Correspondence with Centralverein Deutscher Staatsbürger Jüdischer Glaubens (C.V.)

The correspondence centres on two major subjects. One concerns The Wiener Library’s claim for the recently detected library of the C.V. (1947-1952) and includes background information on the library’s confiscation by the Nazis, its rediscovery on Czechoslovakian soil after the Second World War, and individuals and body’s involved in the process of negotiating its future ownership. Besides, a meeting of former members in London on occasion of the 60th anniversary of the C.V. is arranged.

Triggered by a research enquiry on anti-Nazi resistance in Berlin from 1933-45, a second major subject concerns the idea of compiling and writing the C.V.’s history (1959-1961). By containing numerous names, the correspondence sheds light on the postwar network of former C.V. employees, living in Brasil, Great Britain, Israel, the United States and potentially other countries.

The Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens (C.V.) was the largest and most significant organisation of assimilated Jews in Germany. Founded in 1893 in Berlin, it was tasked with strengthening civil rights of Jews, and an alignment of Judaism and Germany. The C.V. was eventually banned in 1938, and its property confiscated by the Nazis. See Barkai, A., https://wiener.soutron.net/Portal/Default/en-GB/RecordView/Index/21025, Munich, Beck, 2002.

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