Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB) is one of the most important and most comprehensive biographical reference works in the German language

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

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It was published by the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences between 1875 and 1912 in 56 volumes, printed in Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

 by Duncker & Humblot. The ADB contains biographies of about 26,500 people who died before 1900 and lived in the German language

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 Sprachraum

Sprachraum

Sprachraum is a linguistic term used to designate a geographical region/district where a language, dialect, group or family of languages is spoken. The German word Sprachraum literally means "language area"....

 of their time, including people from the Netherlands before 1648.

Its successor, the Neue Deutsche Biographie

Neue Deutsche Biographie

Neue Deutsche Biographie is a biographical reference work 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...

, was started in 1953 and is planned to be ready in 2017.

External links

• Deutsche Biographie / E-ADB - complete fulltext articles, index and further information
• Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie - fulltext articles at German Wikisource
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