The archive of the Max Planck Society was founded in 1975 in order to secure the tradition of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science centrally and to make it accessible for use (currently approx. five shelf kilometres). The holdings focus on the estates and estates of outstanding personalities who worked for the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and the Max Planck Society, such as Nobel Prize winners Carl Bosch, Walther Bothe, Adolf Butenandt, Paul J. Crutzen, Peter Debye, Gerhard Ertl, Fritz Haber, Otto Hahn, Georges Köhler, Richard Kuhn, Max von Laue, Feodor Lynen, Ernst Ruska, Bert Sakmann, and Otto Warburg, supplemented by collections on Albert Einstein, Fritz Haber, and Max Planck, among others. In addition, the library of the archive collects literature on the general history of science in the 20th century (more than 40,100 volumes, 150 periodicals, "Graue Literatur", approx. 200,000 reprints).