Press Collection

About

The press collection consists of a newspaper collection and a press clippings archive. The newspaper collection comprises press publications since 1945 from Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia or, as the case may be, the Soviet Union. It also contains regional newspapers from towns and regions of the historical German Eastern territories. The press clippings archive is organized thematically per country as well as by persons and places. A special collection contains newspaper clippings from the interwar period.

Since 1950, we have been building up an extensive press collection. It represents a unique collection of sources on the contemporary history of East Central Europe. Specifically, it includes a wide range of currently subscribed newspapers (e.g., from minority groups) as well as the archived newspaper holdings of over 700 titles, in approximately 12,500 volumes or bundles. These content of the collection are indexed in the national newspaper database (Zeitschriftendatenbank, ZDB).

The Press Clippings Archive contains around 200.000 dossiers relating to prominent public figures of Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Slovak Republic (until 1992 Czechoslovakia) as well as of the Baltic states. Alongside articles written about and by these people, these dossiers also contain announcements regarding official appointments, death notices, awards ceremonies and publication advertisements. These materials represent a unique resource for contemporary political history and modern social and economic history.

Special Collections:

Press material from the interwar period (1918-1939): over 260 cabinets containing approximately 90,000 documents in total, predominantly from the German-speaking press. Of these, 163 relate to Poland, 58 to the Baltic and 39 to Czechoslovakia
Press clippings from the war and immediate post-war period (1939-1959): retrospective acquisitions provide supplementary material, especially relating to the history and politics of Poland
Radio reports (RADIO FREE EUROPE) (approximately 1957-1989) for Poland and Czechoslovakia as well as smaller collections related to Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania

Collection Overview Polish Press Clippings on Mikrofilm from 1945 to 1959. Signatur FK 840

Collection Overview Radio Reports by Radio Free Europe

Usage

To search for perodica (including newspapers and journals) available at the Herder Institute, please use the Zeitschriftendatenbank:

» zur Zeitschriftendatenbank (National Newspaper Database)

To search for persons for whom newspaper clippings are available at the Herder Institute, please use the

» Suche nach Zeitungsausschnitten

» Sachsystematik des Presseausschnittarchivs

» Alphabetischer Index zur Sachsystematik des Presseausschnittarchivs

Service

We serve local and interlibrary loans, are happy to advise you on the use of our holdings and research services during our opening hours, help you with your literature search and process your research and copy orders according to our cost regulations. Due to the large format of the newspaper volumes, the majority of the press collection can only be used on site. Some of the holdings are in external storage, so we ask you to order them in advance (if possible, one week before your visit).