Auflösung und Verbleib von Schulbibliotheken in der DDR Das Beispiel Bürgerschule Stephaneum Aschersleben

Abstract

The article focusses on the GDR administration’s proceedings regarding the dissolution of historical libraries, using the specific example of a school library. The displacement of the old societal elites was followed by the removal of relics of the past they had been connected with. Only after a certain delay, the GDR authorities and public corporations realized that they could make capital out of these unloved and seemingly useless remainders. Starting in 1959, the GDR’s central antiquarian bookstore was tasked with the commercial exploitation of the books, which explicitly included their sale to the so-called ‘non-Socialist economic area’. By this means, many books also went into West German libraries. GDR provenances as a research topic therefore not only relate to East Germany but to the Federal Republic of Germany as a whole. In many places and institutions in East Germany, the fate of their former libraries today is hardly known. The loss of historical and regional identity is clearly noticeable. Besides shedding light onto historical developments, the article suggests a renewed discussion of the dissolution of historical libraries and an assessment from today’s perspective. In those cases where the institutions responsible for the libraries themselves requested the latter’s dissolution, in part even actively participating in their destruction, one can hardly speak of sequestration or a context of deprivation. Even provenance researchers largely consider these as purely administrative acts, and thus as not being litigable. From a mere legal perspective this is applicable. However, the associated immense material and ideational losses deserve a different categorization and evaluation.