Berlin State Library returns historical prints
Press release from 01/13/2010
On Monday (11 January 2010), the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation returned two books formerly owned by the Counts of Lynar to their heirs. The two volumes from the 17th century had come to the attention of the Berlin State Library during the processing of its holdings. Their provenance could be clearly determined as both prints bear a gold-stamped coat of arms supralibros with the inscription SIGMUND CASIMIR GRAF ZU LYNAR on the front and back covers of their parchment bindings. The State Library has now handed them over to the Potsdam City and State Library, where the surviving part of the former "Gräflich zu Lynarschen Fideikommiß Bibliothek" is being processed and cared for as a deposit.
Both volumes bear the ownership stamp of the former German State Library and were signed in 1972, but were not listed in catalogues. They presumably came to the library via the "Central Office for Old Scientific Collections". This organisation, established in 1953 and located at the German State Library in Berlin (East) from 1959, looked after book collections that had become ownerless in the GDR due to expropriation, separation from existing libraries or the closure of entire libraries. The Central Office handed over the works to academic libraries in the GDR for further use.
Wilhelm-Friedrich Graf zu Lynar was sentenced to death and executed for his involvement in the Hitler assassination attempt on Count von Stauffenberg on 20 July 1944. His family was expropriated by the Nazi government. The family seat at Lübbenau Castle in the Spreewald had to be evacuated and the library holdings there were removed after 1945. The family of Count zu Lynar went to the West after 1945. After reunification, they turned to the Office for Unresolved Property Issues, which returned the ownership rights to the properties in Lübbenau and the artefacts that had been in the castle museum to them in 1994.
In addition to the two returned books, there are other items from Lübbenau Castle that are in the State Library, but with a different background. Manuscripts from the Graf von Lynar collection have been kept in the music department of the State Library since 1956. Originally, these were loaned by the Lübbenau Spreewald Museum. In 1995, these extensive music collections were returned to the Lynar family. They have been held by the State Library since 1999 on the basis of a permanent loan agreement. Since 2005, the State Library has held 379 prints from the Reformation period from the Counts zu Lynar collection on deposit.
The two returned books:
Processus iudiciarius in causa ... Georgio Comiti in Wisnicz et laroslaw Lubomierski ... ex instantia instigatoris regni & delatione ... Hieronymi de Magna Skrzynno Dunin ad comitia regni anni 1664 institutæ & ibidem iudicatæ ac decisæ, Warsaw 1664 (anthology with three bound prints 1665-1666).
This is an anthology of four Warsaw prints from the trial brought by King Jan II Kazimierz Waza in 1664 against the Polish nobleman Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski (1616-1667). As a result of Lubomirski's disempowerment, the magnate uprising of 1665-1666 broke out against the Polish king (Rokosz Jerzego Lubomirskiego). The king was eventually forced to give in to the rebels' demands and resign. There is another copy in the State Library's collection, which is now kept in the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Krakow due to the removal of the collection during the Second World War. The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin recently digitised the volume that has now been returned with the consent of the community of heirs and can thus make it accessible to its users.
Sanson, Nicolas: Die gantze Erd=Kugel / bestehend in den vier Theilen der Welt / Als Europa, Asia, Africa und America ..., Frankfurt am Main 1679 (incomplete, the 63 maps are missing)
This volume from 1679 is the German edition of a series of treatises on the four continents known at the time, which can be traced back to the pioneer of French cartography Nicolas Sanson d'Abbéville.
The Historical Prints Department of the Berlin State Library:
The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is the largest scientific universal library in Germany. It preserves outstanding treasures of cultural heritage in several special collections. Its Historical Prints Department preserves, supplements and catalogues around 250,000 volumes of rare and valuable historical printed works, making it one of the most extensive collections of its kind in the world. In addition, the department supplements and catalogues the general collection of printed publications up to the year of publication 1912, with a particular focus on closing the gaps left by the relocation and destruction of printed publications during the Second World War. In addition, the Department for the Printed Material Collections of the Berlin State Library coordinates the research and cataloguing of the provenance traces found in the individual copies. Since 2007, a specially established department has been dealing with the investigation of suspected cases of cultural property in the Staatsbibliothek's collections that was confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution. As part of a joint research project with the Max Planck Society, the structure and functioning of the Reichstauschstelle (Reich Exchange Office) located in the library building on Unter den Linden is being analysed with regard to the distribution of confiscated books between 1933 and 1945.