Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach

The German Literature Archive (Deutsches Literaturarchiv – DLA) is one of the most significant literary institutions in the world. Its collections bring together and preserve an abundance of valuable sources of literary and intellectual history from 1750 to the present day. It is a non-university research institution with a high level of infrastructure and at the same time it is an Institute of Advanced Study with its own research and fellowship programmes. The DLA acquires, catalogues, researches, and communicates literature to the public.

The collections are open to everyone who is conducting source criticism. With around 1,600 papers and collections of authors and scholars, archives of literary publishers, and over 450,000 images and objects, the archive is one of the leading institutions of its kind. The library is the largest special collection of modern German literature and includes more than 1.6 million items (books, periodicals as well as analogue and digital text, sound, and visual media), alongside the collected libraries of more than 160 authors and collectors. Since its establishment in 1955, the DLA has also been conceived as an exile literature archive, offering a place for the collections and literature of refugee and asylum-seeking authors – in the past and today.

The exhibitions in the museums display the manuscripts, books, images, and objects of the German Literature Archive. The DLA sees itself as a place for discussing issues relating to literature, both in Marbach am Neckar and in its satellite location in Berlin.

The DLA is a civic institution of the German Schiller Association, funded by the state of Baden-Württemberg and the Federal Republic of Germany. It is supported by its patrons and the German Literature Foundation. The American Friends of Marbach contribute to the DLA’s programme and, with their support, the DLA also has an impact in the USA.