Peter Lilienthal Library

Filmmaker Peter Lilienthal, who was born in Berlin in November 1927 and returned from exile in Uruguay in the 1950s, died in Munich in April 2023. He is considered one of the leading directors of the New German Cinema. His work is characterized by political and social themes as well as by his experiences of exile and migration.

Lilienthal’s estate was transferred to the Academy of Arts, Berlin, with which he had close ties as the founding director of the “Film and Media Art” section. However, his library was not incorporated into the Academy’s holdings. As part of the DFG research project “Jewish Film Heritage,” the library from his estate came to the Moses Mendelssohn Center.

The collection includes numerous works on film, literature, politics, and contemporary history and reflects Lilienthal’s creative processes, interests, and artistic networks. At the same time, it documents the close connection between literature and film in his work and brings together central themes of his oeuvre: modern Jewish literature, works on exile, the Shoah, and memory, as well as literature from and about Latin America.

The collection comprises approximately 1,295 volumes and is currently being cataloged.

Access in the reading room is available with prior appointment.

Peter Lilienthal Library

Further Reading