The largest known collection of Heinrich Heine’s original manuscripts, numbering 3,702 pieces in German and French, have been sold to the city of Dusseldorf for a reported price of $50,000, it was revealed here this week-end. Yesterday was the centennial of Heine’s death.
The manuscripts were secretly shipped out of Germany in 1939 because the owners feared that the Hitler regime would destroy them as the poet had been a Jew. Shipped to this country as commercial documents, they remained in a Chase Manbattan Bank vault for the last 17 years. They will be shipped to Dusseldorf, Heine’s birthplace, immediately.
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