Otto Vollbehr

Otto HF Vollbehr, around 1928

Otto Heinrich Friedrich Vollbehr (born April 24, 1869 in Kiel , † May 18, 1946 in Frankfurt-Höchst ) was a German chemist and inventor, as well as a book collector and antiquarian .

The incunabulum collections he assembled were purchased by Henry E. Huntington for his Huntington Library between November 1924 and 1926 and by the Library of Congress in 1930 .

A complete three-volume copy of the Gutenberg Bible from St. Paul Abbey in Lavanttal , printed on parchment , became the top item in Vollbehr's collection and its offer, without it ever being physically part of his collection.

Life

Despite being well known at times, many details of Otto Vollbehr's life are unclear. It is difficult to separate one's actual life from legends, whether one's own or someone else's. He has always been considered the mysterious Dr. Vollbehr.

Otto Vollbehr was the eldest son of the Kiel merchant Emil Jakob Heinrich Vollbehr (1837–1913) and his wife Caroline Elisabeth, nee. Beckmann (1846-1927). The painter Ernst Vollbehr is one of his seven siblings . The art historian and Magdeburg museum director Theodor Volbehr was his cousin.

After graduating from high school, he said he studied chemistry at the Universities of Kiel, Marburg and Berlin. In 1894 he was a member of the Academic Song Board in Berlin in the Sondershäuser Association (today Academic-Music Association Berlin), whose history describes him as a student of pharmacy . In 1897 he is said to have graduated in chemistry in Berlin. He already appeared in 1900 as Dr. phil. on; however, a dissertation cannot be proven.

When he graduated, according to Vollbehr in an interview in 1931, his father gave him 10,000 Reichsmarks so that he could travel around the world . He traveled to Hawaii via France , Egypt , India , China and Japan . There he met Claus Spreckels (presumably Claus August Spreckels (1858–1946), son of Claus Spreckels ) and got his first insight into the trade in agricultural raw materials . In April 1897 he reached San Francisco , where he was a noted pharmacist . Here he wants to have met Adolph Sutro , whose daughter he met in Japan , shortly before his death . Sutro had invested his great fortune in building a library, the remains of which are now in the California State Library. Sutro is said to have advised him to collect a collection of rare books and concentrate on a specialty.

From California , Vollbehr is said to have tried to get to Alaska in the course of the Klondike gold rush . He got as far as Victoria (British Columbia) , where health conditions caused him to turn back. However, his poor health did not prevent him from traveling by horse from Washington, state, to Mexico , with stops in Yosemite and Death Valley . In Mexico he is said to have received a telegram from Dynamit Nobel AG , which offered him to represent the company in Japan and China. He traveled to Chicago to accept the offer at the local office, and then to Berlin. Here he married Elsbeth Louise Johanna Margarethe (* 1879), b. Kurtz, the daughter of the late Berlin zoo inspector Carl Wilhelm Joseph Kurtz.

It is not clear whether and for how long he actually worked in the Far East afterwards. Soon he was back in Berlin and worked as an independent chemist . The Vollbehr couple lived in Berlin-Halensee at the western end of Kurfürstendamm (Kurfürstendamm 130), later on Wilmersdorfer Straße 98/99.

Share certificate of the Central-Torfkohlengesellschaft with Vollbehr's signature

1901 he has been Managing Director of General Torfkohlen mbH and 1902 the Central Torfkohlengesellschaft occupied on share certificates. In 1902 he received an Austrian patent for the production of coal from peat , which he ceded in 1904 to the Allgemeine Torfkohlengesellschaft . In 1905 he invented a map magnifier, the microphotoscope , with which it was possible to view greatly reduced photographic replicas of the original sheets in the form of slides: the main use of the invention will be the military one. In the same year he joined the Berlin Ex-Libris Association. In 1906 he received a US patent for his Micrographic Microscope .

In 1913 he and his wife were monitored by the Austrian secret service. The reason was the completely opaque role that Vollbehr played in Bulgaria , where he introduced himself as a representative of a British financial group.

