ABSTRACT
Unlike most of the other countries discussed in this volume Germany possesses a wide range of previous work on directories. In the case of historical and bibliographical work it is possible to recognise two areas of activity. The first concerns bibliographical interest, which began quite early in Germany, with most publications appearing before 1914. More usable bibliographies do exist but are restricted to one city, Berlin, for which two attempts have been made to list the directories available. A second broad area of interest concerns the compilation, production and publication of directories. A most significant change occurred when Wegener adapted the idea and published a more broadly-based work in 1818 that included a wider cross-section of the city’s population together with a list of traders, merchants and artisans. The Great War had an extremely hard impact on directory publishing with the number of editions in 1915 falling to only a third of those published in 1914.
