The German Library in Frankfurt am Main (Deutsche Bibliothek abbreviated: DB) was a predecessor of the German National Library (DNB). From 1947 to 1990 it was the West German counterpart to the Deutsche Bücherei in Leipzig, founded in 1912, with the task of collecting German documents and publishing the national bibliography. After the reunification of Germany in 1990, the German Library and the German Library were merged to form "The German Library". Since 2006 it has been called the "German National Library". In 2006, around 8.3 million of the total holdings of the German National Library of 22.2 million units were stored in Frankfurt am Main. At the end of 2011, out of a total of around 27 million media copies, 10 million were archived in Frankfurt.
History
After the defeat of Nazi Germany, Germany was occupied by the Allies and split into parts: the western part, which would later become West Germany, was in the USA-UK-France zone of influence, and the eastern part, which later became East Germany, was in the Soviet Union zone of influence. The German national library, the Deutsche Bücherei (founded 1912) was located in Leipzig, which was then in the Soviet-controlled eastern zone. The western occupation zones called for the creation of a new library in the western zone to replace the library that was now in the Soviet zone.
In September 1946, the American military government approved the creation of a reference library in Frankfurt am Main. Previously also known as the German Library of the West, the German Library began in November 1946 in Frankfurt am Main. Like the Deutsche Bücherei in the now Soviet-controlled zone, the German Library in the western zone was founded by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels.
From 1947 onwards, it was legally an institution of the book trade and the city of Frankfurt am Main which attached the library to the city and university library under the direction of Hanns Wilhelm Eppelsheimer. Initially, the library was only responsible for the American and British zones and was housed in the Rothschild Palace on Untermainkai and its neighboring building, the Manskopf House. The cut-off date for the start of the collection was May 8, 1945. The city of Frankfurt am Main provided the premises, the costs were borne by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels. Inadequate funding, which, among other things, led to considerations about handing it over to the University of Cologne, the founding seat of the DFG, in the fall of 1949, finally led in 1952 to the conversion of the German Library into a foundation under public law.
The city of Frankfurt and the state of Hesse acted as the founders, the Federal Republic of Germany, represented by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, which saw the protection of society from communist influences as an essential mandate, and the Börsenverein as contributors.: S. 331 In 1952, each institution contributed 60,000 DM (the federal government with 65,000 DM) annually to the financing of the library. In 1954, the contributions were 71 percent higher. The Börsenverein reduced its contributions from 1956.: S. As early as 1953, 337 space problems made it necessary to distribute the holdings to three locations in the city. In 1959, the German Library moved 480,000 units into a new building on Zeppelinallee. Kurt Köster became the new director. The inauguration of the new building was on April 24, 1959 in the presence of Federal President Theodor Heuss. In 1961 the library had 143 permanent positions.