Jüdische Zeitschriften In NS-Deutschland – Jewish newspapers in National Socialist Germany

Jüdische Zeitschriften In NS-Deutschland is available on the website of the German National Library (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek). I chose this because I wanted to see a digital project in a language other than English, from the point of view of an English-speaking person. My own German-language skills are rusty, from not having used it in many years, though I have been surprised at how much comes back to me. Still, I should not be considered as having any proficiency in the language. Parts of the site are translated into English, which made my task considerably easier. I also used an online German-English dictionary for assistance.

A brief description of the project is on the main page listed above. By clicking on “Direktzugriff” at the bottom of the page, one is directed to the digital content. There is a search feature in a frame on the left side of this page. When one enters various search parameters, the documents appear in a frame on the right side of the page. One can search by title (Zeitschrift), year (Jahrgang), edition (Ausgabe), page (Seite), and view (Ansicht) (PDF or GIFs at 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% size). After entering these criteria, one must click on “Anzeigen”. One can also perform advanced searches by clicking on “Suche”.

The subject is obviously one of major significance in German, Jewish, and world history. I counted 25 different titles, from locations such as Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, and Prague, so the geographic dispersal is fairly wide. The dates covered are from 1933 to 1938, which covers much of the period when Jews were still allowed to publish newspapers. I am not knowledgeable in this area, so I have no way of knowing how complete the coverage is. There is a great deal of material present, so there do not seem to have been too many filters applied.

The items are presented as either PDF files or GIF images in black and white. Since to the best of my knowledge none of the newspapers published anything in color at this time, as this would have been a major expense that a persecuted minority population could not afford, this decision seems to have been a good one. The images are highly legible. All that is needed to read them is reading knowledge of German – there are no translations into any other languages.

By clicking on a button on the search engine (identified with an “i”), one can view the metadata. It is in German, but is fairly extensive.

The intended audience is for serious researchers. There are not any bells and whistles, it doesn’t look attractive, but the subject matter is extremely interesting. The amount of material is extensive, so anyone wanting to conduct intensive research can do so online.

Overall, the website is very good. I was able to find my way around it without instruction; I figured out how to use the search engine by trial and error. My knowledge of German (low as it is) was helpful, and it is necessary to conduct research. It was helpful that part of the site was in English.