UC Will Deliver Rare Book Back To Germany

A rare German book, brought home by a G.I. after World War II, will be traveling back to Germany this month after the book’s new owner contacted UC’s experts in German-American Studies. Fred Warren of Bellevue, Ky., delivered the book to the UC German-Americana Collection at UC's Blegen Library on June 2.

Don Heinrich Tolzmann, curator of the University of Cincinnati German-Americana Collection in University Libraries and director of UC’s German-American Studies Program, says the presentation coincides with German-American Weekend June 4-5, which is marking the 110th anniversary of German Day in Greater Cincinnati.

The book, Die Andächtige Pilgerfahrt (The Devout Pilgrimage), by Vincentius Briemle, was published in Munich (1727-29) and consists of two volumes of travel descriptions of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the early 1700s. Fred Warren’s father, a WWII veteran, left the book to him in the family will. Warren was interested in tracing the book’s history, and that led him to Richard Schade, a UC Professor of German and Honorable German Consul, as well as Tolzmann and Manfred Zimmermann, a UC professor of German. “Our research on the book’s history found that there were two private owners of the book in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but it was impossible to establish ownership of the book in the war and postwar years,” says Tolzmann.

Warren was interested in donating the book to Germany. Tolzmann says further research revealed that the Weimar Library, connected to literary greats such as Goethe and Schiller, had recently lost a copy of the same book after suffering a devastating fire. The library will now have a copy back on their shelves with Warren’s donation. UC German Professor Manfred Zimmermann will deliver the book to the library when he travels to Germany this summer.

"The staff at the library is very excited to replace a book that was lost in a catastrophic fire last year," says Zimmermann. "The book should not only be of interest to historians of piety and to theologians, but it is also a source for social and cultural history and art history."