Bruno Schröder was a mining engineer most of his life and a book collector in his spare time. The hobby was no secret for those who knew him, namely for the employee of a bookshop in the German town of Mettingen who used to attend this man regularly.
What nobody knew was that Bruno collected around 70,000 books throughout his life – and that he had to build a secret library at home to accommodate them, writes the Der Spiegel. The secret, which was only discovered in June 2022, when the collector died at the age of 88, begins at the entrance and ends in the sloping ceiling of the attic.
The shelves lined with works of the most varied literary genres were built by Bruno, but according to the site Bookstr the editions he liked best were in display cases. The only person who knew about all this was the woman.
The couple had no children or heirs and the property ended up being handed over to an administrator, who has now revealed the secret.
The collection was for sale and even had a buyer who offered seven thousand euros, however the interested party ended up giving up the deal. At this time, it is not known what will be the fate of Bruno’s books that remain in the private library he built.
