The MGH was founded in Hanover as a private
text publication society by the
Prussian reformer
Heinrich Friedrich Karl Freiherr vom Stein in 1819. The first volume appeared in 1826. The editor from 1826 until 1874 was
Georg Heinrich Pertz (1795–1876), who was succeeded by
Georg Waitz (1813–1886). Many eminent medievalists from Germany and, eventually, other countries, joined in the project of searching out and comparing manuscripts and producing scholarly editions. The motto chosen, ("Sacred love for the fatherland gives the spirit"), is explained as linking
Romantic nationalism with professional scholarship. In 1875, the MGH was established as a more formal institution with headquarters in
Berlin. In 1935, the organization was taken over by the state and renamed the ("National Institute for Older German History"). This was abolished in 1945, at the end of
World War II. The institute was later revived under its original name with the support of German institutions and the
Austrian Academy of Sciences. The Monumenta Germaniae Historica Institute has been located in Munich since 1949 and possesses a large specialized library on the medieval history of Germany and Europe, including Church history, along with 130,000 monographs and approximately 150,000 dependent writings. During the late 1940s,
Margarete Kühn used her work on the MGH as cover for taking the
Wiesbaden Codex from
Soviet control in
Dresden and having it returned to
Eibingen and then to the
State Library of Wiesbaden. The MGH moved into its current premises in the building of the
Bavarian State Library in 1967. The project, a major effort of historical scholarship, continues in the 21st century. In 2004 the MGH, with the support of the
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, made all of its publications in print for more than five years available online, in photo-digital reproduction, via a link on the MGH homepage. ==Divisions==