Gutenberg Bible from the collections of the Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum

double-page facsimile: Gutenberg Bible
Double-page facsimile from the parchment copy of the 42-page Gutenberg Bible from the collections of the Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum, Leipzig
Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Leipzig

Gutenberg Bible from the collections of the Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum

A lost treasure

… Being convinced that damage to cultural property belonging to any people whatsoever means damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind, since each people makes its contribution to the culture of the world; …

Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The Hague, preamble, 1954

The most valuable object in the collections of the Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum was, up until 1945, a copy of the 42-page Gutenberg Bible, the first important incunable, printed on parchment, featuring decorative miniatures. Heinrich Klemm acquired the Bible in 1878. In 1886 it came into the possession of the Buchgewerbemuseum (German Book Trade Museum), a former incarnation of the Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum. In 1944, the Bible was transferred to Rauenstein Castle in the Erz Mountains for safe-keeping, along with a number of other valuable objects from the museum’s collections. Russian cultural officials seized the pieces after the end of World War II before transferring them to the Russian State Library in Moscow. The works were claimed as war booty. The items remain in Moscow to this day and their return to Germany has been the subject of negotiations since 1992. Today, consultations between Germany and Russia concerning the collections of libraries and museums that were relocated because of the War, focus primarily on common research projects and on indexing and digitalizing their inventories.