Archives of the Max Planck Society

The Archives of the Max Planck Society was established in 1975 to collect and safeguard the files of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science and its historic forerunner, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. More than 3,500 metres of shelf space are currently devoted to the storage of archival materials. Located in Berlin, the Archives includes materials from discontinued institutes, departments, research units, and working groups of both Societies.

Our collection focuses on the papers of exceptional personalities who carried out research at either the Kaiser Wilhelm Society or the Max Planck Society. These include Nobel laureates Carl Bosch, Walther Bothe, Adolf Butenandt, Paul J. Crutzen, Peter Debye, Gerhard Ertl, Fritz Haber, Otto Hahn, Georges Köhler, Richard Kuhn, Max von Laue, Feodor Lynen, Ernst Ruska, Bert Sakmann and Otto Warburg. The Archives also houses materials on other outstanding scientists, among them, Albert Einstein, Fritz Haber, and Max Planck.

The library of the Archives contains scholarly literature on the twentieth-century history of science (40,000 volumes, 170 current journals).