Until 1914 he is said to have been chairman of the board of a large chemical company or to have sat on the boards of large companies as general director . Its use in World War I is unclear. In May 1915 he appears in the diary of the Austrian diplomat Heinrich Wildner. He went to Wildner on a skin export matter , but actually to discuss the political situation in the Balkans with him. He is a close friend of the Bulgarian Prime Minister Vasil Radoslawow and wants to sound out ways to overthrow the Karađorđević dynasty in Serbia . Apparently he played a "dubious role as an undesirable agent" during this time.

In addition to, perhaps also in connection with, his interests in the Balkans, Vollbehr was involved in the area of ​​German-Turkish relations. In 1918 he gave a printed memorial address at the coffin of the Imperial Turkish Consul General, Excellency Dr. Omer Lutfi Bey . He died on April 23, 1918 during an operation. Vollbehr's connection to Lutfi is obscure; there is evidence that Vollbehr was a member of the Society for Islamkunde at the time. He is said to have acquired an incunabula collection and numerous Islamic manuscripts at a reasonable price in Istanbul ; he gave the manuscripts to the Sultan ( Mehmed V ?) as a present. Files show that he, together with Alfred Nossig, was the driving force behind an Orient Institute Mehmet Reşat V , which was dedicated to arranging book collections in Turkey and acquired at least one valuable collection from the Gysellius company for 70,000 Reichsmarks and the sultan made a gift.

Soldiers' Council Aid poster (1918) signed by Chairman Otto Vollbehr

In the course of the November Revolution in 1918, Vollbehr became a member of the Workers' and Soldiers' Council in Berlin and chairman of the Voluntary Economic Aid of the Soldiers' Council , which collected donations to support returning soldiers. In this capacity he took part in an event of the Egyptian National Radical Party in the Hotel Adlon in early April 1919 . Only a little later, after a "review of the management of the association" for unauthorized collection of money, the economic aid changed its objective and was now - still under the chairmanship of Vollbehr - now the Association of Voluntary Economic Aid for Eastern and Homeland Security ("Eastern Aid") . Despite the names of Gustav Noske and Paul Hirsch on the posters, the "unauthorized collection of monetary donations to support volunteer troops for the protection of the eastern borders" led to the liquidation of the association in 1923 and the transfer of the remaining assets to the account of the federal refugee welfare of the German border brand protection associations .

Some time after the end of the First World War , Vollbehr is said to have been so seriously injured in a railway accident on the Brussels-Paris route that he was in hospital for several months and was paralyzed on one side. On medical advice, he gave up his job to devote himself entirely to collecting books.

He specialized in buying incunabula, especially those from monasteries. The market was extremely cheap for buyers due to the inflationary period .

Dealers and donors

Probably due to his need for foreign currency and his knowledge of the American market, the buyer and collector soon became a seller. In addition, Vollbehr was active as a donor.

Huntington's

Huntington Library

In October 1924 Otto Vollbehr traveled to Los Angeles , first contacted Henry E. Huntington and offered him his collection of incunabula for sale. Between November 1924 and 1926 Huntington acquired a total of 2,385 volumes from Vollbehr for 1.2 million US dollars. The first purchase included 392 pieces, mostly of Spanish and Portuguese origin, priced at $ 177,000. In January 1925, Vollbehr offered him his complete collection of 4,000 incunabula. However, Huntington bought only 1,740 incunabula in March at a price of $ 770,000, which he paid partly in cash and partly in Pacific Electric shares.

Portrait of Christ , gift from Vollbehr to LACMA in 1926

He then made it clear to Vollbehr that he was not interested in further acquisitions at this point in time. Also various journalistic actions by Vollbehr, who had rented a long time in November in the Vista del Arroyo Hotel (today Richard H. Chambers United States Court of Appeals ) in Pasadena near the Huntington Library, like an interview in the Los Angeles Times and the gift of a Flemish painting from the 16th century to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in early 1926, Huntington could not fundamentally change his mind. In February 1926 he acquired another 350 incunabula; He turned down another offer of 1,333 titles, as well as the offer from the Gutenberg Bible in June 1926. Vollbehr presented himself throughout as a "collector" who helped out another collector - Huntington's librarian Herman R. Mead, however, saw him only as a dealer and commercial agent and refused to catalog what he believed to be the only so-called “collection” Vollbehr as provenance.

