History, Western Europe

Print copy available: Hesburgh Library Reference Collection (PF 3625 .G7 1854a ) (1st Floor)

The "Neue Deutsche Biographie" (NDB), published by the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , provides information about the deceased personalities who have significantly influenced political, economic, social, scientific, technical or artistic developments through their scientific achievements. For the German linguistic and cultural area, the NDB has been the authoritative biographical lexicon for decades.

Every issue contains scholarly articles and book reviews on various aspects of German history and the history of the German-speaking world; there are also review articles and reports on exhibitions and conferences, as well as news items of various kinds. The contributors include established historians, younger colleagues and postgraduate students.

German Studies Review (GSR) is the scholarly journal devoted to the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary study of the German-speaking countries. Topics range from Alexander von Humboldt and postcolonial theory to Krupp housing estates in the Ruhr Valley to the popularity of German gangsta rap. A peer-reviewed journal, GSR includes articles and book reviews on the history, literature, culture, and politics of the German-speaking areas of Europe encompassing primarily, but not exclusively, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

One of the foremost, peer-reviewed historical journals. Articles cover all aspects and time periods of historical research of the German-speaking world.

Considered the leading journal in its field, New German Critique is an interdisciplinary periodical that focuses on twentieth- and twenty-first-century German studies and publishes articles on a wide array of subjects, including literature, mass culture, film, and other visual media; literary theory and cultural studies; Holocaust studies; art and architecture; political and social theory; intellectual history and philosophy.

Transit is published by the Department of German at the University of California, Berkeley. With a focus on the German-speaking world, the journal invites critical work on a wide range of topics, from translations to travelogues and other forms of cultural transfer.

Digital library of over 15,000 books, journals, newspapers, manuscripts, theses, and scientific essays covering the eleventh century to present.

Digital collection of manuscripts, historic maps, newspapers, and other materials documenting the history and culture of Bavaria.

Database with unrestricted access to Germany’s cultural and scientific heritage, that is, access to millions of books, archived items, images, sculptures, pieces of music and other sound documents, as well as films and scores, from all over Germany.

Contemporary documents including the legislative and administrative documents in the parliamentary archives, official records of all decisions taken by the German Bundestag, printed papers and minutes to the plenary proceedings, and research papers published by the Research Services of the Deutscher Bundestag.

Online collections of historical documents and sources for Modern Germany.

Site devoted in 3 parts to 20th-century literature, film and music in Germany, Austria and other German-speaking regions of Europe. It is also the virtual mouthpiece of a paper journal of the same name, which was founded in 1963. Significant articles on contemporary cultural debates, ideas and events are posted, along with recent publishing news. There is also an editors' book recommendation section, which ran from 1999 to 2003 (Die sieben Göttinger Literaturtipps).

This database contains primary sources (texts, images, and maps) that document the social, political, economic, religious, and cultural history of Germany from 1500 to present. The German site has the original German texts while the English site provides new English translations for all of them.

Contains the Verhandlungen des Reichstags in addition to a wide variety of other primary sources for Germany.

The digital library contains the works of German-speaking women who wrote up through the early twentieth century. Represented is a wide variety of genres including novels, stories, dramas, autobiographies, letters, travel journals, poetry, and mission literature. There are also collections for film, music, journalism, reference works, English translations, and the women’s movement.

Developed and written by Dr Nikolaus Wachsmann, Professor in modern European history at Birkbeck (University of London) and author of KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (2015)

"The Andover-Harvard Theological Library is the official archive for the records of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC). In a project jointly funded by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine in Paris, the library completed a massive digitization project of roughly 257 boxes of archival UUSC material dating from 1939 to 1967."

"Propaganda was central to Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic. The German Propaganda Archive includes both propaganda itself and material produced for the guidance of propagandists. The goal is to help people understand the two great totalitarian systems of the twentieth century by giving them access to the primary material."

Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal : Proceedings Volumes. Full-text collection of Nuremberg Trials documents.

"As the Jewish people’s living memorial to the Holocaust, Yad Vashem safeguards the memory of the past and imparts its meaning for future generations. Established in 1953, as the world center for documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem is today a dynamic and vital place of intergenerational and international encounter."

Germany maintains, cares for, and makes its moving pictures accessible to the public through the Federal Film Archive in Berlin, which is one the largest archives of its kind in the world. In 1990, the state Film Archive of the GDR was integrated into the film section of the Federal Archives. The Film Archive has been collecting German newsreels, documentary films and feature films since the 1950s. The film archive material is accessible and may be used if its condition permits. Film Archive employees inform, advise and support research carried out by film producers, scientists, journalists and interested citizens. Literature on the subject is also available to users in a specialised library.

