LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

H.G. Alexander Minorities Archive

Horace G. Alexander was lecturer in International Politics at Woodbrook (a training college in Birmingham). The H.G. Alexander Minorities Archive consists of material he collected on the problem of the German minorities in Poland after 1919, where the intermingling of Polish and German communities made the partition of Upper Silesia difficult. The archive includes the typescript of a lecture by Alexander; books and pamphlets by German and Polish authors on the German-Polish partition and on Polish claims to the town of Danzig; publications of the International Federation of League of Nations Societies.

Potter Manuscripts

The Potter Manuscripts consist of notebooks relating chiefly to preliminary work on Potter's publications on the history of Switzerland, Zwingli, Calvin etc.

Schlesinger Papers

Papers of Dr Rudolf Schlesinger (1901-1969), Marxist theoretician and co-founder of the Glasgow University's Institute of Soviet and East European Studies. They include editorials, articles, correspondence relating to his editorship of Soviet Studies and Co-existence; lectures, drafts and revisions for books and articles on Soviet history, legal system and political theory; memoirs; some correspondence with leaders of the German Communist Party in the 1930s; part of the records of the German Communist Party during the 1920s and 30s (in very poor condition). In 1991 all of Dr Schlesinger's papers, which after his death had become the property of his close friend and executor, René Beerman, were transferred to the University Library’s Special Collections Department.

Cohn Collection

The Cohn Collection, which comprises approximately 1,000 volumes, was presented to King's College London by Ernst Joseph Cohn (1904-1976), Visiting Professor of European Law. The collection covers all major aspects of law, but there is a particular emphasis on the legal systems of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The bulk of the material dates from the twentieth century, with a high proportion being in the German language.

Kevin Morrison Collection

A collection of primary sources, ranging from 1933-1950, showing life in Germany under a dictatorship and with Allied occupation. The collection has a copy of the Volkischer Beobachter (official Nazi newspaper) for the day after Adolf Hitler became chancellor on 30 January 1933. It also holds photographs of Germany in ruins in the summer of 1945. In between these two landmark years German society underwent a radical transformation. The collection records this transformation.

Fascism in Europe Collection

The Fascism in Europe Collection is a developing collection of books on the history of fascism. Many items are relevant to Nazi Germany or the German occupation. They are in English, German or a number of other languages.

Holocaust Collection

The Holocaust Collection is a developing collection of books on the history of the Holocaust. Items are mostly in English or German.

Mendelson Collection

The Mendelson Collection is particularly rich in material on German political and economic history, especially of the twentieth century, including works on the rise of fascism, communism and socialism, and post-war conditions in Europe after 1945. German-language material predominates, accounting for approximately three-quarters of the collection.

Papers of the Musil Research Unit

A collection relating to the Austrian author Robert Musil, author of Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß and Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. It comes from the Musil Research Unit, which was run at The University of Reading by Ernst and Eithne Kaiser 1967-1975.