Library of Contemporary History


The Library of Contemporary History is one of Europe's largest special libraries for contemporary history, located in Stuttgart, Germany.

History

The library was founded in 1915 in Berlin by coffee substitute entrepreneur Richard Frank as a private collection. Its purpose was to document the First World War by collecting unconventional media like leaflets, posters and brochures. After the war, the collection moved to Schloss Rosenstein in Stuttgart and was opened as the Weltkriegsbücherei to the public in 1921. In September 1944, the library was almost completely destroyed in an Allied air raid on Stuttgart.
In 1948, the Weltkriegsbücherei was renamed to the Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, BfZ for short. The library moved into the new building of the Württembergische Landesbibliothek in 1951. After being an independent institution for several decades, it finally became a department of the Württemberg State Library in 2000.
The library's collection focuses on military history, civil wars, foreign affairs, security policy, the history of genocide and state terrorism, as well as peace and conflict studies. The collection currently consists of more than 400,000 books and 480 subscribed journals.
The library published numerous publications, and organizes regular public lectures on topics of contemporary history. Since January 2020, the lectures have been recorded in cooperation with the Gerda Henkel Stiftung and made available on the online portal .

Special collections

The collection of books and periodicals is complemented by three special collections:
  • Zeit der Weltkriege includes photographs, posters, leaflets, and archives of personal documents. Examples include memoirs, diaries, and letters from combatants as well as civilians of both World Wars.
  • Marine comprises a collection of around 500,000 photographs of warships and merchant ships from all over the world between 1850 and 1990, as well as a collection of naval history with marine charts, construction drawings, blueprints and text documents.
  • Neue Soziale Bewegungen focuses on the domestic political disputes in the Federal Republic of Germany since the 1960s. The collection comprises grey literature as well as posters.

    Own editions

  • Schriften der Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte / First series Volume 1.1962 – 28.1990;
  • Chronology of the War at Sea: 1939–1945 / Jürgen Rohwer; Gerhard Hümmelchen. – 3. rev.. ed. London: Chatham, 2005,
  • Online Resource: Revised edition. Stuttgart: WLB, 2007 ff.
  • Brill's Encyclopedia of the First World War / ed. by Gerhard Hirschfeld; Gerd Krumeich; Irina Renz. – Leiden : Brill, 2012. –

    Secondary literature

  • 100 Jahre Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte: 1915 – 2015 / Christian Westerhoff. – Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, 2015,
  • 1914 – 1918, Orages de papier : les collections de guerre des bibliothèques / ed. by Christophe Didier; Christian Baechler. – Paris : Somogy, Éd. d'Art; Strasbourg: BNU, Bibl. Nat. Univ., 2008,,