A film and television museum based in Berlin, Germany. The museum contains collections on film history from the first moving images to digital film. The website contains information about the museum, the collections, events and exhibitions past and present. The collections area of the website covers: a film archive; a script collection; a photo archive; and a poster archive among others. There is also a Marlene Dietrich collection, and the website provides a biography on the actress. The section on exhibitions has information about the permanent exhibitions, current exhibitions and an archive going as far back as 2000. In addition, the Deutsche Kinemathek is responsible for the Retrospective section of the Berlinale, and puts on special film series, exhibitions, colloquia and other events.

Founded in 1949, the Deutsches Filminstitut – DIF is the oldest cinematic institution in Germany and also one of the country's largest. To collect, process and analyse information on film is one of the main purposes of the DIF. A second purpose is the collection of films, their preservation and, if necessary, restoration in order to bring them back to the screen. In 2006, the Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt/Main, merged with the DIF and is now an institution of the latter. Together the DIF / Deutsches Filmmuseum now provide an exceptional variety of services and comprehensive expertise in film, but also run two cinemas: the award-winning Cinema of the Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt and the Caligari Filmbühne in Wiesbaden.

A well-presented film website in German & English, although the German platform is more extensive. This project is coordinated by the Deutsches Filminstitut (German Film Institute), and provides details on German films, individuals and film companies. The site promises constant updates and more information to make its lists of films and individuals' filmographies as complete as possible. It also gauges news, current trends and developments in the German film industry, providing well-written synopses. It allows users to search thematically through different genres and contains a wealth of links, clips and stills. The focus here is on cinematic films, not television films.

The Photo Gallery contains pictures from parliamentary events, Presidents of the National and Federal Councils and members of the President’s Conferences, the Parliament Building, and Palais Epstein. Through the Parliamentary Library’s Catalog, information for about 140,000 volumes of the 330,000 books can be accessed as well as Parliamentary materials that have been digitized.

Collection of digitized newspapers from Austria spanning from the nineteenth century to present.

LibGuide listing German language newspapers from seven European countries and Canada.

Historic German Newspapers and Journals including historic periodical collections, regional newspapers, Jewish newspapers, local German newspapers, and magazines.

Portal for finding and using current and historical newspapers from Germany and the world. from the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.

The digital archive maintained by Die Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (The Austrian National Library) that contains Austrian laws and legal texts from the 19th and 20th centuries.

List of databases of legal resources for Austria. Some are free; others require subscriptions.

List of databases of legal resources for Germany. Some are free; others require subscriptions.

Official site of the Austrian Federal Chancellery that contains full texts of laws and decisions.

The collections of Houghton Library touch upon almost every aspect of the human record, particularly the history and culture of Europe and North America, and include special concentrations in the history of printing and of theater.

The Harvard Law Rare Book Collection contains over 200,000 printed books, pamphlets, broadsides and other material, with imprints between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries.

Harvard's Widener Library holds one of the world's most comprehensive research collections in the humanities and social sciences. These remarkably diverse collections of books, journals, microforms, films, pamphlets, posters, audio recordings, electronic resources, and ephemera numbering in the millions are the result of deliberate, systematic, forward-looking acquisitions amassed over hundreds of years.

German Expressionism.

Online collections of historical documents and sources for Modern Germany.

Literary archives of many German writers from 1920s to present (including Benjamin, Brecht, Döblin, Grass, Man, Müller, Wolf, etc.)

Database of mediaeval libraries and manuscripts in Germany and other countries in Europe. An approach to reconstructing mediaeval libraries based on the present manuscript tradition.

The Federal Archives document more than 200 years of Swiss history. Here you will find comprehensive tips for your research in the Federal Archives.

A collection of archival and manuscript resources available domestically in the United States.

Index of the federal archive.

H-German is one of the H-Net family of humanities networks sponsored by the Michigan State University. All together our more than 100 networks have over 60,000 subscribers in 90 countries. H-German is a daily Internet discussion forum focused on scholarly topics in German history. There are no chronological limits. The primary purpose for H-German is to enable scholars in history and related disciplines to easily communicate current research and research interests; to discuss new articles, books, papers, approaches, methods and tools of analysis; and to explore these issues as they relate to the teaching of German history.

A catalog of medieval manuscripts in German libraries.

This is the main resource to locate records of German archival materials and manuscripts in over 100 archives, libraries, museums, and research institutions in Germany. It contains over 1 million records.

German archive search for personal papers.

Moravian Archives. Bethlehem, PA (2 weeks in June)

The Archival Summer Seminar, organized by the German Historical Institute, is a two-week program for advanced graduate students in German historical studies. The program trains participants to read old German script, familiarizes them with German research facilities (archives and libraries), provides a forum for discussing research methods, and helps prepare them for their prospective dissertation research trips to Germany. The group will spend the bulk of their time in various German archives. Students will learn how to contact archives, use finding aids, identify important reference tools, and become generally acquainted with German research facilities.

A website tutorial for understanding German script.

Here you can learn Sütterlin, the "German handwriting."