Library of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

About the Library

of FES Ownership mark ("Lilienstempel") of the historic SPD Library

The special collection of the Library of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung mainly comprises titles on the following subjects:

History and present developments of German and international labour movement with main focus on German social democracy,
German and international social and contemporary history,
publications of political parties and trade unions from Germany and selected European countries,
all publications of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung from Germany and abroad.

Of particular significance is the library's historic collection thoroughly documenting the history of the German social democratic movement. With this collection the FES Library maintains the printed memory of German social democracy, of its associated organisations and, of course, of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

The following page provides further information on our library

Catalogue

Search for any book, periodical or other media held by our library.

Main catalogue

Digital Library of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

Since 1998 the FES Library amends its collection of conventional material with digital publications. Today, a huge number of digital publications from different political parties and trade unions can be retrieved from our general catalogue.
Another important focus of our digital collection are born-digital FES publications that are thoroughly collected from all FES divisions in Germany and abroad. With this part of its Digital Library the FES Library maintains the general repository for all digital FES publications.

Besides this, other digital collections like retrospective digitized journals, magazines or press services complement the Library's stock development within its specialised subject collection. You will find more information on this collections in the following project listing.

Digitized Magazines and Newspapers

The FES Library organized different digitization projects for titles belonging to the cultural and political environment of German social democracy, with the digitization of the historic "Vorwärts" as the most recent and most important project.

Here you can find a selection of our projects of digitized periodicals.

SPD Press Services until 1998

The historic SPD press services that have been published with alternating titles between the years 1928 - 1933 and 1946 - 1998 are important sources for authentic social democratic thoughts and positions on different aspects of contemporary history.

Here you can find the digitized press services

of FES

As an information centre for political and historical research the FES Library focusses especially on the history and development of German social democracy. One of the important collections in this context is this compilation of programmatic SPD documents issued between 1949 and the present.

Learn more about SPD policy statements, government programmes and election manifestos (Only in German language)

As part of a project that aims at making available basic sources of the German social democratic movement the FES Library has published the minutes of SPD party conventions from 1890 to 1959.

Project pages (German)

Online Gallery

This online gallery documents exhibitions that have been compiled by our library during the last years. Additionally, you will find a selection of images presenting special items from our collection.

FES Library's online gallery

DBIS and EZB

The database information portal (DBIS) gives access to a comprehensive collection of databases available without futher access restrictions on the Internet. The collection comprises databases of different types and for different subjects.

The electronic library of periodicals (EZB) gathers Internet periodicals for many different subjects. Some of these titles are licensed by the FES Library and can be accessed directly. You will find access information within the respective title description.

Please note that both collections are presented in German language:
Online portal DBIS
Electronic periodicals library EZB

FES publications in our Digital Library

Learn about new born-digital FES publications, scan the listing of new publications and search our database of all digital FES titles on this page.