Archival collections

The IISH came into being in the turbulent 1930s when, after Hitler's seizure of power, many documents and archives of opposition movements were in danger of being lost. Important archives brought to safety in Amsterdam in the early years include: the archive of the German socialist movement (containing the manuscripts of Marx and Engels), the archives of revolutionaries threatened by Stalin and the Spanish trade union archives threatened by Franco.

Besides Dutch emancipation movements such as Provo and international movements such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International, endangered archives of organizations and individuals from countries such as Turkey, Iran, Burma and Indonesia also found a safe haven at the Institute. In addition, it also holds nearly a thousand special collections from the Netherlands Economic History Archive (NEHA).

The total archival collection measures over 5,400 collections, almost 18 kilometers. Archives and archive descriptions are searchable in the online catalogue. Part of the archival collections are freely available online.