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The Leo Baeck Institute – Berlin Branch

Research Archive on the History of German Jewry since the Enlightenment

Square glasses with round lenses and a matching case.

Moses Mendelssohn's glasses and their case; courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute New York

Around the time the Jewish Museum Berlin was opened, a branch of the archives of the New York–based Leo Baeck Institute was established here, providing access in Germany to one of the largest archives on German-Jewish history.

Named after Rabbi Leo Baeck, one of German Jewry's most significant representatives, the institute was founded in New York, London, and Jerusalem in 1955. The institute is devoted to researching the history of German Jewry since the Enlightenment.

Map with all buildings that belong to the Jewish Museum Berlin. The W. M. Blumenthal Academy is marked in green

Where

W. M. Blumenthal Academy, Archives
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
Postal address: Lindenstraße 9-14, 10969 Berlin

The Collection of the New York Archive

Its New York archive holds an extensive collection: municipal files, personal documents, correspondence, and artifacts of religious, social, cultural, intellectual, political, and commercial life reflecting the full spectrum of German-Jewish existence.

Leo Baeck

1873–1956

More on Wikipedia

Leo Baeck Institute New York/Berlin (LBI)

LBI-Website

Holdings on Our Premises

Since the establishment of the Berlin office, nearly three-quarters of the materials held in New York have been made available in the reading room of the Jewish Museum Berlin on more than 4,500 microfilm reels. In the intervening years, many of the holdings have been digitized for online viewing. Certain collections are still only available on microfilm, however, so we recommend searching the full catalog as well.

The branch also houses a number of original collections, among them the extensive Constantin Brunner Collection, some of the papers of the historian Werner T. Angress, and the papers of the actor and writer Frederick Ritter.

Organizational Supporters

The microfilming of the New York collections has been generously sponsored by the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ) and the German Research Foundation as part of their programs for promoting scholarly library services and information systems.

Online exhibition „May he rot forever“

In cooperation with Google Arts & Culture and using resources from the partial estate of Werner T. Angress, we created this exhibition about the return of a German-Jewish emigrant to Germany as a liberator in 1944/45.

Google Arts & Culture exhibition (in German)

DigiBaeck

Research in DigiBaeck

Complete catalog on the LBI Website

(Search under „Our Catalog“)
Research in the LBI complete catalog

Constantin Brunner

1862–1937, philosopher, author, literature critic, and -agent

More on Wikipedia

Werner T. Angress

1920–2010, historian, 1944/45 allied liberator

More on the American Historical Association website

Contact

Aubrey Pomerance
Head of Archives/Leo Baeck Institute
T +49 (0)30 259 93 556
a.pomerance@jmberlin.de

Address

Jewish Museum Berlin
Lindenstraße 9–14
10969 Berlin

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