Nazi-looted property at the central university library in Rostock – systematic research in the holdings accessioned from 1933 to 1959

The objectives of the third year of the project were as follows:

– identify as completely as possible any items of Nazi-looted property in the holdings of Rostock University Library based on the final review of the gift and exchange registers of the central university library for the years 1933-1959 [1] and also identify Nazi-looted property in the holdings of the former institute libraries and specialised libraries.

– document the outcomes of the investigations for research and scholarship and catalogue the provenance information according to the established standards [2] in the online catalogue of Rostock University Library,

– search heirs or legal successors and restitute the identified works,

– present the outcomes of the work carried out by publishing a results brochure.

In the third and final year of the project, the main focus was on checking the holdings of the former institute libraries for suspected cases of Nazi-looted property. It was possible to check all the relevant holdings of the former humanities libraries (approx. 23,000 volumes) for provenance markings. Furthermore, due to the large number of suspected cases identified, research into heirs in particular was intensified. It was possible to carry out further restitutions and make progress in other cases.

The project succeeded in examining the gift and exchange registers of the central university library for possible cases of suspected looting (conspicuous titles, conspicuous suppliers). The gift and exchange registers contain around 49,000 entries, of which 5,187 were categorised as suspicious due to a conspicuous supplier, for example. These were recorded in a specially created working database and gradually transferred to the online catalogue of Rostock University Library (OPAC), ensuring public visibility. The holdings of the former humanities institute libraries were also examined. Since no acquisition documents of any real use are available for the specialised libraries, the check had to be carried out at the shelf. Out of 22,252 titles checked, 2,837 books contained provenance information and were recorded directly in the online catalogue. There are currently a total of 8,024 Nazi-looted property titles and potential Nazi-looted property titles in the University Library’s online catalogue (results of the check of the gift and exchange registers and the check of the holdings of the former institute libraries). In the course of the project, the suspicion that some of the titles were Nazi-looted property was confirmed, while based on extensive research it was possible to rule out other titles from belonging to this category. In accordance with the provenance research manual [3], each suspicious book visible in the OPAC was assigned an identifier which reflects the degree of suspicion of looted property and which is also shown in the OPAC. Our research yielded the following results for the books displayed in the OPAC:

Identifier: not Nazi-looted property – 267 books

Identifier: probably not Nazi-looted property – 29 books

Identifier: unspecific – 4,428 books

Identifier: suspicious – 3,081 books

Identifier: probably Nazi-looted property – 103 books

Identifier: Nazi-looted property – 116 books

All restituted books were digitised and are listed on the Rostock document server. Some of the provenances of the restituted books and the short biographies of the individuals associated with them can also be found in the ProvenienzWiki run by the Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverbund (GBV, Common Library Network) [4]. The final cataloguing of all looted property provenances, including the associated biographies in the ProvenienzWiki, will continue after the project has been completed. All titles with the identifiers “Nazi-looted property” and “probably Nazi-looted property” were entered in the Lost Art database.

[1] The year 1959 was chosen because the first alphabetical card catalogue formally ended in 1959 and it is possible that UB Rostock received looted material even after the end of the Second World War.

[2] Recommendations for provenance cataloguing by the GBV’s working group on early printed books, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Alte Drucke (AAD), http://aad.gbv.de/empfehlung/aad_provenienz.pdf .

[3] Albrink, Veronika; Babendreier, Jürgen and Bernd Reifenberg (ed.): Leitfaden für die Ermittlung von NS-verfolgungsbedingt entzogenem Kulturgut in Bibliotheken, last revised: March 2005, http://www.ub.uni-marburg.de/allg/aktiv/Leitfaden.pdf. Citation title: PROVENANCE RESEARCH MANUAL

[4] http://provenienz.gbv.de/index.php?title=Spezial%3ASuche&search=rostock&go=Seite

© Universitätsbibliothek Rostock