Library of Contemporary History

The Library of Contemporary History (BfZ) is one of Europe's largest special libraries for contemporary history.

From the beginning in 1915, when the BfZ was founded as a private World War One collection, the library‘s holdings focus on wars and conflicts. Specific fields are furthermore international and security politics, genocide, and military history.

The main collection of the library (more than 400,000 books and 400 subscribed journals) is complemented by the special collections Zeit der Weltkriege (First World War to Second World War) and Marine (Naval Archive). The library has an ongoing digitisation programme.

The Library of Contemporary History organizes regular public lectures.