Research Guides: HIST 417W: Germany After 1945: Reconstruction and Memory: Primary Sources

Primary Sources

A primary source is a document, recording or other source of information created at the time being studied, by an authoritative source, usually one with direct personal knowledge of the events being described.

Primary sources include diaries, letters, family records, statistics, speeches, interviews, autobiographies, film, government documents, or original scientific research.

You can find many primary source materials via Library Search. Primary sources can also be found in Rose Library.

For more detailed information, see the Primary Sources Research Guide.

Primary Source Databases

Emory University makes a good deal of primary sources available to students in a digital format. To see the complete list of primary source databases available to students, click here

Below you will find a select list of databases that are particularly appropriate for your coursework. This list is not exhaustive.

Primary Sources @ Emory

Archives Unbound, East Germany from Stalinization to the New Economic Policy, 1950 - 1963 This link opens in a new window
Access the U.S. Department of State records related to the internal affairs of East Germany. Prominent topics include the creation of the East German state, living conditions, and its people.

Content: 34,479 images Source Library: National Archives II, College Park, MD
Archives Unbound: Nazi Bank and Financial Institutions: U.S. Military Government Investigation Reports and Interrogations of Nazi Financiers, 1945-1949 This link opens in a new window
Access the U.S. Military Government’s investigation reports and Interrogations of Nazi Financiers, 1945-1949.
Archives Unbound: SAFEHAVEN Reports on Nazi Looting of Occupied Countries Hosting (1944-1945) This link opens in a new window
Contains material from the Foreign Economic Administration’s SAFEHAVEN project to block the flow of German capital across neutral boundaries and to identify and observe all German overseas investments during and after World War II.
Digital National Security Archive This link opens in a new window
Contains declassified U.S. government documents covering policy towards world events, especially in the areas of foreign policy and intelligence.
Macmillan Cabinet Papers 1957-1963 This link opens in a new window
Access documents from the British Government during the Macmillan Administration. Covers domestic politics, foreign policy, British empire, and more. Includes scholarly essays to provide context.
Political Extremism & Radicalism in the Twentieth Century: Far-Right and Left Political Groups in the U.S., Europe, and Australia This link opens in a new window
Contains documents on radical right and fascist movements, communist and socialist groups, and new left activism.

Encompasses the rise and fall of a number of peripheral groups deemed ‘extreme’ or ‘radical’ by contemporaries, such as anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-war, communist or socialist, creationist, environmentalist, hate, holocaust denial, new left, survivalist, white supremacist, and white nationalist. Focuses on the United States and Britain.
Post-War Europe Series I: Refugees, Exile and Resettlement, 1945-1950 This link opens in a new window
Contains documents from British government files and the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad and the Jewish Relief Units concerning lives of survivors — Jewish and non-Jewish — of the Holocaust and World War II. Includes surveys, U.S. zone reports, War office memos, Exodus Camp records, Displaced Persons Assembly Centre weekly reports, and more.
Testaments to the Holocaust This link opens in a new window
Collections personal accounts of life in Nazi Germany along with photographs, propaganda materials, serials, and other publications from 1933 to after the war.
Visual History Archive, Shoah Foundation This link opens in a new window
Contains audio-visual interviews from genocide survivors and witness, from the European Holocaust through the Central African Republic Conflict, and Contemporary Antisemitism. Requires registration with the VHA/Shoah Foundation.