Library holdings Collection of the Martin Opitz Library The Martin Opitz Library is the central library for German culture and history in Eastern Europe. It collects literature from all areas of East-Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. The main focus of the collections is on the regions that today form western Poland and the Kaliningrad region –...
Holding Complete collection of research materials of the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe – Institute of the Leibniz Association The Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe - Institute of the Leibniz Association is home to an extensive and diverse range of collections relating to East Central Europe, including a library with a music and press collection together with an image archive and a document and...
Series of seminars Educational partnership between the Martin Opitz Library and Mulvany Vocational College in Herne The Martin Opitz Library teaches media competence. Both successful information research and a critical approach to media are becoming increasingly important, whether at school, university, work or in private life. In order to impart these skills successfully and practically, the MOB cooperates...
Document repository Electronic Reading Room (eL) of the Martin Opitz Library Would you like to search the digital collections of the Martin Opitz Library? In the Digital Collection, you’ll find over 5,000 digitized items—ranging from historical address books and monographs to journals.
Series Erinnerung und Biographie der Deutschen aus Polen ("Memories and Biographies of the Germans from Poland") With the outbreak of the Second World War, the centuries-long coexistence between a number of population groups in Poland came to an abrupt end. A series by the Martin Opitz Library provides insights into the lives of the local German-speaking population at the time, their memories, and their...
Research institute Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe The Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (BKGE) advises and supports the Federal Government in all matters concerning the research, presentation and development of German culture and history in Eastern Europe.
Project funding General project funding by the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) in accordance with Section 96 of the Federal Expellees Act You would like to contribute to the research, preservation or communication of the German cultural heritage in Eastern Europe? The BKM supports, among other things, research projects, conferences, publications, theater, film and exhibition productions. It also supports projects to promote cultural...
Herder Fellowship for doctoral candidates and postdocs A scholarship for intensive source research in the scientific collections of the Marburg Herder Institute for Historical Research on Eastern Central Europe, an institute of the Leibniz Association.
Research fellowship | Support of conferences Herder Fellowship for experts in historical research on East Central Europe A research fellowship for proven experts who can carry out their research project for up to three months directly at the Herder Institute for Research on Eastern Central Europe in Marburg.
Scientific infrastructure facility | Research institute Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe The Marburg Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe - Institute of the Leibniz Association (HI) is one of the central non-university infrastructure and research institutions for historical research on East Central Europe in Germany.
Library | Archive Martin Opitz Library The Martin Opitz Library (MOB) is the central library for German culture and history in Eastern Europe. It collects literature from all areas of East-Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. The main focus of the collections is on the regions that today form western Poland and the Kaliningrad...
Background Article New Farmers for Germany’s Oldest Colony In the early 20th century, Baltic German landowners recruited German farmers from Russia. The immigration of these farmers – at that time called “German colonists” – inspired a variety of colonial discourses.
Online library catalog Online Catalog of the Martin Opitz Library The online catalog of the Martin Opitz Library is based on the software VuFind and allows you to search the library's entire book and journal holdings, a constantly growing sub-collection of the archive and numerous external datasets. If you would like to search this institution's extensive...
Background Article Poland as a Colonial Power? Poland as an object of colonial policy has been much discussed in recent research on the 19th and 20th centuries. But was Poland itself a colonial power in former times? We examine this possibility using two case studies.
Series Schriften des Bundesinstituts für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa The BKGE's publication series is aimed both at the specialist scientific community and at a scientifically interested public.
Background Article The History of the German-speaking Volhynians as Part of a Global Migration History From the mid-nineteenth century onward, innovations such as steam navigation and the advent of the railroad led to a sharp increase in global migration movements. The German-speaking Volhynians were part of this development, which moved between the ideal-typical poles of voluntary and forced migration and was significantly influenced by the enforcement of the ethnonational principle. This article focuses on the emigration movements of this group from the Russian governorate of Volhynia in the period between the 1860s and the First World War. The subsequent forced migrations of the German-speaking Volhynians are also briefly discussed.
Object Story The linen dresser A simple chest of drawers, which came from the Steinort manor house, probably from the servants' quarters. In 1945 it was still quite new, made of pine, unpainted. Ten years ago, an old gentleman donated it to the Museum of Folklore in Węgorzewo, formerly Angerburg, along with other things he had taken from the manor after the end of the war.
Background Article The portrayal of the (Russian) German colonists as settlement pioneers 1880–1945 This article shows how German colonists from the Tsarist Empire were, by means of a colonialist discourse, made into instruments of the Germanization of Eastern Europe. Their supposed lack of sophistication was practically prerequisite for coping with the ostensibly primitive inhabitants and the untamed wilderness.
Permanent exhibition Unpacked In this permanent exhibition, pieces of luggage and the stories of their Russian-German owners, are "unpacked". These are stories are marked by repeated migrations, different homelands and identities – and are still today an important part of German society as a whole.
Didactic project Volhynia. German and Czech Immigration and Minority Experiences Germans turn forests into grain fields, schoolrooms and prayer rooms, but Czechs make them into hop gardens and taverns? What comes up when we compare Volhynia's two migrant groups and what can be learned from their past experiences, now and in the future?
