[Sca-librarians] library burns

[Huette von Ahrens]

Literary Treasures Lost in Fire at German Library
By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER

Published: September 4, 2004

ERLIN, Sept. 3. - Up to 30,000 irreplaceable books 
were destroyed in a fire on Thursday night at one of
Germany's most historic libraries, in the eastern city
of Weimar, officials said on Friday. Among the 
literary treasures lost at the Anna Amalia Library 
were thousands of works from the 16th to 18th 
centuries belonging to the collection of the first
Weimar librarian, Daniel Schurzfleisch, and the sheet
music archive of the library's patron, Anna Amalia
(1739-1807), the duchess of Saxony-Weimar. Another
40,000 books were damaged by smoke and the water used
by the firefighters, and are being frozen in an effort
to preserve them so they can be sent to Leipzig for
restoration. The cause of the blaze was unclear.

"The literary memory of Germany has suffered severe
damage," German Culture Minister Christina Weiss said
after she inspected the scene. "A piece of the world's
cultural heritage has been lost forever." Ms. Weiss
promised that the federal government would offer major
assistance in restoring the books and the library,
which is in a 16th-century rococo palace. The cost of
the damage will probably be in the millions of 
dollars, said Hellmut Seemann, the president of the
Weimar Classics Foundation, which manages the library.
In a statement, the Weimar City Council said the 
market value of the books damaged and destroyed could
not be estimated exactly, because they were unique and
not insured. The fire, which broke out in the attic of
the building and then reached the Rococo Hall, which
held much of the collection, raged for two hours 
before more than 300 firefighters brought it under
control. Some 120,000 books, including a 1534 Bible
owned by Martin Luther, were saved when firefighters
and Weimar residents formed a human chain to rescue
them. Among the works that survived was the world's
largest collection of copies of Goethe's "Faust." The
library was founded in 1691 and has a collection, in
several locations in Weimar, of about one million
books, focusing on German literature from 1750 to 
1850. The collection includes some 2,000 handwritten
documents, 8,400 maps and many historic copies of the
Bible. 



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