Gutenberg Bible

When Vollbehr realized that his sales success at Huntington was coming to an end, he attended the 28th World Eucharistic Congress in June 1926 , which was held in Chicago. Provided with a letter of recommendation from Pope Pius XI. he exhibited parts of his collection in the hope that George William Cardinal Mundelein , the Archbishop of Chicago, would acquire them with the help of wealthy donors for the library of his seminary, now the University of Saint Mary of the Lake . Although the exhibition caused a sensation, this hope was not fulfilled.

Gutenberg Bible with Otto Vollbehr bookplate

Shortly before that, Vollbehr had entered into negotiations to buy the Gutenberg Bible from the St. Paul Abbey in Lavanttal , which had come from the St. Blasien Abbey (Black Forest) , and had visited the Abbey on May 11, 1926. He had promised the monks that the Bible would be given to an “American prince of the church” as a gift through “several possible patrons”. He initially offered $ 175,000. After objections from the Austrian Federal Monuments Office and the responsible ministry, he increased the offer to $ 250,000. For this price, a preliminary contract was signed on September 13, 1926 between the pen and Vollbehr's representative, the Frankfurt antiquarian Felix Kauffmann (1878–1953).

Historicizing bookplate Vollbehrs in the Gutenberg Bible

The complete copy of the Gutenberg Bible, printed on parchment , thus became the top item in Vollbehr's “collection” and its range - without it ever being physically part of his collection. An elaborate brochure Incunabulum Incunabulorum: The Gutenberg Bible on Vellum in the Vollbehr Collection supported the marketing project.

Vollbehr now went on a sales tour with his book offer. From September 23 to 30, 1926, it was exhibited at the National Arts Club in New York . On display were 55 different Bibles, 50 editions of the works of the Church Father Augustine and 30 editions of the works of St. Jerome .

On October 14, 1926, Vollbehr informed the monastery that he could not meet the agreed payment period of one month and gave it the choice of canceling the purchase or paying interest on the purchase price. The pen accepted the offer of interest on the condition that Vollbehr made a down payment of $ 50,000 in the course of 1927, which was actually done.

University of Kansas

Probably mediated by his temporary colleague Kathrine Klinkenberg, a graduate of the University of Kansas who later married William Lindsay White , Vollbehr donated her first incunabula to the university library between 1926 and 1931, a copy of the Schedel Chronicle , as well as 210 maps from the 17th and 18th centuries Century, the basis for building up a map collection at the university. Even if the specific motivation for Vollbehr's foundation is in the dark, it can be assumed that he was interested in building a long-term customer relationship.

In addition, he donated $ 1,500 in 1931 for an Otto Vollbehr exchange scholarship to enable German students to spend a year studying at the University of Kansas, which he stopped funding after only one year in 1932. Apparently his efforts had not had the desired response.

Library of Congress

Herbert Putnam, around 1900

The last exhibition on the tour took place in 1928 at the Library of Congress . On April 20, 1928, Herbert Putnam , the library director, gave lunch on the occasion of the opening. The guests included the German ambassador Friedrich von Prittwitz and Gaffron , the chairman of the library committee in the House of Representatives and the deputy foreign minister. Vollbehr announced that he and his wife were donating to the library a collection of 10,800 sheets with examples of printer and publisher's marks from the 15th to 19th centuries. Each sheet had a title page or a colophon mounted on cardboard, indicating that the copies had been cut up. Vollbehr added that he was ready to send the library a Gutenberg Bible and 3,000 incunabula if a benefactor could be found. His request to make a commitment initially found no response from those present, not even when Vollbehr declared that he was prepared to forego half of the market value or to donate it. The exhibition itself, however, was a visitor success.

