Hanns Reissner Collection

The Hanns Reissner Collection contains the academic research of Hanns Reissner, with an emphasis on the work and lives of Eduard Gans, Heinrich Heine, and other members of the Verein für Kultur und Wissenschaft der Juden. The collection includes extensive notes, correspondence, many clippings, a few offprints and drafts of Reissner's unpublished writing.

This collection evidences Hanns Reissner's research into many different areas of general German-Jewish history in his profession as a historian and professor. Series I: Individuals holds numerous drafts of short articles by him on specific persons, together with accompanying research, for the Encyclopedia Judaica. While many of these individuals were of German-Jewish descent, others were American. Further documentation of his research on others' behalf is his correspondence with the LBI, found in the letters of Series III. Here Reissner, who was a Leo Baeck Institute fellow, discusses his research with representatives of the institute and provides them with his professional opinion on research proposals by other scholars. Series II shows his accumulation of research on topics unrelated to his primary interests in Eduard Gans and the Verein für Kultur und Wissenschaft der Juden.

The bulk of Hanns Reissner's research and writing in this collection focuses on the life of Eduard Gans, the German-Jewish jurist, philosopher and historian. Reissner seemed especially interested in the connection between Gans and the writer Heinrich Heine. Both of them were members of the previously mentioned Verein, and Reissner's research also included other members of the organization. Most of his research notes on these interrelated subjects will be found in Series I. An associated topic of which there are several folders of notes is the proposed establishment of a Jewish settlement on Grand Island in upstate New York by Mordecai Noah, another member of the Verein. Reissner's correspondence with other historians in Series III mentions his research into these subjects as well as the publication of his writings on them. Unpublished typescripts with handwritten corrections and notes are primarily located in Series IV, although his work on Heinrich Heine (Captive Messiah) a work pertaining to Alexander von Humboldt and the Mendelssohn family and a few smaller essays are located with their related research in Series I.

Researchers should note that aside from a few passing remarks in Reissner's correspondence there is no biographical material on the historian in this collection. The collection focuses on his research conducted in the United States and does not refer to his professional work in Germany or India.