One of the most important figures in German documentation in the fifties and sixties of the last century was Erich Pietsch (1902-1979). His life shows some similarities with Ostwald's: physical chemist by education he showed also great interest in the history of chemistry and in philosophy. He became head of the important Gmelin Institute of Inorganic Chemistry in the thirties and after the war he was longstanding chairman (1956-1961) of the German Association for Documentation (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Dokumentation, DGD). His influence on the development on German documentation cannot be underestimated, especially in the area of automatization and mechanical documentation. So Pietsch founded the "Committee for the mechanization of documentation" (Ausschuss zur Mechanisierung der Dokumentation) of the DGD in 1951.

Pietsch's activities showed the way for the international relations of German documentation in the the sixties. Pietsch edited the German translation of the important Weinberg Report in 1964. In his later years he was interested in the history of the DGD as well as in information user studies.