Glanz, Heinrich

Heinrich Glanz was born in Vienna on 13 August 1891, one of the five children of the Jewish couple David and Regine Glanz, née Graeber, who originally came from Galicia. He studied law and married Selma Leitner (born on 10 October 1893), a teacher of English and French, in June 1916. He taught at Jewish schools and worked as a representative for the Jewish publishing company “Menorah” for a while. Beginning in 1923, he attempted to establish his own bookshop and publishing company, but due to his lack of training as a bookseller, he was not granted the required licence to establish a book trading and publishing business specialising in Judaica and Hebraica until 1927.

Immediately after the annexation of Austria, Heinrich Glanz was forced to close his publishing company on Gestapo orders. The publisher’s warehouse was probably cleared by the Gestapo and its contents handed over to the “Bücherverwertungsstelle” (book collection and distribution centre) in Vienna in September 1938. This authority was established by the Reich Ministry of Propaganda in Vienna to collect books confiscated from book dealers, publishing companies and private libraries and redistribute them to libraries in the German Reich.

Heinrich and Selma Glanz presumably emigrated to London in November 1938. After their arrival, Heinrich Glanz resumed his work as a book dealer and publisher, for which he may have been able to draw on publishing stocks which had been stored in Switzerland and the Netherlands and thus escaped confiscation. At the end of May 1940, they travelled by sea via Canada to the USA, where they settled in New York City. Here too, Heinrich Glanz worked as a book dealer until he was forced to give up his work on health grounds. He died in New York City in September 1958. During the 1960s, Selma Glanz, who initially worked at New York University as a French teacher, took the post of Assistant Professor at the private Jewish Yeshiva University in New York City. She died in April 1985.

A book in the holdings of the German National Library in Leipzig was identified as the former property of Heinrich Glanz due to the dedication to Heinrich Glanz written by the author on the title page. According to the Deutsche Bücherei's accession book, the item was sent to the library by the “Bücherverwertungsstelle” (book collection and distribution centre) in Vienna and was added to the collection in September 1939.

The Holocaust Claims Processing Office helped the German National Library identify the rightful heirs and established contact with the community of heirs. This enabled us to return the book to Heinrich Glanz's heirs in June 2024. They allowed us to prepare a digitised version of the book before it was returned; this can now be accessed by the public through the library catalogue.

Further information:

• Digital copy of the restitution copy in the catalogue: David H. Asriel, Wahrheiten über Palästina und die Diaspora, Beograd: Karić 1927, Link to the record
• Ernst Fischer, Verleger, Buchhändler und Antiquare aus Deutschland und Österreich in der Emigration nach 1933: Ein biographisches Handbuch, 2. aktualisierte und erweiterte Auflage, Berlin/Boston 2020.
• Sören Flachowsky, “Zeughaus für die Schwerter des Geistes”. Die Deutsche Bücherei Leipzig 1912–1945, Göttingen 2018.
• Murray G. Hall, “Der jüdische Dr. Heinrich Glanz Verlag in Wien: Mit Bruchstücken einer Biographie”, in: Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Buchforschung in Österreich 2004/1, p. 15–24.
• Grit Nitzsche, “Die Bücherverwertungsstelle Wien”, in: Regine Dehnel (Hg.), Jüdischer Buchbesitz als Raubgut. Zweites Hannoversches Symposium, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 67–72.

• Austrian State Archives, Archiv der Republik, Entschädigungs- und Restitutionsangelegenheiten:

  • Files of the Finanzlandesdirektion, FLD 26040
  • Files of the Hilfsfonds, No. 10222 und Abgeltungsfonds 7428
  • Files of the Vermögensverkehrsstelle, VA 40498
• Saxon State Archive Leipzig, Best. 21765 No. F 12024 (File of the German Book Traders’ Association).