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Case file s173 · Literature and art · 1945
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1945
Anne Frank: Anne Frank passport photo, May 1942 (cropped)
Anne Frank. Unknown photographer. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
Anne Frank, early 1945; Otto Frank, 1980
Place
Bergen-Belsen; Basel · Switzerland
Field
diarist · Literature and writing on the timeline
Legal tradition
EU copyright law; Dutch and Swiss law · Civil law
Historical event
The Holocaust
Religion
Anne Frank: Jewish (recorded as Reform Judaism on Wikidata; 20th-century Dutch Jews, Dutch Ashkenazi Jews, Jewish women non-fiction writers on Wikipedia)
Literature and artBurned papers and destroyed workPostwarEuropeSwitzerland

The Anne Frank Fonds named Otto Frank a co-author of the diary to extend its copyright past 2016

Anne Frank died in the Bergen-Belsen camp in 1945†. Her father, Otto, the family's only survivor, edited and published her diary†. He set up the Anne Frank Fonds in Basel and left it his rights†. Under EU law a work enters the public domain on 1 January after 70 years from the author's death, so the diary would have become free on 1 January 2016. In 2015 the Fonds said Otto's editing made him a co-author. Trustee Yves Kugelmann said, "The book he created earns his own copyright." Otto died in 1980, which would extend protection to 2051. The Fonds also said the 1986 critical edition was protected until at least 2037. The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, a separate foundation, said Anne was the sole author. On 1 January 2016 the French MP Isabelle Attard and the lecturer Olivier Ertzscheid published the original Dutch text online, and Attard said she would defend it in court. The outcome of any lawsuit is not confirmed†.

What the law took from it

Naming an editor as co-author can extend a copyright by decades, and it splits the heirs from the public.

Sources
  1. jta.orgPress
  2. boingboing.netPress
  3. nltimes.nlPress
  4. stljewishlight.orgPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “The Anne Frank Fonds named Otto Frank a co-author of the diary to extend its copyright past 2016,” story s173, https://www.celebrity.estate/anne-frank-fonds-1945, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Literature and artBurned papers and destroyed workPostwarEuropeCivil lawSwitzerland