Concurrently, the application submitted to the Bavarian-Slovakian Governmental Commission developed into the sub-project Pressburger Zeitung (1764-1929, titles vary). This project was considerably more comprehensive, both in terms of quantity (parent paper and supplements amount to over 300,000 pages) and with regard to the increased number of collaboration partners involved: The original documents came from the Archive of the City of Bratislava and the Hungarian National Library (OSZK), in roughly equal portions. The OSZK digitized its own inventory, whereas the original documents from Bratislava City Archive were handed over to the Library of the University of Bratislava (UKB) to be scanned. The digital raw images were exchanged between both libraries, were merged, and finally made available to the DiFMOE for processing and placing them online.[7] Work on the completion of this prominent paper is in progress to this day and has only recently been continued in a co-operation with the Burgenland Regional Library (Eisenstadt, Austria). The effort expended on digital indexing (by now over ten years of work), is undoubtedly in proportion to the importance of the Pressburger Zeitung. It is the first and at the same time the most important German-language paper in the territory of today’s Slovakia, respectively even on the territory of former Hungary. It is also the one with the longest publication period. Already in its early years, the Pressburger Zeitung was credited for its topicality, which it owed to a wide European network of correspondents. Not only were they independent of reports from other important newspapers– in the region mainly those in Vienna – to produce their own content but they even were a source of news for their competitors.[8]
A similarly comprehensive project was carried out in two stages between 2009 and the beginning of 2011 in collaboration with the Moravian Library (MZK) in Brno [German: Brünn]. This time, the focus was on the most influential Moravian German-language daily newspaper of the time – the Tagesbote (Brno, 1850-1944, titles varied). [s. Illustration 3] The project could be realized thanks to funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) on the German side and the Culture Ministry of the Czech Republic. In this project, microform templates from the holdings of the Moravian Library were processed, with labour and costs divided between the MZK and the DiFMOE.[9]
The beginnings of the Tagesbote are part of a founding wave of professional liberal journalism that was inspired by the Revolutionary Year of 1848. In its first year of publication, under the name of Fremden-Blatt, the paper met with very little interest from the readers in Brno. This was likely due to the large number of mere copies from the official journals in Vienna and Brno. Success came with the takeover by the company “Buschak and Irrgang“. “Buschak and Irrgang“ had their own printing house and even their own business news service and published the paper under the name of Neuigkeiten. From 1876 on, the paper was distributed under the name of Tagesbote and no longer only locally. The fact that it found subscribers in places like Vienna and Prague speaks for its high standard.[10]
Another “BKM-project” on “German-language Periodicals in Central and Eastern Europe” was initiated in 2011 by the DiFMOE co-operation partner IOS (the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, then still Southeast-Institute) in Regensburg. It was realized and continued in follow-up projects. In this project, selected newspapers and almanacs from the inventories of the IOS library and numerous partnering institutions in the scope of several hundreds of thousands of pages were digitized in various locations. The results were made available on the website of the Digital Forum, full-text searchable and for free use. Partnering institutions were the Bavarian State Library (Munich), the Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (BKGE, Oldenburg), the Caritas-Bibliothek (Freiburg), the Herder-Institute (Marburg), the Martin-Opitz-Library (Herne), the National- and University Library Ljubljana, the Austrian National Library, the Győr-Moson-Sopron County Sopron Archives at the Hungarian National Archives, the Transylvanian Library and Transylvanian Archive (Gundelsheim), the Berlin State Library, and the University of Maribor Library.
They have in the meantime also been made available in the new Digital Library, as sources on the history of Germans and their neighbours in Central and Eastern Europe, including - just to name some exemplary titles to illustrate the wide regional dispersion – the Marburger Zeitung (Maribor / Marburg a. d. Drau, 1862-1945), the Oedenburger Zeitung (Sopron / Ödenburg, 1868-1941), the Siebenbürgisch-Deutsches Tageblatt (Sibiu / Hermannstadt, 1874-1941), the Kaukasische Post (Tbilissi / Tiflis, 1906-1922) and the Banater Deutsche Zeitung (Timișoara / Temeswar, 1925-1944).