The following year, donated Vollbehr the conclusion of the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of Carl Schurz , the Schreiber collection of European book illustrations , one of Wilhelm Ludwig Schreiber (1855-1932) collection of 20,000-scale woodcuts and engravings , from books, from 15 to 18 Century.

Putnam wanted the Gutenberg Bible; but he wasn't sure whether Congress would fund an acquisition, especially as the country was still suffering from the aftermath of the Great Depression . Vollbehr was now desperately looking for a buyer; He asked the antiquarian Abraham Rosenbach in Philadelphia ( Rosenbach Museum & Library ) to sound out whether the entrepreneur Julius Rosenwald and his bibliophile son Lessing Julius Rosenwald , the owners of the largest US mail order company Sears, Roebuck & Co. , could acquire the collection. Vollbehr now wanted $ 900,000 for 2000 volumes and $ 400,000 for the Gutenberg Bible. The Rosenwalds refused, and the volumes were to be returned to Europe.

At this critical point in time, Congressman Ross Alexander Collins of Mississippi learned of the plight of the Vollbehr Collection. On February 7, 1930, in a lively speech in the House of Representatives, he advocated the purchase of the collection and brought the corresponding bill to the Collins Bill (HR 6147: a bill authorizing the secretary of the Treasury to pay to the Joint committee on the Library the sum of $ 1,500.00 for the purchase of the collection of three thousand incunabula to be deposited in the Library of Congress ). The speech was reprinted in many US newspapers. Comments in major daily newspapers urged Congress to pass the law. The librarian Lee Pierce Butler (1884-1953) of the Newberry Library in Chicago and other experts stood up as experts at hearings on the library committee.

Gutenberg Bible of the Library of Congress (1944)

The bill was passed by the House of Representatives on June 11 and the Senate on June 26 ; it went into effect on July 6, when it was signed by President Herbert Hoover . A few weeks later the boxes with the incunabula arrived at the library. The purchase tripled the library's inventory of incunabula. The Gutenberg Bible was not there yet: Vollbehr had only signed an option and made a down payment, but at no point was it actually in his possession, even if he had always said so. Putnam therefore had to travel to Austria himself to negotiate with the monks of St. Paul Abbey in Lavanttal in Carinthia . He was accompanied by Dr. Angel; Otto Vollbehr and Commercial Judge Köpp from Berlin and the lawyer of the monastery, Paul Loebel from Klagenfurt, were also involved . Finally, Putnam was able to receive the three-volume Bible on August 16 at the American embassy in Vienna in the presence of Ambassador Gilchrist Baker Stockton and take it via Le Havre with the SS Leviathan to New York and then to Washington. The Library of Congress thus acquired one of only three known complete copies on parchment and the only copy in three volumes. The other two complete copies of parchment are in the British Library in London and in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris .

Vollbehr received $ 1.5 million from the Library of Congress. However, he was heavily in debt: of the total of 3,255 volumes that he sold to the library, 2,200 were encumbered with a mortgage based on Vollbehr's debt to a New York businessman of $ 300,000, and a bank in Frankfurt am Main had a claim of $ 500,000 against him, and he owed an additional $ 150,000 to a New York brokerage firm. There was also a lawsuit brought by a lawyer who claimed commission from the sale to the Library of Congress. Vollbehr won the trial; but after satisfying all of his creditors he had little profit left on the sale.

More sales

On July 5, 1932, Vollbehr put another collection up for auction. There were 125 American-related works printed before 1550 that were auctioned in Metuchen , New Jersey , including a copy by Peter Apian's Cosmographicus Liber , Landshut 1524 and a map of the world that had been produced between 1475 and 1482 in southern Germany.

