Independent Order of B'nai B'rith. Zion-Loge XV, Hannover
Stamp: "Bibliothek der Zion-Loge Hannover"
In 2020 a book from the Independent Order B'nai B'rith lodge Zion XV (Unabhängiger Orden B'nai B'rith Zion XV) in Hannover (Lower Saxony), could be returned to B'nai B'rith International.
Zion-Loge XV, founded in Hannover in 1886, was a German lodge of the international Jewish organization Independent Order of B'nai B'rith (I.O.B.B. / Unabhängiger Orden B'nai B'rith, U.O.B.B.), which was founded in New York in 1843. The first German section of the organization had been established in 1882. In the mid-1920s there were about 100 lodges in Germany with ~15,000 members. Subject to persecution and repression since the Nazis came to power in 1933, all remaining B'nai B'rith lodges in the German Reich were forced to close down, their property was confiscated and their leading members were arrested by order of the Gestapo in Berlin in April 1937.
The Zion Lodge XV in Hannover was forcibly closed down in 1937 at the latest. It was not re-established after 1945.
The returned book was from a depot of the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt - RSHA) at Eisenacher Str. 11-13 in Berlin Schöneberg. The RSHA had collected looted books from all over Europe there. Some of these books were distributed to libraries in Berlin by the Salvaging Office ("Bergungsstelle") after the end of World War II in 1945.