"... allerlei für die Nationalbibliothek zu ergattern..."

When Austria was annexed by Hitler Germany in March 1938, the National Library in Vienna was not only the biggest scientific library in the country, it was now the third largest in the German Reich. Its status among and influence on the scholarly libraries in the Reich was considerably enhanced by one person during the Nazi period, namely the newly-appointed director-general Dr. Paul Heigl, a fervent National socialist, Acquisitions by the Library during the years 1938 to 1945 are a key focal point of this history, and Heigl played both an active and significant role in the process of book looting in the interest of the National Library. The Library may well have regarded itself in the inter-war years as being „apolitical“ – and house historians have tended to reinforce this image – but this does not stand up to closer scrutiny even during the political period of the „Corporate State“ und Dollfuss and Schuschnigg, let alone during the time of national socialist rule in Austria. The study breaks with the previos taboos and presents the essentially political role of the Library both before and after March 1938 by investigating its involvement in the crimes of the Nazi regime. But the