Selected Special Collections

Third Reich Collection

Publications and photographs from the libraries of Nazi leaders

The Third Reich Collection, a miscellany of books, albums, and printed materials from the Reichskanzlei Library in Berlin and the private book collections of several high-ranking Nazi Party officials, was discovered in a salt mine near Berchtesgaden among Nazi property that had been removed from Berlin during the last stages of World War II. The so-called Hitler Library was screened by the U.S. Army Document Center in Munich and shipped to the Library of Congress in 1946. A large number of the 1,200 volumes transferred to the Rare Book and Special Collections Division are official presentation copies which bear dedications, notes of transmittal, or in some cases Hitler's eagle bookplate. Several books were acquired by Hitler before 1930. The Third Reich Collection also includes a set of Die Alte Garde spricht, a series of typed autobiographies of Nazi Party members; a Braille edition of Mein Kampf; and materials from the libraries of Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Franz Xaver Schwarz, and other Nazi leaders.