Also in 2012, the DifMOE’s largest internal project to date in terms of budget, pages digitized, number of collaborating institutions and their countries of origin, and diversity of types of sources was started, and concluded in the spring of 2013: the Cassovia Digitalis.[11] The series of digital libraries of Europe’s Capitals of Culture situated in Eastern Europe that had started with Cassovia Digitalis (Košice 2013) and then continued year on year with Riga Digitalis (Riga 2014), Pilsna Digitalis (Pilsen 2015) and Wratislavia Digitalis (Wrocław 2016) would end the exclusive focus on the digitization of historical periodicals, but periodicals with titles such as Kaschau-Eperieser Kandschaftsblatt (Košice, 1838-1871), Kaschauer Zeitung (Košice, 1872-1914), Rigasche Anzeigen (Riga, 1762-1852), Rigaische Stadtblätter (Riga, 1810-1907), Pilsner Tagblatt (Pilsen, 1900-1930) or Westböhmische Tageszeitung (Pilsen 1930-1938) still form a major part of the libraries’ holdings. Thematic clustering, geographical limitation and deliberate narrowing down the scope in terms of volumes and variety of categories of objects selected from the publication history of the respective Capital of Culture have helped achieve a better overview of materials. This will also appeal to a historically interested lay public in that users will not be buried under a mountain of sources. Grouped ideal-typically, the selected periodicals, books, graphical documents and other archival objects mainly include those that were printed in the respective Capital of Culture itself, as well as foreign print products that referred to it. This includes as source categories newspapers, magazines, directories, almanacs, school bulletins, anthologies, multi-volume works, monographs, official and private archival objects, photographs, picture postcards and posters. The thematic interest lies particularly with the history of the cities and the urban population, but other fields beyond these will be represented as well. From case to case, it depends on the literary and journalistic production of local institutional or individual protagonists, but also on quite practical aspects, such as the availability of the respective originals for digitization. In this respect, mainly with the help of the Martin-Opitz-Library, consistent partnerships have been established with various other thematically and geographically relevant institutions in Germany. Among them are the Collegium Carolinum (Munich), the Haus Schlesien (Königswinter), the Herder Institute (Marburg), the Kulturwerk Schlesien (Würzburg), the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Stuttgart), the Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Southeastern Europe (Munich), and the Nordost-Institut (Luneburg). At the same time, involving local partners – typically municipal and regional archives and libraries – has been an essential element of the project from the outset. Sometimes it has resulted in partnerships that range from private collectors or family archives to the respective national library. Thus, for instance, the East Slovak Museum, the Public Library Jan Bocatius and Ľudovít Korotnoky, a private collector (Košice), were on board with the Cassovia Digitalis. The Latvian National Library was on board with the Riga Digitalis project, and the Library of the Tepla Abbey, the municipal archive, the Museum of West Bohemia, and the municipal library (all in Pilsen) were partners for the Riga Digitalis. For historical reasons, the Vienna City Library in City Hall (Wienbibliothek im Rathaus) and the Austrian National Library have been regular crossover-partners as well.
To enhance the (then still separate) online presentations of the documents made available for digitization by these institutions, a layout was designed that fit the theme and the occasion. This specific way of refining the presentation of original historical sources together with the “Capital of Culture”-drawing card attracted media and public attention that was uncommonly high for niche projects. The German Press Agency (DPA) even saw the Cassovia Digitalis as one of the “most sustainable projects” in the context of the Kosice Capital of Culture year.[12] The Capital of Culture status also provides an ideal environment to use synergies effectively. Here, in the context of public relations, close collaboration with the German Culture Forum for Central and Eastern Europe in Potsdam and the local Goethe Institutes and their respective capital-of-culture activities have turned out to be particularly productive. A first and quite special synergetic effect arose from the collaboration on Riga Digitalis: By digitizing the material provided by our partner institutes in Germany and exchanging the digitized copies with the National Library of Latvia, both partners received 100.000 additional pages of valuable cultural assets and items of cultural heritage with the same budget. Similar exchange projects could recently be carried out with the Moravian Library, the Austrian National Library and the Provincial Library of Burgenland and are also intended for ongoing and future ventures.
