Friedrich Felger

Friedrich Felger (1882–1960) was a multifaceted German painter, illustrator, designer, and writer born in Waiblingen. From 1915 to 1934, he served as the first director of the World War Library, now the Library for Contemporary History. Felger studied painting in Stuttgart and Munich, participated in exhibitions in Berlin, and designed book covers for various publishers. Between 1905 and 1910, he worked as a designer for the silverware factory Bruckmann & Söhne in Heilbronn, later becoming a freelance painter and illustrator in Berlin and working as a graphic designer for the Heinrich Franck Söhne company.

In 1915, Felger took on his most prominent role when Ludwigsburg coffee magnate Richard Franck appointed him to lead his private war collection. Over the years, Felger expanded this collection, establishing it as one of Germany’s largest privately funded collections on World War I. After the collection was moved to Stuttgart, it became accessible to the public at Rosenstein Palace in 1921.

Felger also promoted the collection as a resource in Germany’s political discourse surrounding the war guilt clause in the Treaty of Versailles. Through exhibitions and public lectures, he sought to expose allied wartime propaganda and the “war guilt question.” In 1925, he organized a major conference on wartime propaganda and published a collection of essays titled What We Don’t Know about the World War in 1929, enlisting renowned authors such as Gottfried Benn.

Felger’s influence on the World War Library gradually diminished in the early 1930s, and he was later limited to an administrative role. After the Nazi Party rose to power, he joined the NSDAP but was forced into early retirement in 1934. Little is known about his activities afterward, though he helped establish a local NSDAP group and published The Book of Jesus Christ: A Gospel Harmony in 1937.