Anne Frank-Fonds

Anne Frank-Fonds is the foundation that inherited Otto Frank’s copyrights to Anne Frank’s diary and commissioned its expanded edition for general readers. Its work extended the diary’s publication history: rather than replacing Otto Frank’s postwar selection, the new edition supplemented it with passages from Anne’s own earlier versions, offering readers a broader view of her writing and world.

Identity and Inheritance

The foundation is identified as Otto Frank’s sole heir and the inheritor of Anne Frank’s copyrights. After Otto Frank died in 1980, he had willed Anne’s manuscripts to the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation in Amsterdam; the foundation’s inheritance of the copyrights was a separate part of the diary’s later history. The account names the organization as Anne Frank-Fonds and gives Basel, Switzerland, as its location.

From Private Diary to Published Editions

Anne kept her diary from June 12, 1942, to August 1, 1944, initially writing strictly for herself. In 1944, after hearing Gerrit Bolkestein of the Dutch government in exile call for the collection of wartime eyewitness accounts, including letters and diaries, she decided to prepare a book for publication after the war. She began revising the diary as version b, improving the text, omitting passages she considered uninteresting, and adding material from memory, while continuing to keep her original diary, version a.

After Anne’s death, Otto Frank combined selections from versions a and b into a shorter publication, version c, which became known to readers around the world. His choices reflected the limits and purposes of the 1947 publication: the Dutch publisher needed a book short enough for its series; passages about Anne’s sexuality were excluded because open discussion of sex was then considered unsuitable, especially in books for young adults; and Otto also left out unflattering passages about his wife and the other residents of the Secret Annex out of respect for the dead. The published text was therefore not simply Anne’s original diary, but an edited work shaped by her own revisions and her father’s later selection.

The Expanded Edition

Anne Frank-Fonds decided to commission a new, expanded edition for general readers without undermining Otto Frank’s original version. It assigned the compilation to writer and translator Mirjam Pressler. Pressler supplemented Otto Frank’s selection with passages drawn from both Anne’s version a and version b; the resulting definitive edition, approved by the foundation, contains approximately 30 percent more material and is intended to give readers greater insight into Anne’s world.

This editorial approach makes the successive versions legible as distinct stages rather than collapsing them into a single text. Anne’s own rewriting, Otto Frank’s decisions about length and postwar presentation, and Pressler’s later restoration of additional passages each shaped what readers could encounter. The expanded edition thus widened access to the diary’s textual history while leaving the earlier edition intact.

Names, Authentication, and Public Memory

The foundation’s edition also participates in the book’s changing practice of naming. In version b, Anne invented pseudonyms for people who would appear in her book; she initially considered Anne Aulis for herself and later Anne Robin. Otto Frank chose to use his family’s real names and to follow Anne’s wishes for the others. Because the identities of the people who helped the family in the Secret Annex had become common knowledge, this edition refers to those helpers by their real names, while retaining the pseudonyms used for other people in The Critical Edition.

The expanded edition followed an earlier process of investigation and authentication. After the diary’s authenticity had been challenged, the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation ordered a thorough examination. Once the diary was established as genuine, it was published in its entirety alongside an exhaustive study, including material on the Frank family, the circumstances of the family’s arrest and deportation, and the examination of Anne’s handwriting, the documents, and the materials used. The foundation’s commission came within this wider history of preserving, verifying, and presenting Anne’s manuscripts; its addition of roughly 30 percent more material made a larger portion of her writing available to general readers.