Speaking of budget: The Digital Forum Central and Eastern Europe does not have assets of its own but depends on funding by donations and third-party funding for realizing its projects. The main sponsor is the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), on the basis of §96 of the Federal Expellees Act. Smaller projects have been co-funded by the Bavarian State Ministry for Family, Work and Social Affairs, the Goethe-Institute Bratislava, the Karpatendeutsches Kulturwerk (Karlsruhe), the Carpathian German Homeland Association Slovakia (Košice) and the Institute for Southeastern European German Culture and History (IKGS, Munich). Without their financial support, the Capital of Culture libraries-project could not have been realized, nor any of the subsequent projects:
The collection Brünn tied in with the digitization of the Tagesbote from 2009-2012. It was supposed to make accessible further Brno periodicals and at the same time expand the relevant digital fund – analogous to the Digitalis-concept meanwhile established – to include additional categories of objects, such as books and photographs. As for the periodicals, a temporal focus was made on the first half of the 20th century, mainly the 20s and 30s – i.e., the interwar period. Thus, for this period of political and inter-ethnic conflict, quite a dense and politically and ideologically heterogeneous collection of source material on Brno and Moravia was created in digital format. With the most documents in its archives, the Organization for International Cultural Relations also became the most important partner in this project. It provided: The Brünner Montagsblatt (Brno, 1921-1929), Deutscher Landruf (Brno, 1923-1938), Sudetendeutsche Volkszeitung (Brno, 1930-1933), Sudetendeutscher Landbote (Brno, 1927-1933), Sudetendeutscher Landbund (Brno, 1934), Südmährer-Blatt (Brno, 1921-1923), Brünner Tagespost (Brno, 1923-1933), Verständigung (Brno, 1922-1925), and Der Volkswart (Brno, 1933-1934). These titles were complemented by the originals of the Volkswille (Brno, 1920-1935) from the library of the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation (Bonn). In addition to numerous smaller periodicals, the Collegium Carolinum contributed the original documents of the Gemeinde-Verwaltung and Gemeinde-Statistik der Landeshauptstadt Brünn (Brno, 1895-1914) and the Protokolle der öffentlichen Gemeinderatssitzungen (Brno, 1880-1917), as far as they exist.
In monographic material, the Martin-Opitz Library and once more the Collegium Carolinum made their respective Brünn collections available. The Moravian Library gave us a free choice as well, and the necessary thematic decision was made in favour of the historical cityscape. In parallel and within the scope of the same project, the digital library infrastructure of the DiFMOE underwent a complete renewal in which all existing project contents were merged. The new digital solution for the library is based on the Czech Kramerius-system. It boasts sophisticated search and filter functions and is under constant development in collaboration with the developers of the Kramerius consortium in Czechia.[13]
In April 2018, the collection Pressburg was initiated. It continued DiFMOE’s first large and long-term project “Digitization of the Pressburger Zeitung and its supplements” and further completed it where possible. The biggest new addition to the periodicals was now the Westungarische Grenzbote (Bratislava / Pressburg, 1872-1919), which had been founded as a competitor to the Pressburger Zeitung and had developed from a paper for the anti-capitalist but moderate left into an anti-semitic newspaper. This development provides an untapped field for research, not least as a comparative study that includes the Pressburger Zeitung.[14] Further additions were the two political papers Westungarische Volksstimme (Bratislava, 1902-1918) and the Westungarische Volks-Zeitung (Bratislava, 1896-1902), as well as the Deutsche Nachrichten (Bratislava, 1923-1925), the Deutsche Stimme (Bratislava, 1934-1945), the B. Z. am Abend (Bratislava, 1923-1924), the Deutsches Genossenschaftsblatt (Bratislava, 1940-1943), Die karpatendeutsche Bauernzeitung (Bratislava, 1939-1943) and the Neues Pressburger Tagblatt (Bratislava, 1930-1935) which was in the tradition of the Pressburger Zeitung. In addition, there was a selection of smaller periodicals (two almanacs and a supplement to the Pressburger Zeitung), books, historical records and graphical objects, among them thitherto unpublished historical photographs of the cityscape and urban everyday life by Viktor Beneš and photographs from the estate of the architect Christian Ludwig.
