Hünfeld monastic library

Since 2011, 114 books from the Hünfeld monastery library have been restituted to the religious community of the Missionary Oblates of the Immaculate Virgin Mary.

The library of the monastery in Hünfeld was looted by the Gestapo in 1941 in the so-called Klostersturm and taken to Berlin, including the steel shelving system of the monastery. After the end of the war, the volumes were added to the stock of the ZLB via the Bergungsstelle für wissenschaftliche Bibliotheken (Salvage Office for Academic Libraries). In the course of the recovery orders No. 161 (margarine bunker at Hohenzollerndamm) and No. 209 (depot of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) in Emser Str.), they were recovered as "ownerless" and assigned in parts to the Berlin City Library.

Some books also bear a stamp of the "Hauptamt für Weltanschauliche Information". This was a department of the Amt Rosenberg (ARo), which was called "Archiv für kirchenpolitische Fragen" from 1934-1937 and "Hauptamt Überstaatliche Mächte" from 1942-1945. The ARo was very closely linked to the robbery organization Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) (on the ERR, see Cultural Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (errproject.org)), but according to current research, the books come from holdings of the RSHA.