Vollbehr sold a remainder of 1036 volumes in 1936. New York antiquarian Israel Perlstein took over 700 volumes. After offering them to the Library of Congress but declining them, and finding that most of the books were in poor condition and overpriced, Perlstein sold them to the Gimbel Brothers department store , 33rd St & Broadway in Manhattan . With the help of the gallery of Viktor Hammer, Armand Hammer's brother, this company had previously successfully converted its 5th floor into an art dealership, selling the art collections of William Randolph Hearst and Clarence H. Mackay (1874–1938) as art over the counter ( Art over the counter ) and was now looking for buyers for the incunabula with a new catalog, again with the support of Galerie Hammer. The 623 works on offer were now only a fraction of the original estimates, starting at under $ 50.

propaganda

At an unknown point in time, Vollbehr became a "shop steward" in the USA for the Hamburg-Bremen investigative committee . The Enlightenment Committee was an agency for German-friendly public relations abroad established by the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce after the First World War ; since 1931 it was operated jointly with the Bremen Chamber of Commerce . Its main addressees were the business partners of the Hanseatic trading houses in North and Latin America , but also in Africa and Asia. In 1933, the committee placed itself entirely at the service of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry . He was given a full-time director, Dr. G. Kurt Johannsen.

The committee provided Vollbehr with propaganda material, which he sent from October 1931 to April 1936 in the form of at least 11 printed "memoranda" to prominent recipients in the USA. He succeeded in placing pro-German articles on disarmament and the “revival of the German economy” in numerous American newspapers. In a memorandum from December 1933, Vollbehr was confident that "he will soon be able to launch his articles in hundreds of English-language newspapers every week."

Vollbehr's propaganda activities did not go unnoticed and in 1934 led to his hearing before the McCormack – Dickstein committee . The MP Samuel Dickstein , Chairman of the Immigration and Naturalization Committee in the House of Representatives, had started his own investigation into the actions of the National Socialists and fascist groups in the USA, the results of which he presented on January 3, 1934 at the second session of the 73rd Congress. With the so-called Dickstein resolution (HR # 198) of March 1934, a committee to investigate un-American activities was set up under John W. McCormack ; Dickstein himself preferred the deputy chair because of his Jewish roots.

Archibald MacLeish, 1944

Vollbehr was heard on November 30, 1934. He testified that he had used proceeds from his incunabulum sales to produce and mail his (at this point 7) memoranda. He also testified that the German ambassador to Washington, Hans Luther, had repeatedly warned him not to interfere in American affairs (“don't mix in American affairs”) . Vollbehr, according to committee chairman McCormack, admitted to having acquired and sent anti-Semitic propaganda material (printed matter prepared by an alleged financial service house in new York the nature of which tends to incite racial and religious differences) .

After Vollbehr's pro-German propaganda activities became known, there were repeated critical inquiries in the press regarding the acquisitions of the Library of Congress. On May 18, 1940 was published under the sarcastic title Uncle Sam has a book , an article by Burton Rascoe in the Saturday Review of Literature , the buying than stupidity (stupidity) criticized and accused Vollbehr to have defrauded the American people. The article brought Putnam's successor as Librarian of Congress , Archibald MacLeish , the buying is still a bargain ( bargain kept) in an uncomfortable situation and stressed his friendship with William Rose Benét , one of the editors of the Review .

Return to Germany

Bolongaropalast , western garden pavilion

Before the outbreak of the Second World War , Vollbehr returned to Germany. Towards the end of the war he lived in Baden-Baden . After the end of the war, American art protection officers from the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section brought him to Frankfurt am Main . Here the Rothschild library served as the first collecting point for libraries and books stolen by the National Socialists. Vollbehr's job was to help sort through, organize and catalog the immense book holdings.

Most recently he lived in the western pavilion of the Bolongaro Palace in Höchst. He was buried in the Höchst Main Cemetery.

