Skip to secondary navigation Skip to Catalog Search Skip to Website Search Skip to Accessibility Page Skip to Content
Open/close sidebar

Provenance research is a substantial task for Leipzig University Library due to its wealth of holdings from many different sources. One important aspect of this is to identify and document unlawfully acquired items, locate the owners or their heirs, and ultimately find fair, just solutions involving either the restitution of books to their rightful owner or continuing to preserve them in the library.

A key obligation in this regard is to investigate the seizure of cultural assets by the Nazis. Here, Leipzig University follows the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art of 3 December 1998 (the Washington Declaration) as well as the joint statement by the German Government, the Länder and the national associations of local authorities on the tracing and return of Nazi-confiscated art (german only), especially Jewish property, dated 9 December 1999. In addition, books are identified which came into the possession of Leipzig University Library as a result of expropriation measures conducted between 1945 and 1989 on the territory of the Soviet occupation zone and the German Democratic Republic (‘East Germany’).