The overall period covered spans from the 18th century to the first half of the 20th century, as it does typically also with the Digitalis-projects. The Burgenland Regional Library, the Organization for International Cultural Relations and the Collegium Carolinum (Munich) provided the periodical and monographic originals. The photographs were provided by the Slovak National Museum / Museum of Carpathian German Culture (Bratislava) and the private archive of Horst Ludwig (Vienna), son of the architect Christian Ludwig.
An external contribution came at around the same time from the Institute of German Studies at the University of Giessen, as part of the research programme “Traces of German Language, Literature and Culture in Croatia”. The purpose of the programme is “to explore exchange relationships in the linguistic, literary, and cultural field between the German immigrants and the native Croatian populations”. Funded by the BKM, the two newspapers Die Drau (Osijek / Esseg, 1868-1939) and the Slavonische Presse (Osijek, 1885-1929) as well as the almanac Essegger Bote (Osijek, 1889-1915) were digitized in Croatia and incorporated into the DiFMOE digital library. The corresponding originals are in the National and University Library in Zagreb and the Museum of Slavonia (Osijek).[15]
It was an even earlier external input that ultimately led to a lasting thematic and content-related expansion of the DiFMOE-spectrum: Already in 2015, the Leibniz-Institut für Ost- and Südosteuropaforschung (Regensburg) started their project “Jewish German-language Periodicals, Almanacs for the Millions, and Graphical Representation of Jews in Eastern Europe. Digitization and Documentation”, funded, as before, by the BKM. [s. Illustration 4] The library of the Hochschule für jüdische Studien (Heidelberg), the Institute for Southeastern European German Culture and History (Munich), the University Library of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich and the Hungarian National Library contributed as lenders, and the DiFMOE collaborated as the technical and infrastructural partner. The aim of the project was to “contribute to the lasting preservation of the cultural heritage of German-speaking Jewish populations in Eastern Europe”.[16] The titles initially collected on the former DiFMOE-platform and now in the digital library are from Bratislava (amongst others the Pressburger Jüdische Zeitung, 1908-1909), from Wrocław / Breslau (amongst others the Jüdisches Volksblatt, 1896-1913 and its successors Jüdische Volkszeitung, 1913-1923; Jüdische Zeitung für Ostdeutschland, 1924-1931 and Jüdische Zeitung, 1932-1937), from Brno (Hickls Illustrierter Jüdischer Hauskalender, 1902-1939), from Budapest (amongst others the Allgemeine illustrierte Judenzeitung, 1860-1862; the Jüdische Pester Zeitung, 1870-1888, in Yiddish, with Hebrew letters; Der ungarische Israelit, 1874-1908; the Allgemeine jüdische Rundschau, 1907-1911 and the Ungarländische jüdische Zeitung, 1910-1915, the successor of the Pressburger Jüdische Zeitung), from Chernivtsi (the Ostjüdische Zeitung, 1919-1937 and the Neue Jüdische Rundschau, 1926-1930), from Ostrava / Mährisch-Ostrau (Jüdischer Kalender für die čechoslowakische Republik, 1922-1923), from Poznań / Posen (amongst others Jeschurun, 1901-1904), from Prague (amongst others Das Abendland, 1864-1868; Die Gegenwart, 1867-1870; the Israelitische Gemeinde-Zeitung, 1897-1901; Jung Juda, 1900-1935 [s. Illustration 5]; the Selbstwehr, 1907-1938; the Jüdischer Almanach, 1924-1938), from Pribram / Příbram (Israelitischer Lehrerbote, 1875-1883) and from Timișoara (amongst others Neue Zeit, 1922-1940; Israelitischer Kalender, 1926-1930).
