library had around 40,000 volumes with 18,600 titles. In 1870, however, the National Museum reoriented itself so that the National Library was no longer one of its tasks. In 1938 the parliamentary library came to the German library in Leipzig .

German Library Leipzig

German library in Leipzig

For the Leipzig German Library, founded in 1912/1913, the Reich Library was a stroke of luck, as it served as an extension of its own tradition and as an example for a private national library supported by publishers. At the corresponding celebration in 1938, Albert Paust consciously drew a parallel between the National Assembly, which was initially large in Germany, and the “ Anschluss ” of Austria that year; allegedly in 1848 the Austrian government also had works available. At that time, Paust founded the “myth of the imperial library”, says Johannes Jacobi, which was actually intended as a reference library for Parliament. Paust did not mention the Jew Veit or the Freemason Schwetschke. As the Reich Library from 1848 , the holdings in Leipzig are exhibited in a conference room together with three armchairs of the Frankfurt Bundestag. A few titles remained in Nuremberg.

See also

literature

  • Johannes Jacobi, Steffi Richter: Library of the German Reich Assembly 1848/49 (Reich Library): inventory . The German Library, Leipzig / Frankfurt am Main / Berlin, 1999
  • Ursula Mende: Epilogue: The Musealization of the Revolution . In: 1848: The Europe of Images. Volume II: Michels March . Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg 1998

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Johannes Jacobi, Steffi Richter: Library of the German Reich Assembly 1848/49 (Reich Library): inventory . The German Library, Leipzig / Frankfurt am Main / Berlin, 1999, p. 7.
  2. ↑ Johannes Jacobi, Steffi Richter: Library of the German Reich Assembly 1848/49 (Reich Library): inventory . The German Library, Leipzig / Frankfurt am Main / Berlin, 1999, p. 7/8, p. 268.
  3. ↑ Johannes Jacobi, Steffi Richter: Library of the German Reich Assembly 1848/49 (Reich Library): inventory . The German Library, Leipzig / Frankfurt am Main / Berlin, 1999, p. 6, p. 268.
  4. ↑ Ursula Mende: Epilogue: The musealization of the revolution . In: 1848: The Europe of Images. Volume II: Michels March . Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg 1998, pp. 301–326, here p. 316.
  5. ↑ Johannes Jacobi, Steffi Richter: Library of the German Reich Assembly 1848/49 (Reich Library): inventory . The German Library, Leipzig / Frankfurt am Main / Berlin, 1999, p. 8.
  6. ↑ Johannes Jacobi, Steffi Richter: Library of the German Reich Assembly 1848/49 (Reich Library): inventory . The German Library, Leipzig / Frankfurt am Main / Berlin, 1999, p. 6.
  7. ↑ Ursula Mende: Epilogue: The musealization of the revolution . In: 1848: The Europe of Images. Volume II: Michels March . Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg 1998, pp. 301–326, here p. 316.
  8. ↑ Ursula Mende: Epilogue: The musealization of the revolution . In: 1848: The Europe of Images. Volume II: Michels March . Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg 1998, pp. 301–326, here pp. 316/317.
  9. ↑ Ursula Mende: Epilogue: The musealization of the revolution . In: 1848: The Europe of Images. Volume II: Michels March . Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg 1998, pp. 301–326, here pp. 317/318.
  10. ↑ Ursula Mende: Epilogue: The musealization of the revolution . In: 1848: The Europe of Images. Volume II: Michels March . Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg 1998, pp. 301–326, here pp. 317/318.
  11. ↑ Johannes Jacobi, Steffi Richter: Library of the German Reich Assembly 1848/49 (Reich Library): inventory . The German Library, Leipzig / Frankfurt am Main / Berlin, 1999, pp. 6/7.
  12. ↑ Ursula Mende: Epilogue: The musealization of the revolution . In: 1848: The Europe of Images. Volume II: Michels March . Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg 1998, pp. 301–326, here p. 318.