THE OLD STUDENT LIBRARY OF COLOGNE
Under the patronage of Cologne’s Lord Mayor Dr. Konrad Adenauer, the so-called student library was founded at the University of Cologne in summer semester of 1920. The library at the University of Bonn, which had already been established in 1918, served as a model. In the following years, numerous similar institutions were to follow at many other German universities.
Inspired by British college libraries, students were tob e enabeld to broaden their intellectual horizons beyond their own subject disciplines in the intimate atmosphere of private club rooms. The stock of literature was therefore not only intended to serve as entertainment, but to enable the useres of student libraries to orient themselves in the entire intellectual life of their time and tob e able to critically accompany social discourses. Therefore, it was indispensable to build up a broad and up-to-date range of literature.
The request also found many advocates outside the university in Cologne’s citizenry who, often motivated by Dr. Adenauer and the other prominent supporters, made it possible to build up the library’s own stock with generous donations in kind and money, such as the geographer Prof. Franz Thorbecke. In addition, the university, the city and the provincial administration repeatedly acted as donors.
What was also special about the student library was its independence. Although located on campus and supported by the public sector, the library was not an organisational unit oft he university, but for many years a place of student self-administration under the auspices of AStA and later the student union or ist predecessor organisations.
The Cologne student library was initally housed in the former library rooms of Cologne Commercial College in Claudiusstraße. In 1935, the entire building was vacated in theh course of ist conversion into the new Gauhaus oft he National Socialists. The library moved with other facilities oft the Cologne student body to the former Augusta Hospital in Zülpicher Straße (today the Geographical Institute). But as early as 1940 the library had to move out agian, as the hospital was reactivated due to the war. During the years of war, the trail of student library was lost. When the library was reopened after war, only 2,000 of the original 8,000 volumes were still available, and the furniture was completely missing.
In 2021, individual volumes with ownership stamps of AStA and the student library were found in the stacks of University and City library. After systematic research, it has so far been possible to identify over 250 books from the holdings oft he old student library, all of which were taken in 1940. This proves that part of the original library was not lost during the Second World War, but became the property of the USB and has remained so to this day.
The holdings found represent the entire literary spectrum of the first half of the twentieth century. The selection of the works was largely based on the wishes of the users. Interestingly, among the volumes found are a large number of names of authors whose work was ostracised by the National Socialists, such as Maxim Gorky, Stefan Zweig, Ernst Toller or Heinrich Mann.
But there are also writers who were close to National Socialism, such as Hans Franck or Johannes Schlaf.
The student library collection oft he USB’s holdings thus offers an interesting little insight into student life in Cologne in the interwar period.
SELECTED LITERATURE
- Quarg, Gunter (2000): 80 Jahre Studentenbücherei der Universität zu Köln 1920-2000. In: ProLibris 5 (3) 2000, Ratingen ; Bottrop S. 132-135, Signature: XA1895