Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach German Literature Archive DLA

Overview

The German Literature Archive Marbach (Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach; DLA) is one of the most significant literary archives in the world, preserving and providing access to an exceptionally rich collection of sources on German literary and intellectual history from 1750 to the present. It is a non-university research institution, Institute of Advanced Study, and civic institution of the Deutsche Schillergesellschaft (German Schiller Association), funded by the state of Baden-Württemberg and the Federal Republic of Germany.

History and Founding

The DLA was founded in 1955 in Marbach am Neckar, the birthplace of the German poet Friedrich Schiller, as an expansion of a nineteenth-century museum devoted to Schiller and Swabian writers. From its establishment, the archive placed special emphasis on collecting the papers of authors who faced persecution, censorship, or exile. It has since held the literary estates of prominent German-Jewish writers and exiled scholars including Paul Celan, Kurt Tucholsky, Else Lasker-Schüler, Alfred Döblin, Siegfried Kracauer, and Erich Auerbach. The DLA maintains a satellite location in Berlin and a network of international partnerships including the American Friends of Marbach.

Collections and Holdings

The DLA holds around 1,600 papers and collections of authors and scholars, archives of literary publishers, and over 450,000 images and objects. Its library—the largest special collection of modern German literature in Germany—contains more than 1.6 million items including books, periodicals, analogue and digital texts, sound recordings, and private author libraries. Special collections include the Helen and Kurt Wolff Archive, containing the estates of more than 200 authors persecuted by the Nazi regime; the collected libraries of notable authors such as Gottfried Benn, Hans Blumenberg, and Ernst Jünger; and a digital archive tracking literary sources on the World Wide Web since its founding. The museums on site display manuscripts, books, images, and objects from the collection, including Schiller's original manuscripts.

Access and Usage

The DLA's collections are open to everyone conducting source-based scholarly research. On-site reading rooms are available by appointment. The archive participates in the inter-regional interlibrary loan system. Contact information: Schillerhöhe 8–10, 71672 Marbach am Neckar; telephone +49 (0) 7144 848-0; email info@dla-marbach.de.