Collections
Historic Daily Newspapers
The University and State Library calls a variety of over 130,000 newspapers from before 1945 its own, including over 800 regional newspapers from Central Germany. Thus, the collection can be seen one of the largest newspaper holdings in Germany.
This collection derives from various sources, for example the library of the Saxon scholar Johann August von Ponickau (1718-1802). From the 19th century onwards, the Prussian Compulsory Contribution Act of 1824 was decisive in expanding the collection of regional newspapers. The law stated: One copy of each publication was to be given to Berlin and another to the university library of the respective province.
Led by Otto Hartwig (1830-1903), the University Library Halle made consistent use of this law from the 1870s onwards, by now also including daily and weekly newspapers.
However, the newspaper holdings counted massive losses during the Second World War: according to ruling by the Allied Control Council, the libraries had to be “denazified”. As a result of this stipulation, all newspaper editions published between 1933 and 1945 were sent to Leipzig and destroyed.
The newspapers are researchable in Ha:Lit and OPAC.
These specific holdings are also registered in a printed catalogue, which can be accessed digitally.
Since 2013, the ULB was able to realise several digitisation projects regarding the newspaper collection.
Newspapers fully available online include:
