Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation hands over manuscripts to the German Historical Museum
Press release from 03/14/2018
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has handed over nine manuscripts to the German Historical Museum Foundation (DHM) that were in the Berlin State Library - Prussian Cultural Heritage. The military-historical works belonged to the armoury library until the armoury was dissolved and were transferred to today's Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin via various routes in the GDR. There they were catalogued and indexed.
The library of the State Armoury was once one of the largest military libraries in the German-speaking world. Only a quarter of the collection, around 5,000 works, survived the war undamaged in the Zeughaus Unter den Linden building. Most of the remaining volumes are still considered lost today. Of the former manuscript collection of the armoury library with almost 400 signatures, a good 120 items are still preserved in the DHM. After the armoury was dissolved in the post-war period, the remaining collection was initially distributed to other libraries in the GDR. When the Museum of German History, the predecessor institution of the German Historical Museum, was founded in 1953, it was decided to reunite the library there. However, not all of the items were actually returned. During his research into the whereabouts of the Zeughaus library, the head of the DHM library, Dr Matthias Miller, came across the collection that has now been handed over.
Hermann Parzinger, President of the SPK: "This return shows once again that we still have historical legacies to deal with. Of course, we endeavour to return items that have wrongly entered our collections to their rightful owners. But to do this, they must also be made traceable."
Barbara Schneider-Kempf adds: "For years, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin has been storing all available information on the provenance of its collections in its catalogues, which has already led to several pleasing returns."
"We would like to thank the Director General of the Staatsbibliothek, Barbara Schneider-Kempf, and the President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Prof. Dr Hermann Parzinger, for returning the Zeughaus manuscripts to the Deutsches Historisches Museum," said the President of the Deutsches Historisches Museum Foundation, Prof. Dr Raphael Gross. "The Deutsches Historisches Museum is endeavouring to reconstruct, at least virtually, the collection holdings of the Zeughaus Berlin that were lost during the Second World War. With the return of the nine manuscripts, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has once again made it possible to return the armoury's wartime losses to their original collection context."
The most valuable of the returned manuscripts is a war book from 1453, written in southern Germany. 254 leaves show the state of war technology and the equipment of soldiers around the middle of the 15th century, as well as numerous pen and ink drawings. Siege equipment, pyrotechnics, guns, armour, battle scenes and castle complexes are depicted. Two of the manuscripts were created in France around 1800 and deal with war in the mountains and training in the Royal Guard du Corps. The six other manuscripts are from Germany and were written between 1820 and 1900. They deal with the value and use of sharpshooters, the development of cannons since 1666, the siege of the citadel of Antwerp, the causes of war, tactical issues and strategic operational plans.