To protect the books from Allied bombing, the library was moved to Schloss Boitzenburg in Brandenburg.
It houses approximately 230,000 print volumes , including a dedicated "Lehrbuchsammlung" (textbook collection) for students.
The library is a vocal supporter of Open Access, assisting researchers in making their medical findings freely available to the global community. virchow bibliothek
The original Virchow Bibliothek was a massive personal archive comprising . In 1909, a few years after Virchow’s death, this collection was integrated into the Library of the Berlin Medical Society.
The (Virchow Library) refers to two distinct but deeply intertwined entities: the historical private collection of the legendary pathologist Rudolf Virchow and the modern central medical library at the Campus Virchow-Klinikum of the Charité in Berlin. To protect the books from Allied bombing, the
Rudolf Virchow, often called the "father of modern pathology," revolutionized medicine with his cell theory—the idea that all diseases originate in individual cells. His library was not just a collection of books; it was the intellectual engine behind the shift from speculative medicine to evidence-based science. The Historical Enigma: The Lost Collection
Following the war, eyewitnesses reported seeing the collection loaded onto Soviet military trucks. The original Virchow Bibliothek was a massive personal
Die Leseräume der Zweigbibliothek Mitte sind montags bis Freitags von 9 bis 20 Uhr geöffnet.
Its history took a dramatic and mysterious turn during World War II: