Record

StorageSiteUCL Special Collections
LevelCollection
Reference Number MS ADD 276
TitleOlden Papers
Date1927-1940
DescriptionPapers, 1927-1940, of Rudolf Olden, comprising correspondence, typescripts, notes and newspaper cuttings.
Extent2 boxes
AdminHistoryRudolf Olden was a writer on German politics and government.
In the Weimar period he was a well-known voice in the political debate, a vocal opponent of the Nazis, a fierce advocate of human rights and one of the first to alert the world to the treatment of Jews by the Nazis in 1934. He is the author of Hitler der Eroberer. Entlarvung einer Legende ("Hitler the Conqueror, Debunking of a Myth") which is considered part of the German exile literature. The book was promptly banned by the Nazis. Shortly after its publication by Querido in Amsterdam, Olden's citizenship was revoked and he emigrated, together with his wife, first to the United Kingdom and then, in 1940, to the United States.
On 18 September 1940 both died in the U-boat attack on the SS City of Benares in the Atlantic.
AcquisitionThe Olden collection of books (approx. 1000 items) and a small amount of archival material was acquired by UCL in 1948. The archive papers were transferred to Special Collections in April 1982. They were later supplemented by six letters given to the Library in November 1987 by Professor Peter Olden via Marian Malet and Charmian Brinson of the German Department, Imperial College London.
AccessStatusOpen
AccessConditionsThe papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.
FindingAidsNot yet catalogued
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