Fonts

• Commemorative speech at the coffin of the Imperial Turkish Consul General Excellency Dr. Omer Lutfi Bey o.O. 1918.
• Report of the voluntary economic aid of the soldiers 'council (soldiers' council aid) . Berlin 1919.
• Is pacifism possible? A reply . [Los Angeles] [o. J. (1934)].

literature

• Otto Vollbehr, George Parker Winship, National Arts Club (New York, NY): The Vollbehr incunabula at the National Arts Club of New York from August 23 to September 30 MCMXXVI. Pynson Printers, 1926.
• Edwin Emerson: Incunabulum incunabulorum. The Gutenberg Bible on vellum in the Wollbehr collection. An authentic story of the choicest book of Christendom told anew. Tudor press, New York 1928.
• Loan Exhibition of Incunabula from the Vollbehr Collection: Books Printed Before 1501 AD and Manuscripts of the Fifteenth Century Selected from the Private Library of Dr. Otto HF Vollbehr, Berlin, Germany. Spring, 1928, Library of Congress, US Government Printing Office, 1928
• Vollbehr collection of incunabula: Hearing before the Committee on the Library, House of representatives, Seventy-first Congress, second session, on HR 6147, a bill authorizing the secretary of the Treasury to pay to the Joint committee on the Library the sum of $ 1,500 , 00 for the purchase of the collection of three thousand incunabula to be deposited in the Library of Congress and known as the Herbert Putnam collection of incunabula. March 10, 1930, United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Library, Robert Luce US Govt. print. off., 1930
• The Vollbehr collection. In: Philobiblon. 3, 1930, p. 7, pp. 295-297.
• Frederick R. Goff: Uncle Sam Has a Book. In: The Quarterly journal of the Library of Congress. 38, 1981, pp. 123-133 (digitized) , HathiTrust
• Kurt S. Maier: Otto HF Vollbehr. In: Joseph Rosenblum (Ed.): American Book Collectors and Bibliographers: Second Series. (= Dictionary of Literary Biography 187). Gale, Detroit 1997, p. 324
• Barbara McCorkle: A Mid-Continent Map Collection: Early Maps at the University of Kansas. In: Meridian. A journal of the Map and Geography Round Table of the American Library Association. ISSN  1040-7421 11, 1997, pp 23-26. (Digitized version)
• Elizabeth Snapp: The Acquisition of the Vollbehr Collection of Incunabula for the Library of Congress. In: The Journal of Library History. 10, 1975, pp. 152-161 ( digitized version , JSTOR )
• Vollbehr, Otto Heinrich Friedrich. In: Martin J. Manning, Herbert Romerstein: Historical Dictionary of American Propaganda. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, p. 310 f. ( Google Books )

Web links

Commons : Otto Vollbehr  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Selected Special Collections: Otto Vollbehr Collection. Library of Congress
• Otto HF Vollbehr collection of printers 'and publishers' marks. Library of Congress

