The RISM working group in Germany has two offices. The Munich office, which is located at the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek), is responsible for the area of the “old states” (former West Germany). For the “new states” (former East Germany), the Dresden office, which is located at the Saxon State Library--City and University Library Dresden (Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden), is in charge. For the Berlin collections, the manuscripts are cataloged by the Munich office while the Dresden office works on the printed music.

The objective of the German working group is the scholarly indexing and cataloging of older music prints, manuscripts, writings, and libretti dating from around 1600 to the mid-19^th century that have been handed down in German collections.

Since 1979, examples of music iconography in the field of fine arts has concurrently been indexed in the Munich office through cooperation with the Répertoire International d'Iconographie Musicale (RidIM). Detailed information about the activities of the German RIdIM office can be found here (in German).

The project is financed by the Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities in Mainz. Reports of the German RISM working group are published annually online and in the Jahrbuch der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz. The annual reports can also be found here (in German).

The focus of the work is on scholarly cataloging of historical music manuscripts in German collections (predominantly from the time between 1600 and 1850, but sometimes beyond that). More information about this, as well as an overview of the over 200 collections that have already been described, is available here (in German).