After the defeat of
Nazi Germany, Germany was occupied by the Allies and split into parts: the western part, which would later become
West Germany, was in the USA-UK-France zone of influence, and the eastern part, which later became East Germany, was in the Soviet Union zone of influence. The German national library, the Deutsche Bücherei (founded 1912) was located in
Leipzig, which was then in the Soviet-controlled eastern zone. The western occupation zones called for the creation of a new library in the western zone to replace the library that was now in the Soviet zone. In September 1946, the American military government approved the creation of a reference library in
Frankfurt am Main. Previously also known as the German Library of the West, the German Library began in November 1946 in Frankfurt am Main. Like the Deutsche Bücherei in the now Soviet-controlled zone, the German Library in the western zone was founded by the
Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels. From 1947 onwards, it was legally an institution of the book trade and the city of Frankfurt am Main which attached the library to the city and university library under the direction of Hanns Wilhelm Eppelsheimer. Initially, the library was only responsible for the American and British zones and was housed in the Rothschild Palace on Untermainkai and its neighboring building, the Manskopf House. The cut-off date for the start of the collection was May 8, 1945. The city of Frankfurt am Main provided the premises, the costs were borne by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels. Inadequate funding, which, among other things, led to considerations about handing it over to the
University of Cologne, the founding seat of the DFG, in the fall of 1949, finally led in 1952 to the conversion of the German Library into a foundation under public law. The city of Frankfurt and the state of Hesse acted as the founders, the Federal Republic of Germany, represented by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, which saw the protection of society from communist influences as an essential mandate, and the Börsenverein as contributors.: S. 331 In 1952, each institution contributed 60,000 DM (the federal government with 65,000 DM) annually to the financing of the library. In 1954, the contributions were 71 percent higher. The Börsenverein reduced its contributions from 1956.: S. As early as 1953, 337 space problems made it necessary to distribute the holdings to three locations in the city. In 1959, the German Library moved 480,000 units into a new building on Zeppelinallee.
Kurt Köster became the new director. The inauguration of the new building was on April 24, 1959 in the presence of Federal President
Theodor Heuss. In 1961 the library had 143 permanent positions. From 1963, the Börsenverein excluded all members who did not submit copies to the German Library from the association. In addition, there was free delivery by the publishers in the
German Democratic Republic. In 1965 the library had one million media units. In 1969 the Bundestag passed the "Law on the German Library", which became a federal institution under public law and was subject to legal supervision by the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The donors, the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, the state of Hesse and the city of Frankfurt am Main, had withdrawn and the Federal Republic of Germany became the sole support provider. The obligation to deposit (deposit copy) was thus stipulated by law, that is, two copies of every publication published in Germany had to be handed over to the German Library for archiving. In 1970 the German Music Archive in Berlin was attached to the German Library and in 1976 Günther Pflug became the new General Director. In 1971 the Deutsche Bibliothek had 270 posts, the maximum value before the merger with the Deutsche Bücherei was reached in 1981 with 331 posts. The construction of an online catalog began in the mid-1980s: The two libraries in Frankfurt and Leipzig published largely identical national bibliographies until 1990. In 1966, the German Library began to compile its bibliography with the help of the EDP under the direction of the Deputy General Director Rudolf Blum and was able to reduce the long processing times with a significantly smaller personnel expenditure than the German Library and to appear before its Leipzig counterpart. In the unification agreement of 1990, the merger of the German library with the German library (including the German music archive in Berlin) to form the DDB (The German Library), based in Frankfurt. At this point in time, the German Library and the Music Archive had 4.5 million media units. In the early 1980s, the holdings comprised more than three million volumes and alternative magazines were required. Seven years after reunification and after five years of construction, a new library building was inaugurated in Frankfurt on May 14, 1997, with around 6 million media units. == Building ==