Once Upon a Time … Mannheim’s First Female University Librarian

For decades, the University of Mannheim Library has been led by two female directors. But few people know that more than 100 years ago, the library was also headed by a woman: Lilly Lichtenthaeler, who oversaw the library in difficult times and later headed it again in the early postwar period. A brief profile.

Schwarz-weiß-Aufnahme einer Bibliothek der Handelshochschule Mannheim. — The library was originally located on the third floor of the Liebmann building (A 3, 6).

Lilly Karoline Lichtenthaeler was born in Metz in 1881. There she attended a higher girls’ school and also received private lessons in French, German literature, and history. After her mother’s death in 1903, she ran her father’s household and cared for her siblings. Only after they had completed their education did she begin formal training as a librarian in 1911 at the Strasbourg University and State Library. During this time, she also attended lectures in French, Italian, philosophy, and history at the University of Strasbourg.

In 1913 she was hired under a private-service contract as a library assistant at the library of the Handelshochschule Mannheim, a predecessor of today’s University of Mannheim. Initially she served as the librarian’s deputy and, after his death in the war in 1915, headed the library on an interim basis for three years. Otto Behm took over the library leadership in 1918. In March 1918, “in recognition of her many years of successful wartime service,” Lichtenthaeler was granted the official title of librarian. In March 1922 she entered municipal civil service.

Political involvement

From the winter semester of 1919/20 to the summer semester of 1924, Lichtenthaeler also studied business administration and economics at the Handelshochschule Mannheim and graduated with a Diplom-Kaufmann degree. She lived in Mannheim for more than 30 years and, between 1919 and 1933, was also politically active as a member of the center-left German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei, DDP). In the late 1920s, personal conflicts between Lichtenthaeler and Behm intensified.

In 1932 the library merged with the Mannheim Schloss Library. Behm was subordinated to Director Wilhelm Fraenger and placed in early retirement on 1 October 1932. In the spring of 1933, the National Socialists dismissed both Fraenger and his deputy Stubenrauch. Lichtenthaeler once again briefly assumed interim leadership of the library until Stubenrauch was reinstated in July 1933.

In 1946 the Handelshochschule Mannheim was reestablished as the Staatliche Wirtschaftshochschule (WH). In the winter semester of 1947/48, the WH library resumed operations. Lichtenthaeler served as its first director until Gustav Fuhrmann was appointed in 1950. She retired in 1952 at the age of 71. Lilly Lichtenthaeler died on 6 June 1981, in a retirement home in Tübingen at nearly 100 years old.

Text: Bernhard Scheuermann / April 2026

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