Undated Report on Library for
Exploration of the Jewish Question "Hohe Schule",
District Office, Frankfurt/ Main.

Institute for Exploration of the Jewish question

On 26 March 1941 Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg inaugurated as the first district office of the "Hohe Schule" in Frankfurt/ Main the Institute for Exploration of the Jewish Question (Frankfurt/ Main Bockenheimer Landstrasse 68).

According to the order of the Fuehrer from 29 Jan 1940 the "Hohe Schule" is supposed to represent "the center of the national-socialist doctrine and education." At the same time Reichsleiter Rosenberg was authorized to make all necessary preparations for the foundation of the "Hohe Schule" in the realm of research and organization of libraries.

The district office in Frankfurt/ Main, activated under those preparatory measures, competent for the domain of the Jewish question, contains besides a research-department and archives, a voluminous library whose stock shall be the subject of this article.

The basis for the library for exploration of the Jewish question is made up of the libraries from occupied territories, confiscated by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, in accordance with the orders of the Fuehrer from 5 July 1940, 17 Sept 1940 and 1 March 1942. This material is derived from Jewish property, now centrally collected to serve the research, doctrine and education of the German people.

The most significant book-collections today belonging to the stock of the "Library for exploration of the Jewish question", are the following:

1. The library of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. Among the approximately 40,000 volumes of this library from Paris (mainly Judaica and Hebraica) are numerous volumes of magazines, voluminous pamphlet material, a very detailed literature and collection of clippings from newspapers regarding the affair Dreyfus, about 200 Hebrew manuscripts and 30 manuscripts in other languages, about 20 incunabula.

2. The stock of the Ecole Rabbinique consists mostly of Judaica and Hebraica, altogether about 10,000 volumes. The Jewish texts of this Rabbi-school in Paris offers valuable Talmud-material and complete magazine series.

3. The library of the Federation de Societe des Juifs de France (about 4000 volumes) contains besides general literature about Jewry mostly Russian literature about the Jewish question.

4. The stock of the Jewish bookstore in Paris Lipschuetz (about 20,000 volumes) contains in its most valuable part bibliographical works, Hebraica and so on.

5. The various collections from former property of the Rothschilds of Paris generally are of no more than common interest, but they also show that the various members of the Rothschild family collected Jewish literature for their own orientation. The collections in question are the following:

a. Collection Edouard Rothschild (about 6,000 volumes)
b. Collection Edouard and Guy Rothschild (about 3,000 volumes)
c. Collection Maurice Rothschild (about 6,000 volumes)
d. Collection Robert Rothschild (about 10,000 volumes)
e. Collection of the Rothschild family from hunting lodge Armainvilliers (about 3,000 volumes)

These Rothschild collections contain, besides the valuable book stock, important archive material which gives information on connections between Jews and non-Jews in France and abroad. In this connection it should be mentioned that the district office Frankfurt/ Main also is in possession of the archives of the last 100 years of the Parisian bank of Rothchild (760 boxes).

6. The Rosenthaliana from Amsterdam with 20,000 volumes (mostly German language literature on the Jewish question).

7. The library of the Sefardic Jewish community in Amsterdam with about 25,000 volumes (mostly Hebraica).

8. The large amount of books secured in the occupied eastern territories (prevalent Soviet-Jewish and Polish-Jewish literature, voluminous Talmud literature) are from collecting points in Riga, Kauen, Wilna, Minsk and Kiev (about 280,000 volumes).

9. Book collections from Jewish communities in Greece (about 10,000 volumes) .

10. Book material from a "Sonderaktion" in the Rhineland (collecting point Neuwied) with about 5,000 volumes.

11. The book collections mentioned under l-10 were turned over to the Library for Exploration of the Jewish Question by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg and are constantly being filled up by new shipments from the Einsatzstab. Besides that, some 100,000 volumes which were obtained from other sources (finance offices and so on) by the district office, belong to the library for exploration of the Jewish question. Therefore, the library for exploration of the Jewish questions contains as of 1 April 1943:

Approximately 550,000 volumes (about 3,300 book boxes) including 325 boxes (approx. 24,000 volumes) earmarked for the district office but still kept in Berlin with the Staff, and including approx. 220,000 volumes (about 650 boxes) prepared for shipment to Frankfurt/ Main at the various collecting points of the Einsatzstab and partly packed.

In detail, these stocks deposited in Berlin cover the material of the above under Nos. 3, 5b, d and e mentioned libraries (about 17,000 volumes), furthermore parts of the collections mentioned under Nos. 5a and c (about 7,000 volumes); all the books at the collecting points ready for shipment to Frankfurt/ Main cover the whole stock as the collections mentioned under Nos. 6 and 7 (about 50,000 volumes), part of that material secured in the East (compare No. 8 above; there are in Minsk about 20,000 volumes, in Wilno about 50,000 volumes and in Kiev about 100,000 volumes). The stocks mentioned here which are still in Berlin or at the collecting points, make up approximately another 240,000 volumes. The district office in Frankfurt/ Main has received so far approximately 300,000 volumes (about 2,325 boxes).

Of these, approximately 2,325 book boxes which arrived at the library for exploration of the Jewish question, were so far unpacked and put on bookshelves:

567 boxes of the Alliance Israelite Universelle (out of 656 boxes)
165 boxes of the Ecole Rabbinique (out of 243 boxes)
50 boxes of the book store Lipschuetz (out of 197 boxes)
84 boxes of the collection Edouard Rothschild (the remaining 75 boxes are still in Berlin)
23 boxes of the collection Maurice Rothschild (the remaining 39 boxes are still in Berlin)
159 boxes of the collection point Riga (the whole stock)

Thus 1,048 book boxes (about 150,000 volumes) were unpacked that is half of the book boxes, so far received in Frankfurt/ Main.

27,848 volumes were catalogued in Frankfurt/ Main from 1 May 1941 (beginning of cataloguing) to 31 March 1943 (catalogued according to authors and subjects). According to the same principle the new publication which were put into the library for the exploration of the Jewish question since 1941, were catalogued-9,325 volumes.

Apart from the actual importance of the Jewish question, the library for the research of the Jewish question assumes a high position in the realm of German libraries with its present collection of about 550,000 volumes because this Frankfurt library could be brought to such a degree of completeness as regards the literature on the Jewish question as never before in Europe or elsewhere. In the New Order of Europe Organization the library for the Jewish question not only for Europe but for the world will arise in Frankfurt and Main.