In February 1955 the executive council of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) entrusted its library to the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung as part of the general agreement on the acquisition of the DGB archive. To date the DGB has the ownership of its library.

The basic stock of the DGB library derives from trade union libraries that have been looted after the National Socialist takeover. Many holdings from these libraries had then been put into storage and rather poorly administered by the German Labour Front (DAF) in Berlin. After the unconditional surrender of Germany in 1945 the two major occupying powers split up these old trade union library holdings. Parts of these holdings were stored near Frankfurt/Main, others sent to the USA where some collections were provisionally classified by German emigrants in the Washington Congress Library. At the request of the newly founded German Trade Union Confederation DGB the American authorities restituted these collections in 1950 to the organised workers in Germany.

The DGB library comprises 120.000 volumes including many rare items and even unique copies. Before 1933, protocols, annual reports, printed labour agreements, pamphlets and members magazines connected to the trade union movement were almost completely neglected by public and governmental libraries. For this reason, these items belong to the most important treasures that can be found in this library nowadays. The main focus of the historic collection lies on trade union publications from the complete ideological and political spectrum. This is complemented by publications from international trade secretariats (today: global union federations) and from different occupational groups. For the time from 1945 onwards the collection includes nearly all German language publications on the German trade union movement. Of great value was the input of the so-called grey literature from all branches of the DGB and its member unions. This special kind of literature that has never been distributed in the regular booktrade represents the printed memory of the working people in Germany.

The FES Library has thoroughly catalogued this collection. In 1996 the printed inventory of DGB protocols and annual reports was published, listing titles from the national executive, the regional branches and many subsidiary organisations on the regional level. The complete DGB library records are searchable in the general FES Library catalogue.