Nazi‑Looted Books? A Systematic Provenance Review of the ZfL Library Holdings

Following the discovery of a small collection of French-language books confirmed to have been looted by the Nazis, a systematic review of the ZfL library’s holdings is being conducted. This review rests on the well-founded assumption that the library may hold additional books unlawfully seized as a result of Nazi persecution.

As part of this research project, the entirety of the library’s collection published before 1945—more than 5,000 titles in total—is being systematically examined for problematic provenance. All volumes and indicator of provenance will be documented in detail. The results (photographs and descriptions) will be incorporated into the catalogs and databases relevant to provenance research. The project’s goal is to determine which objects were confiscated as part of Nazi persecution in order to return them to the rightful heirs.

The ZfL was established 1996, but its institutional origins lie in the Central Institute for Literary History (Zentralinstitut für Literaturgeschichte, ZIL), founded in 1969 under the East German Academy of Sciences. The ZIL, in turn, incorporated parts of several earlier institutes, editorial and research projects of the Academy, and their respective libraries.

As additional primary sources, 70 existing accession books from the various predecessor libraries provide relevant information on different acquisition routes and questionable provenances. This includes for example, volumes that were distributed through the Central Office for Scientific Old Collections (ZwA) of the GDR .

In June 2025, the ZfL returned 93 volumes as part of the restitution of a total of 221 books to the heirs of the Jewish Parisian lawyer Henry Torrès (1891–1966), whose library had been looted by the German occupiers in Paris in 1940-41. The restitution took place at the “Recovered Memories” conference organized by the French Commission for the Restitution of Cultural Property and Compensation for Victims of Anti-Semitic Expropriations (CIVS) in Paris.

Fig. above: Restituted books from the library of Henry Torrès, previously held by the ZfL library, © Dirk Naguschewski