Individual evidence

1. ↑ For unknown reasons, Vollbehr himself more often gave his year of birth as 1872 ; However, only 1869 is documented.
2. ↑ Rudolf Schäfer : Höchst and the Gutenberg Bible by St. Paul. In: Highest circular sheet. September 9, 1975.
3. ↑ College and Research Libraries 1959, p. 375.
4. ↑ Vollbehr promoted an aura of mystery about himself that still enshrouds him today. Maier (lit.)
5. ^ History of the Academic Liedertafel zu Berlin: 1886–1905. Berlin 1906, p. 295 No. 537.
6. ↑ Otto H. Vollbehr, a noted pharmacist of Kiel, Germany, is stopping in this city for a few days en route to his home. This gentleman is making a tour of the world and is studying the pharmaceutical institutions of the different countries. The Pharmaceutical Era 17 (1897), p. 522 ; so not 1898 (Maier and Philobiblon)
7. ^ Adolph Sutro's Collection ( Memento from June 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ); https://archivalia.hypotheses.org/7337
8. ↑ Maier (lit.)
9. ↑ After marriage record, accessed on ancestry.com; not 1905 ( Philobiblon )
10. ↑ Philobiblon (lit.)
11. ^ Oesterreichische Zeitschrift für Berg- und Hüttenwesen . 50, 1902, p. 332.
12. ^ Oesterreichisches Patentblatt 6, 1904, p. 304.
13. ^ Hammer: The microscope (the magnifying glass) by O. Vollbehr. In: Journal of Surveying. 34 (1905), p. 580, US access only! -582; The microscope, the new general staff map magnifier. In: Technology and Wehrmacht. 8, 1905, pp. 45–54 (with 3 illustrations)
14. ↑ Ex libris: Book Art and Applied Graphics 16, 1906, p. 164.
15. ↑ patent specification
16. ↑ Günther Kronenbitter: "War in Peace". The leadership of the Austro-Hungarian army and the great power politics of Austria-Hungary 1906–1914. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2003, p. 240.
17. ↑ Wolfgang U. Friedrich: Bulgaria and the Powers 1913-1915. A contribution to the history of world wars and imperialism (= sources and studies on the history of Eastern Europe 21). Steiner, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-515-04050-1 , p. 61f.
18. ↑ Philobiblon (lit.)
19. ^ Rudolf Agstner: 1915/1916. (= Research on the history of the Austrian Foreign Service 10). LIT, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-643-50602-3 , p. 70.
20. ↑ Wolfgang U. Friedrich: Bulgaria and the Powers 1913-1915. A contribution to the history of world wars and imperialism (= sources and studies on the history of Eastern Europe 21). Steiner, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-515-04050-1 , p. 61.
21. ↑ Barbara Flemming, Jan Schmidt (Ed.): The diary of Karl Süssheim (1878-1947). Orientalist between Munich and Istanbul. Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-515-07573-9 , p. 153.
22. ↑ The world of Islam. Journal of the German Society for Islamic Studies 7 (1919), p. XVIII.
23. ↑ Maier (lit.)
24. ^ Mustafa Gencer: Educational Policy, Modernization and Cultural Interaction: German-Turkish Relations (1908-1918). (= Confrontation and cooperation in the Middle East. 8). LIT Verlag, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-8258-6370-0 , p. 214.
25. ^ Circular with the call for education and the goals of the "Voluntary Economic Aid of the Soldiers' Council" from November 21, 1918 ( digitized version , German Historical Museum
26. ↑ See also the poster and its report on the voluntary economic aid of the soldiers 'council (soldiers' council aid) .
27. ↑ Mahmoud Kassim: The diplomatic relations of Germany to Egypt, 1919-1936. (= Studies on the contemporary history of the Middle East and North Africa. 6). LIT Verlag, Münster 2000, ISBN 3-8258-5168-0 , p. 75.
28. ^ Entry at the German Digital Library
29. ↑ Cf. the posters The homeland is in danger and the peoples of Europe, preserve your most sacred goods
30. ^ Entry at the German Digital Library
31. ↑ Maier (lit.); also Philobiblon (lit.)
32. ^ Donald C. Dickinson: Henry E. Huntington's library of libraries. Huntington Library Press, San Marino, Calif. 1995, ISBN 0-87328-153-5 , pp. 207-209.
33. ^ Joseph A. Dane: Herman R. Mead's Incunabula in the Huntingdon Library [1937] and the notion of 'typographical value'. In: Bulletin. Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand. 28, 2004, pp. 24-40; also in: Joseph A. Dane: Blind Impressions: Methods and Mythologies in Book History. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2013, ISBN 978-0-8122-0869-6 , pp. 76f.
