Erich Zimmermann (Librarian)

Erich Zimmermann (born April 6, 1912 in Hamburg , † November 24, 1995 in Darmstadt ) was a German librarian .

Life

Erich Zimmermann was born in Hamburg in 1912 as the son of a Senate Councilor. He studied Protestant theology and Latin at the University of Hamburg as well as history at the University of Marburg . He obtained his doctorate in 1937 in Hamburg. phil. with a dissertation on "The German Bible in the Religious Life of the Late Middle Ages". Working at the Biblical Archive in Hamburg, where he carried out his research for the dissertation, brought him into contact with the library system.

Zimmermann was a member of the SA from 1933 and of the NSDAP from 1937 . After the state examination in 1938 he began a specialist library training as a trainee lawyer at the Deutsche Bücherei in Leipzig and at the Bavarian State Library in Munich. He successfully passed his specialist library examination in 1941. He then worked as a library assessor and later as a library councilor at the Deutsche Bücherei. During the Second World War he was a naval officer. After the Second World War, he took part in the re-establishment of the German Bible Archives in Hamburg from 1946. In the following year he moved to the state and university library in his hometown and helped to set it up. Zimmermann was very busy with technical issues relating to catalog management and construction issues in the library system. He worked on numerous specialist committees. He was a member of the association committee of the Association of German Librarians, managing director of the German Bibliographical Board of Trustees, chairman of the VDB commission for bibliographical questions and later chairman of the VDB commission for dissertation questions.

From 1956 to 1962 he was editor of the Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie and from 1959 to 1969 he was editor of the Bibliographic Reports.

In 1964 Zimmermann became head of the Hessian State and University Library in Darmstadt. Here he succeeded Ludwig Borngässer , who had moved to Berlin. Zimmermann managed the library until his retirement in 1977. During his tenure, the number of users and the number of library employees increased significantly. The acquisition budget of this unique combination of a regional and university library also increased significantly. The number of local users more than doubled during this period. In 1971, a branch of the library was opened in the architecture building on the Lichtwiese campus of the TU Darmstadt , which existed until 2013. He also set up a textbook collection in the castle. For the 400th anniversary he brought out the extensive commemorative publication “Through the Century of Electricity”. Zimmermann has organized numerous exhibitions that were also noticed nationwide. Such an exhibition on Kasimir Edschmid (1963) or Karl Wolfskehl (1969). Zimmermann developed a particular interest in the life and work of Georg Büchner . He has published many articles on this. During his tenure, a Georg Büchner archive was also set up in the Hessian state and university library.

Erich Zimmermann died in Darmstadt in November 1995 at the age of 85.

Honors

• 1977: Johann Heinrich Merck Award

Publications

• 1938: The German Bible in the Religious Life of the Late Middle Ages , Hamburg.
• 1967: Electricity through the century. Contributions to the history of the Hessian State and University Library Darmstadt , Frankfurt am Main.
• 1977: The library of the Technical University of Darmstadt 1872–1976 , in: TH Darmstadt (ed.): 100 years of the Technical University of Darmstadt. Yearbook 1976/77, Darmstadt 1977, pp. 449-465.

literature

• Yorck A. Haase 1996: Erich Zimmermann 1912–1995 (obituary), in: Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie, 43 (1996), pp. 204–206.
• University and State Library Darmstadt (Ed.): Neue Mitte (n). The library buildings of the Technical University of Darmstadt , Darmstadt 2014.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sören Flachowsky: " Armory for the swords of the spirit". The Deutsche Bücherei during the Nazi era . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-8353-3196-9 , p. 18.