The ''Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur'' (English: ''Contributions to the History of the German Language and Literature'') is a German academic journal publishing articles on

German language German (, ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western Europe, Western and Central Europe. It is the majority and Official language, official (or co-official) language in Germany, Austria, Switze ...

and

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

. The particular focus is on the older periods and on the history and development of the German language. The journal was founded by

Hermann Paul Hermann Otto Theodor Paul (August 7, 1846, Salbke – December 29, 1921, Munich) was a German philologist, linguist and lexicographer. Biography He studied at Berlin and Leipzig, and in 1874 became professor of German language and literature in ...

and

Wilhelm Braune Theodor Wilhelm Braune (20 February 1850 in Großthiemig, Province of Saxony – 10 November 1926 in Heidelberg) was a German philologist and Germanist. Biography In 1869 Braune entered the University of Leipzig, where he was approved as an ins ...

in 1873; the first issue was published in 1874. The official abbreviation for the journal "PBB" derives from the alternate, unofficial name for the journal ''Pauls und Braunes Beiträge'' (English ''Hermann Paul's and Wilhelm Braune's Contributions''). When the

German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

(East Germany) was founded after World War II, the socialist government of the country nationalised the publishing house Max Niemeyer which was located in the East-German city of Halle an der Saale. However, the Niemeyer family left the GDR and settled in Tübingen in

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

, where they continued their publishing house. Both the nationalised East-German Niemeyer publisher and the West-German Niemeyer continued publishing the ''Beiträge'' under the same name. The different editions from 1950 to 1990 are distinguished in bibliographies by the addition of the letter H for ''Halle'' (the East-German publication) or T for ''Tübingen'' (the West-German publication).

Trivia

Many university libraries, when binding the separate volumes together, used ''red'' covers for the series from Halle, symbolising the red colour of the socialists, and some other colour (often green) for the West-German series. Literary magazines published in Germany History of the German language German-language journals Triannual journals Germanic philology journals {{philology-journal-stub