Bernt Glatzer's academic estate was bequeathed to the Institute of Iranian Studies by his widow Ursel Siebert. This estate includes extensive book material on the history, ethnology and politics of Afghanistan and neighboring countries as well as photos of Shah-i Mashhad, a Ghurid madrasa in Gharjistan (present-day NW Afghanistan), which Bernt Glatzer first documented in the early 1970s.

Bernt Glatzer (December 22, 1942 - December 8, 2009) became an Afghanistan expert par excellence through his ethnological research in the 1970s and his subsequent practical involvement on the ground. He completed his doctorate in 1975 under Karl Jettmar at the South Asia Institute in Heidelberg. His dissertation on the nomads of Gharjistan, published in 1977, was based on his field research in northwest Afghanistan in 1970 and 1971. From 1975 to 1977, he also carried out a scientific project on the ecology and pastoralism of western Pashtun nomads in western Afghanistan. Until 1989 he worked at the South Asia Institute in Heidelberg, whose branch office in Islamabad he headed from 1982 to 1984. From 1990 to 1994, Bernt Glatzer worked as a scientific advisor and project manager for the Danish aid organization DACAAR in western and south-eastern Afghanistan. From 1994 to 2000, he worked as a research assistant at the Center for Modern Oriental Studies in Berlin on the effects of state and international intervention on the local nomadic and farming population. Until 2006, he was responsible for the Asia region at INWENT's Preparatory Center for Development Cooperation in Bad Honnef. As Chairman of the Afghanistan Working Group (AGA) from 2001-2007, Bernt Glatzer set up an Internet archive and provided an overview of current developments in his newsletter, which was published up to twice a week.

Photo documentation Shah-i Mashhad by Michael J. Casimir and Bernt Glatzer