Only a stamp, a dedication and a "D" for donum, donation, give clues as to where the books could have come from.

We are talking about thirty-three volumes that were stolen from the Paris editorial library of the French daily newspaper "Le Figaro" and ended up in the Berlin State Library.

This happened in 1944, during the German occupation of France.

Kevin Hanschke

volunteer.

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One of the once largest newspaper libraries in Europe was plundered by the National Socialists.

Many of the books that shaped this collection never turned up again after the Second World War.

The German Reich incorporated stolen books into its own libraries.

This was a basic feature of National Socialist cultural policy.

And the green and beige bound volumes of "Figaro" were taken to the Prussian State Library.

They were in depots for decades.

The volumes were confiscated a few weeks after the invasion

The State Library of the French newspaper has now returned several books that had been confiscated by Wehrmacht troops during World War II.

They are books that reveal the intellectual foundations of the French Third Republic.

Many deal with economics, sociology and philosophy, including Fernand Nicaud's political science work "La separation de la politique et de l'État", Pierre Cauboue's book "Le Role Social Des Banques" or the sociological study "Testament d'un Pauvre" by Jules Maurie.

They indicate not only the democratic spirit of the country, but also the international integration of the capital Paris.

Some of the works come from the United Kingdom, Algeria or Argentina.

Works with an anti-Nazi tendency and exile literature in particular came into focus.

The books were brought together in collection points and taken to the German Reich.

Hugo Andres Krüß, the general director of the state library, fundamentally rejected the incorporation of “documents confiscated abroad” into the holdings.

Nevertheless, some of the censored copies ended up in the library.

Books are also to be returned

Between 1941 and 1944, two thousand titles were entered in the accession books.

However, most of the French books were only added to the inventory after the end of the war.

This happened via the Central Office for Old Scientific Holdings of the GDR, which had been based in the State Library since 1959 and which searched the basement of the building.

The provenance research team tracked down the confiscated books of “Figaro” as a result of a project on the exchange office.

But the history of these volumes, which are symbols of the darkest epoch of Franco-German relations and now once again stand for the friendship between the two countries, is even more complex.

Half of the works are dedicated to the former Figaro editor-in-chief Lucien Romier, who ran the newspaper from 1934 to 1940.

His biography is also marked by breaks.

When Marshal Pétain became head of state of the État français in 1940, Romier joined him as an influential advisor.

In August 1941 he was appointed Minister of State and held this office until his resignation in 1943.

Romier spoke out against the collaborator Pierre Laval, whereupon the occupiers demanded his withdrawal from Vichy.

In 1944 he died of a heart attack just before he was due to be arrested by the Gestapo.

"When it comes to restitutions of art looted by the Nazis, works of art are often the focus, but books were also confiscated from their rightful owners," says the President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Hermann Parzinger.

"They open the door to the past, have great cultural value and are important fragments of memory," adds Achim Bonte, the general director of the library.

In the last twenty years, the State Library has returned more than two thousand works.

Especially now that libraries are being destroyed again because of a war, these returns are an important signal.