Scope and Content Note
The European Mission and Cooperative Acquisitions Project series is an alphabetically arranged group of files that document Library of Congress efforts to acquire publications in Europe during and after World War II. During the war, the Library asked agents in Europe to find and acquire books and other publications that had been ordered, but could not be shipped to the U.S. Immediately following the war, the European Mission was organized by the Library of Congress to acquire these materials, as well as material published during the war on behalf of 152 American libraries. Members of the Mission included librarians from various repositories on a cooperative basis. During the period of U.S. military occupation of the American sector of Germany, Office of the Military Government, U.S. (OMGUS) directed the European Mission's activities to collect, review, and acquire materials from vast stores of Nazi-looted items discovered in various hidden locations. The U.S. military shipped these materials to collecting points in Germany, according to the type of material. The Library's European Mission primarily worked at the Offenbach Archival Depot and the Munich Central Collecting Point.
The Agents files include individuals and publishers that acquired material for the Library of Congress and the Cooperative Acquisitions Project. Case files were created to document the various sources of material that the U.S. military confiscated and the European Mission reviewed and acquired. The Communications files contain the various communications between the Library of Congress and the European Mission. Ten containers comprise the records of the Cooperative Acquisitions Project. Representatives files document the participation of librarians and other professionals in the European Mission. Restitution files describe efforts made to return materials to repositories in Germany and German occupied territories repositories and through the Jewish Restitution Commission.