Berlinka (art collection)

The Berlinka ('Berliner'), also Pruski skarb ('Prussian Treasure'), is the Polish name for a collection of German original manuscripts originally kept at the Prussian State Library in Berlin, which since the end of World War II are held by the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków. The legal status of the documents is subject of an ongoing debate.

During the Second World War from September 1942 onwards, German authorities moved the material from Berlin to the seized abbey of Grüssau (present-day Krzeszów) in Prussian Lower Silesia, in order to protect it from Allied strategic bombing. When the Lower Silesian territory east of the Oder–Neisse line fell under the administrative sovereignty of the Republic of Poland after the war, the Polish government secretly claimed the collection as war reparations. In the winter of 1945/1946, the inventories were removed by Polish milicja and thereafter transferred to Kraków.

In 1965, the Polish and the East German government signed an agreement on the return of large collections of the Prussian State Library; however, the Polish authorities kept the Berlinka's existence at the Jagiellonian Library a secret until 1977, when Polish First Secretary Edward Gierek presenting his East German counterpart Erich Honecker with seven pieces of sheet music, including Mozart's original score of The Magic Flute and Beethoven's notes for his Symphony No. 9, as a gift.

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