The Leo Baeck Institute London is pleased to announce a major milestone: our digitised pamphlet collection is now accessible online through DigiBaeck.
With over 2,400 items, this collection is a rich resource of German-Jewish history and culture. It spans early Zionist movements, literary works, rare periodicals, biographies, and responses to significant events such as the Holocaust and the Balfour Declaration. The collection features works by notable figures including Heinrich Heine, Martin Buber, Theodor Herzl, Rosa Luxemburg, and many others.
Explore the collection in detail via these resources:
- Finding aid: https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/22460
- Main catalogue record: https://links.cjh.org/primo/lbi/CJH_ALEPH005574567
- Individual catalogue records: https://search.cjh.org/primo-explore/search?query=any,contains,lbilon&tab=default_tab&search_scope=LBI&vid=lbi&offset=0
The finding aid is divided into two series: pamphlets with individual titles and a series of ephemera. Please note that, due to copyright restrictions, pamphlets published within the last 70 years are not yet available.
This digitisation project represents a significant advancement in improving access to our holdings. We warmly thank our colleagues at LBI New York for their collaboration in making this possible.
The LBI London Pamphlet Collection, with just over 2,400 items, covers a broad spectrum of subjects in multiple languages, including German, English, Hebrew and others, reflecting the transnational nature of German-Jewish history.
The earliest item is a pamphlet by Heinrich Heine from 1837, while most items date from 1917 to 1939, with a second important period from the 1950s through to the 1980s.
Given the diversity and scope of the collection, it serves a wide range of research interests. The following list highlights some of the key subject areas:
Journals and Newsletters
The collection holds institutional information materials such as the LBI Newsletter, LBI Library and Archive News and Germania Judaica.
Historical periodicals
The collection holds a number of historical periodicals from the early 20th Century such as Neue Jüdische Monatshefte (1917-1919) or Der Junge Jude (1928-1930).
Material on leading figures in German-Jewish History and Culture
The collection includes a wide range of materials on the LBI London’s past directors Robert Weltsch and Dr. Arnold Paucker. Other prominent figures featured here include: Martin Buber, Theodor Herzl, Rosa Luxemburg, Moses Mendelssohn and Walther Rathenau, to mention just a few.
The Zionist Movement in Germany and leaflets about Mandate-Palestine
There is a large body of information on the early history of the Zionist Movement in Germany including aims and objectives, fund raising efforts, conference proceedings and material regarding the Balfour Declaration. Newsletters and other pamphlets, often illustrated, report on crucial tasks such as developing a basic infrastructure, housing, agriculture and key industries in Mandate-Palestine.
German-Jewish Literature
The collection offers a wide range of literary texts such as essays, novellas, poetry, plays, short traditional tales and children’s stories. It also contains portraits of writers, discussions on linguistics and also a few in-depth biographies.
Biographies
A number of pamphlets engage with the life of German-Jewish scientists, scholars, politicians, authors and artists. Furthermore, we hold the 31 volumes of Salomon Wininger’s Grosse Jüdische Nationalbiographie with over 9000 entries on Jewish personae. The Grosse Jüdische Nationalbiographie was published in the 1920’s.
Antisemitic Propaganda
The collection holds a range of antisemitic pamphlets that were collected with the intent to document Nazi propaganda aimed against the Jews. We also hold testimonies of German-Jewish responses to politics of discrimination and persecution; there are a number of Jewish pamphlets countering the NSDAP’s accusations and advocating resistance.
Publications regarding the Holocaust
This section comprises publications published by different memorial sites and a wealth of material regarding the so called “Kristallnacht” (Night of the broken glass). In addition survivors tell their life stories in a number of unpublished manuscripts and published memoirs. There are also family histories, some researched by private individuals, others by secondary schools.
Portraits of Jewish Communities in Europe
There is an array of articles and research on Jewish communities in German speaking areas, such as in Fürth, Frankfurt, Berlin, Trier, Würzburg, Werl, Malchow, Danzig and many more.
The collection also holds a number of published address books with personal details of German-Jewish refugees after 1933 across the world that might be of interest for academic purposes.
Please contact the LBI for details of how to arrange a visit. A full list of the pamphlets is available on request from archives@qmul.ac.uk.
