German Armed Forces Military History Research Office - The Library

The Library

The library holds extensive collections on national and international military history and other related research areas, social, legal and economic history, as well as political and military science. Research literature is one of its focal areas. Secondary literature on the military history of modern times, in particular the 20th Century, has continuously been acquired in the past decades. The new publications in this research area continue to be our main focus in acquisition today.

Although the library is comparatively young (40 years), it nevertheless comprises a considerable number of more ancient books. In the past years, antiquarian purchases, donations and bequests could be added to the current specialized literature. In many cases our libraries at Freiburg and Potsdam received books from the dissolved stocks of older libraries, as has been the case with the Officers Library of the Royal Bavarian 1st Heavy Cavalry Regiment, the War Historical Department of the University of Heidelberg, the Kiel Naval Academy, the Society for Reading and Relaxation in Bonn, the Austrian State's Archive in Vienna and the Stockholm Royal Military Service School. These collections date mainly from the 18th and 19th centuries. A great number of works from the 16th and 17th centuries have been compiled in a separate rare books section.

The private libraries bequested from the estate of the uniformologist Herbert Knötel Jr. (1893 to 1963) and of the expert in science and history of the ground forces Hans Bleckwenn (1912 to 1990) are special valuables of the library. The latter is probably the most complete private library on the history of the Prussian Army of the 18th Century. Its main focus lies on army organization, development of uniforms and the science and history of weapons of the time of Frederick the Great. The collection also contains very rare uniform manuscripts as well as an extensive image collection on European military affairs. The library also holds approximately 1600 unit histories of the ancient army up to 1918 and older ranking lists of the German and the Austrian armed forces from 1788 on. It further possesses an extensive collection of military regulations from the German Imperial Army up to the National People's Army. In the past years the library has succeeded in further enlarging its biographical collection. Thus, the users of the library have more than 8000 memoirs and literary portraits of persons of importance in military history from the 18th to 20th centuries at their disposal.

Finally, the library subscribes to numerous international magazines and can further make available a large number of historical periodicals of the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which are available as a complete series only in our library.