The 8 most beautiful libraries in Germany are one thing above all: impressive

Books are great – of course. But even the places where large quantities of them are stored can have something magical about them - like these10 legendary libraries in Germany.

And if you happen to be near the libraries listed here, you should just step foot in there and browse around a bit - it's worth it.

It is considered the most important and most beautiful library between Dresden and Wroclaw: the Upper Lusatian Library of Sciences (OLB) in Görlitz with more than 150,000 volumes, primarily on history and natural history. It is a public scientific library that is intended to pass on knowledge between the countries of Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. And the simple library hall is considered one of the most beautiful of early classicism.

The newly built city library building on Mailänder Platz, into which the central library moved in 2011, cost 80 million euros. The whole thing was built by the South Korean architect Eun Young Yi, who designed the whole thing in a very futuristic way: From the outside, the building is a square cube with eight levels, made of concrete and glass blocks; inside the books are arranged in a ring and are ready for the future . A really great library that you should definitely check out when you are in town.

The Waldsassen Abbey Library is without question not only one of the most beautiful libraries in southern Germany, but also one of the most important in terms of art history. The gallery of the fantastic library hall is not supported by columns, but by ten masterfully carved life-size wooden figures that represent the different facets of pride such as stupidity, hypocrisy and ignorance. Other highlights include the carved portrait busts of famous ancient thinkers such as Sophocles, Plato, Nero and Socrates, which can be seen in the hall, as well as four large frescoes, ceiling paintings and stucco. Thehas existed in the monastery since 1433, but only since 1724, i.e. exactly three hundred years, in its current, extremely impressive form.

The Duchess Anna Amalia Library (HAAB for short) has existed in Weimar for over three hundred years; it was founded in 1691 as the Ducal Library by Duke Wilhelm Ernst. For over thirty years it had a very well-known leader, none other than Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Tragically, there was a major fire there in 2004, which completely destroyed many historical books. Nevertheless, it was rebuilt and has been open to the public again since 2007. The Duchess Anna Amalia Library is particularly famous for its oval, three-story Rococo Hall, which makes it one of the most beautiful libraries in Germany. The research library for literary and cultural history, with a particular focus on German literature from the Enlightenment to the late Romantic period, has been part of the “Klassisches Weimar” ensemble since 1998.

By now the word should have gotten around that Leipzig is always worth a trip - after all, it is one of the most livable cities in Germany. This also has to do with the students there, and as part of their studies, many of them also have the pleasure of sitting at the massive wooden tables in the reading room of the German National Library and reading in the light of the green lamps. All of this is located in the original building of the library, which was built in the neo-early Renaissance style and miraculously survived the Second World War almost unscathed. The German National Library - incidentally the largest library in Germany and one of the largest in the world - is also the central archive library for all media works in German from home and abroad and the national bibliographic center in Germany. It has another location in Frankfurt.

One of the most beautiful and important libraries is the Herzog August Library, which is located in the rather inconspicuous Wolfenbüttel. Why is it so important? Because it has a significant collection of old objects from the Middle Ages and the early modern period and is therefore an important research site for the culture of this time. In addition, the Herzog August Library is one of six German libraries responsible for collecting German prints from the 17th century. No wonder that the library continued to attract renowned writers and from 1770 even had a very prominent director, namely Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.

The church always had an enormous amount of money, and of course it was always spent on a lot of pomp. The best evidence of this: the Schussenried Monastery, a former imperial abbey in Bad Schussenried, which at the time belonged to the diocese of Konstanz. Today the convent building is used primarily as an event and exhibition center, but the main attraction of the complex is the baroque library hall: the bookcases are located on two floors, although they are closed. An absolute eye-catcher is the opulent ceiling fresco, which Franz Georg Hermann completed in 1757 and is intended to show the work of divine wisdom in science, fine art and technology in a confusing abundance. Not only beautiful, but also very impressive.

It is not one of the most beautiful libraries in the country, but is also one of the largest private libraries in Germany: the library of Maria Laach Abbey, which contains around 260,000 titles, of which around 9,000 were printed or written before 1800. And anyone who strolls through the library will be enchanted, because the bookshelves along the curved balustrades seem to be endless - you really almost feel like you're in another world. And somehow you are.