34. ↑ On Kauffmann, see Guide to the Papers of Felix I. Kauffmann (1878–1953) , Leo Baeck Institute
35. ↑ George Parker Winship: The Vollbehr incunabula at the National Arts Club of New York from August 23 to September 30 MCMXXVI. Pynson Printers, New York 1926.
36. ↑ P. Thiemo Raschl: For Selling the St. Paul Gutenberg Bible. In: Gutenberg yearbook. 6, 1931, pp. 341–343 (digitized version )
37. ↑ Mrs. White, Editor , in: Reflections Winter 2014, pp. 10f.
38. ↑ Entry in the library catalog, accessed on October 7, 2017.
39. ↑ BarbaraMcCorkle: A Mid-Continent Map Collection: Early Maps at the University of Kansas. In: Meridian. 11, 1997, pp. 23–26 (digitized version)
40. ↑ For reasons which will probably remain forever obscure ... BarbaraMcCorkle: A Mid-Continent Map Collection: Early Maps at the University of Kansas. In: Meridian. 11, 1997, pp. 23–26 (digitized version) , here p. 23.
41. ^ University of Kansas: Biennial Report 1932, p. 9.
42. ^ The Graduate Magazine of the University of Kansas 31, 1932, p. 12.
43. ^ Otto HF Vollbehr collection of printers 'and publishers' marks , Library of Congress
44. ↑ Schreiber collection of European book illustrations [graphic . 1450-1900, bulk 1500-1800. approximately 20,000 prints; various sizes. Guide Record]
45. ↑ Vollbehr collection of incunabula: Hearing before the Committee on the Library, House of Representatives, Seventy-first Congress, second session, on HR 6147, a bill authorizing the secretary of the Treasury to pay to the Joint committee on the Library the sum of $ 1,500.00 for the purchase of the collection of three thousand incunabula to be deposited in the Library of Congress and known as the Herbert Putnam collection of incunabula. March 10, 1930 ( digitized , HathiTrust )
46. ^ Probably Carl Engel (1883–1944), head of the library's music department
47. ↑ P. Thiemo Raschl: For Selling the St. Paul Gutenberg Bible. In: Gutenberg yearbook. 6, 1931, pp. 341–343 (digitized version )
48. ^ Digitized , Library of Congress
49. ^ Kurt S. Maier: Otto HF Vollbehr. In: Joseph Rosenblum (Ed.): American Book Collectors and Bibliographers: Second Series. (= Dictionary of Literary Biography 187) Detroit: Gale 1997, p. 324.
50. ^ Auction catalog: Americana vetustissima (books pertaining to America printed before 1550) The important collection formed by Dr. Otto HF Vollbehr of Washington, DC, including a very important world map, a fine diary of an Ansbachian soldier in the American revolution and some interesting astronomiana, to be sold at unrestricted auction sale, by his order, under the management of Charles F. Heartman July 5th, 1932. Metuchen, NJ [New Haven, Conn.] [Quinnipiack Press], [1932]
51. ^ Frederick R. Goff: Uncle Sam Has a Book. In: The Quarterly journal of the Library of Congress. 38, 1981, pp. 123-133 (digitized version ) , HathiTrust , here p. 127.
52. ^ Gimbel Brothers (New York) in association with Hammer Galleries (New York): An important collection of incunabula, 1467-1500. New York, [Printed by MJ Pollak, Inc.] for Gimbel Brothers, 1941 ( digitized from HathiTrust )
53. ^ Frederick R. Goff: An interim report on the collecting of incunabula by American libraries. In: Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 1976, pp. 162-164.
54. ↑ Hamburg-Bremen Clarification Committee: Memoranda from Dr. Otto Vollbehr  in the German Digital Library
55. ↑ So at least according to the (success) reports of the Enlightenment Committee, quoted by Klaus Kipphan: German Propaganda in the United States: 1933–1941. Winter, Heidelberg 1971, at the same time: Heidelberg, Univ., Philos. Fak., Diss. 1969, ISBN 3-533-02158-0 (Yearbook for American Studies 31), p. 111, note 47
56. ^ Klaus Kipphan: German Propaganda in the United States: 1933–1941. Winter, Heidelberg 1971, at the same time: Heidelberg, Univ., Philos. Fak., Diss. 1969, ISBN 3-533-02158-0 (Jahrbuch für Amerikastudien 31), p. 111.
57. ↑ Absolved Luther of Nazi activity; Dr. Vollbehr Told McCormack Committee Ambassador Warned Him to Desist. , The New York Times , December 17, 1934, accessed May 24, 2016.
58. ^ Frederick R. Goff: Uncle Sam Has a Book. In: The Quarterly journal of the Library of Congress. 38, 1981, pp. 123-133 (digitized version ) , HathiTrust , here p. 123.
59. ↑ Rudolf Schäfer : Höchst and the Gutenberg Bible by St. Paul. In: Highest circular sheet. September 9, 1975.