Frederick Brunner Collection

The Frederick Brunner Collection contains the research files of this banker and LBI chairman, with the focus of the collection on subjects in which he had an interest rather than on his own life. Most of the topics he investigated relate either to banking history or his birthplace, Landau in der Pfalz. The collection includes correspondence, numerous newspaper clippings, copies of articles, notes, some typescripts and manuscripts, and a few photographs.

Brunner's research into the Rothschild family is located in the first two series of this collection. A small amount of letters related to his Rothschild research is located in the folder of general correspondence of Series I. In Series II will be found the bulk of such research. About half of this series consists of newspaper clippings on Rothschild family members in various countries. Some correspondence with Rothschild family members is present, as are a few genealogical tables for the family. The series also holds photocopies of imperial documents that raised Rothschild family members to the nobility and a list of artwork taken from them by the Nazis.

Research on Jews in the Palatinate (Pfalz) and in the city of Landau in particular are prevalent in multiple series as well. Most of Frederick Brunner's correspondence in Series I is with other former residents of the city, including from several rabbis. Two individuals with whom he corresponded, Otto Brunner and Caesar Seligmann, sent him memoirs about Kristallnacht in Landau and the Seligmann family history, respectively. Further material on Landau is located in Series III. Series III consists of typescripts (especially by Hermann Arnold), articles, letters and a number of newspaper clippings. Clippings on other towns in the Palatinate as well as Baden and Bavaria also form part of Series III.

Series IV holds Brunner's research files on other subjects, and includes several folders that pertain to banking history, including collected articles on well-known institutions such as the Warburg Institute and Deutsche Bank, as well as some that concern aspects of German-Jewish history. Much of Series IV consists of newspaper clippings, although a small amount of genealogical research on various German-Jewish individual is also present.

Series V comprises various material whose research subjects could not easily be identified. Of note in this series is a partial handwritten essay of Frederick Brunner's.