Neither insiders nor outsiders: the German National Library and the Jews before 1933

Abstract

The Deutsche Bücherei was founded on the eve of the First World War as the German National Library. Its history very much reflects Germany’s ‘special path’ in the twentieth century. This exploration of how the Deutsche Bücherei related to Jews aims to contribute to ongoing efforts to better understand the nature and scope of anti-Jewish sentiment in Germany during the period until National Socialism assumed power. Two main questions are central to this exploration. First, as a national institution, what was the policy of the Library on the employment of Jewish staff? Second, how did the catalogues of the Library classify publications by and about Jews? The central aim of the article, then, is to look at antisemitism during the years of the Weimar Republic through the prism of the German National Library.