Project description

2018 is the centenary year of the November Revolution. The Republic was proclaimed on 9 November 1918, bringing the German Empire to an end. The National Assembly elections followed in January 1919. The Revolution of 1918/19 is considered the starting point for the creation of the first parliamentary democracy in Germany.
Immediately after the outbreak of the Revolution, the Deutsche Bücherei (as the German Library was then known) began to collect revolutionary publications. It amassed some 9,000 broadsides and 700 newspapers and magazines from 1918 to 1920 by sending out requests to worker and soldier councils, political parties, authorities and private individuals, and through exchange arrangements with other libraries. In the project, the approximately 4,000 posters, leaflets and notices which still exist were sorted and thematically indexed, and then conservation work was carried out on them.

The intention was to make a selection of these broadsides, together with roughly 500 contemporary books and brochures, digitally accessible, for the purpose of assisting all those interested in tracking down materials and resources on the November Revolution and the Weimar National Assembly. The digitalised objects and historical information were also integrated into the virtual exhibition on the First World War.

The virtual collection on the Revolution can be researched in the German National Library's catalogue. The collections can be searched by subject category.

Project framework

Duration

January 2017 to Dezember 2018

Further information

• Jahns, Yvonne; Schrödel, Christian: "Vom Ferngeschütz des großen Plakats bis zur Nahkampfwache des Flugblattes": Die Revolutionsdrucksachen der Deutsche Bücherei Leipzig (From Large Posters as Long-Range Artillery to Flyers as Close Combat Weapons: The Revolutionary Printed Matter of the Deutsche Bücherei) 2018 (only available in German)
• Jahns, Yvonne; Schrödel, Christian: Die Revolutionsdrucksachen der Deutschen Bücherei (The Revolutionary Printed Matter of the Deutsche Bücherei). In: Dialog mit Bibliotheken 2018/1, p. 34 (only available in German)
• Preceding project: First World War Collection

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