Publications

The German Exile Archive 1933–1945 houses collections of exile publications on its premises in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main. These collections contain first editions, reprints and translations of works by emigrants, anthologies containing contributions by emigrants, and books published, translated, illustrated and designed by emigrants. They also include works by exile publishers. Emigration-related publications from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia that date from after 1933 are also part of the collection. These are kept in the open access collection of the Anne Frank Shoah Library in Leipzig. Other holdings consist of disguised writings that were compiled and printed in exile and distributed as a form of resistance to the Nazi regime in Germany.

Estates, archives, individual autographs

In Frankfurt am Main, we also have a collection of non-printed testimonies to German emigration and exile between 1933 and 1945. These artefacts include files, estates, partial estates, collections, bundles of letters, individual letters and manuscripts.

Reference libraries

Users in Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig have access to reference libraries on the subject of exile. These contain reference works, general works on the German language exile, and research literature on relevant subjects that take into account a wider interpretation of the concept of exile. They also include autobiographies and collections of letters by and about individual emigrants along with reprints of exile periodicals.

You can use the Frankfurt reference library directly on the premises of the German Exile Archive and in the German National Library’s multimedia reading room.

The Leipzig reference library is located in the reading room of the Anne Frank Shoah Library.

You can also search the reference collections in the German National Library's catalogue.