Dr. Frank Mecklenburg

Dr. Frank Mecklenburg is the Mark M. and Lottie Salton Senior Historian at the Leo Baeck Institute, a research library and archive that documents the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry, primarily in the 19th and 20th centuries, but also including documents dating back to the middle ages. LBI was founded in 1955 as a repository for the books, papers, photos and documents that were salvaged from Central Europe after World War II and donated to the Institute.

As Senior Historian, Dr. Mecklenburg is responsible for overseeing the acquisition of new collections for the Institute’s extensive archival holdings. In this capacity, he works closely with community organizations to identify potential donors and liaises directly with donors and their families to arrange the gift of their personal papers and artifacts. As Director of Research, he oversees the award of grants to scholars through the Institutes’ various fellowship programs.

Dr. Mecklenburg is also responsible for ensuring the preservation of the Institute’s archival holdings and expanding access to them. Dr. Mecklenburg played an instrumental role in the conception, development, and implementation of the Institute’s digitization project, called DigiBaeck, which put the majority of LBI archival holdings online by 2012.

He joined Leo Baeck Institute in 1984 as an archivist and took on his current role in 1996. He supervises the Berlin Branch of the LBI Archives at the Jewish Museum in Berlin, and he represents LBI New York in the LBI International Executive Committee, which coordinates the efforts of the international Leo Baeck Institutes.

Born and educated in Berlin, Germany, Dr. Mecklenburg lives in Manhattan with his wife Atina Grossmann, a professor of History at The Cooper Union. They have two adult children.