Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert.

Following Germany’s unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945—and the decisions taken earlier at the Yalta Conference—the division of the country into the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ) and the three Western occupation zones began immediately. More than 200 years of book-trade history, centred on the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers and Booksellers Association), founded in Leipzig in 1825, were transformed within a matter of months. Publishers in Leipzig were specifically encouraged to relocate to the Western zones, initially to Wiesbaden, and to establish new bookselling and publishing structures there.

In Frankfurt am Main, a new booksellers’ association, a Börsenverein, a book fair, and an archive library (the German Library) were founded in parallel to the existing institutions in Leipzig. Volume 4/1 of the History of the German Book Trade in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries examines, for the first time, the differing strategies pursued by the three Western Allied powers on the basis of archival sources in Washington, London, and Paris, and describes the new beginnings in Frankfurt am Main up to the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Language: German.