Neue Deutsche Biographie
Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) (literally New German Biography) is a biographical reference work similar to Dictionary of National Biography, Dictionary of American Biography, American National Biography, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Dictionary of Australian Biography, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography or Dictionary of Irish Biography. NDB is published in German by the Historical Committee at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and printed by Duncker & Humblot in Berlin. It is the successor to the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Its first volume, alphabetically covering names from "Aachen" to "Behaim", was published in 1953. The currently most recent volume is the 24rd, covering names from "Schwarz" to "Stader", and was published in February 2010. So far, more than 21,000 biographies of individuals and families have been published. 3,520 further articles are expected to be added in four further volumes, with completion in 2019.
An NDB article usually contains genealogical information such as date and place of birth, date and place of death, parents, grandparents, marriages, divorces, number of children, alternate and birth names, academic degrees, a curriculum vitae in whole sentences, a valuation of the subject's political, economic, social, scientific, technical or artistic achievements and a bibliography. Only deceased persons with a close relation to the German language area are recorded. Each individual article is signed by its author. An index cataloguing all articles and the full text of articles in the first 23 volumes, covering names from "Aachen" to "Schwarz", are freely available on-line.
Bibliography[edit]
- Neue deutsche Biographie / herausgegeben von der Historischen Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin : Duncker & Humblot, since 1953. ISBN 3-428-00181-8.
