Historic library hit by fire opens wing

WEIMAR, Germany – Officials on Friday opened a new wing in a historic German library that suffered severe damage in a fire five months ago.

Some 50,000 works in the Duchess Anna Amalia Library suffered irreparable damage on Sept. 2 when a blaze swept through the roof and top floor of the 16th-century rococo palace in Weimar, hometown to Germany’s most revered writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

At the opening ceremony for the new wing, German Deputy Minister for Culture Christina Weiss handed the library director copies of 13 books – found by antique dealers – that had been destroyed in the blaze.

Classic volumes from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries were destroyed.