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Archival description
BArch, RL 36 · Fonds · 1934-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventor: The Technical Office, established in 1933, set up testing facilities for weapons and equipment at various locations that existed until 1945. Inventory description: KOMMANDO DER ERPROBUNGSSTELLEN According to the provisions of the Versailles Treaty of 1919, the German Reich was prohibited from developing and constructing aircraft for military purposes. Nevertheless, as early as 1920, the Reichswehr Ministry (RWM) set up units with the task of carrying out preparatory work for the creation of development and testing sites for an air force. For example, a "Air Defence" (TA) unit was set up in the Truppenamt (TA) and an aeronautical unit in the Inspektion für Waffen und Gerät (IWG). After the merger of the IWG with the Waffenamt (Wa.A) of the RWM at the beginning of 1927, the aeronautical department became the department 6 F of the testing group (Wa.Prw. 6 F). He was in charge of the development departments disguised as civil engineering offices as well as the test groups in Johannisthal and Rechlin. The testing thus fell within the competence of the testing department of the Weapons Office. At the end of November 1928, the procurement department was also taken over by the Wa.L.Prw. Group. At the end of July 1939, in order to better meet the growing requirements, the Aviation Group in the Weapons Office (Wa.L) was divided into three groups: "Development of aircraft (Wa.L. I)", "Development of equipment" (Wa.L. II) and "Testing" (Wa.L. III). There was also a group on "Procurement" and a group on "Defense Economics and Armaments". On February 8, 1933, on the orders of Reichswehr Minister Blomberg, the Air Protection Office (LA) was formed, which was now also to be responsible for the development, testing and procurement of aircraft, aircraft engines and special aircraft equipment. He was assigned the aviation group in the weapons office, now known as Wa.Prw. 8, as Division L 2. After the transfer of the air-raid protection office to the newly created Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM) in May, the aviation technology department was initially subordinated as the Technical Department (B II) to the General Office (LB) of the RLM, but then, in the course of the reclassification of the RLM to the Technical Office (LC) on October 1, 1933, and, like the latter, directly subordinated to the Secretary of State for Aviation, Colonel General Milch. It was divided into the departments LC I (Research), LC II (Testing) and LC III (Procurement). Colonel Wimmer, as head of the Technical Office, remained responsible for aviation technology, while Captain Freiherr von Richthofen, who headed the LC II department from June 1934, was in charge of the technical aspects of the test centres (e-places). Until the Luftwaffe was unmasked in March 1935, the tests were carried out by the "Test Centres of the Reich Association of the German Aviation Industry" disguised as civilian. The "Commando der Fliegererprobungsstellen" (Command of Pilot Test Centres), which had been established in 1934 and was based in Rechlin, now appeared as the central testing authority. At the head of the command was the commander of the testing stations (K.d.E.), who was at the same time head of the E station Rechlin and superior of the chief of the E station Travemünde. His supervisor was the head of department LC II (Testing). In December 1936, the E posts Rechlin and Travemünde as well as Tarnewitz were directly subordinated to the new Chief of the Technical Office, Colonel Udet, in 1937 and charged with the development and technical testing of the Luftwaffe equipment. In the course of a reorganization of the entire RLM, the Technical Office was directly subordinated to Göring. As a result, Udet changed the organizational structure of the Technical Office again in May 1938 and dissolved the office of Commander of the Test Laboratories. The E posts now received independent command offices, which were technically subordinate to the head of the Technical Office. On February 1, 1939, the Technical Office, the Supply Office and the "Industry and Economy" group of offices were merged to form the new General Airworthiness Inspectorate (GL) and once again placed under the authority of the State Secretary for Aviation. Lieutenant General Udet was appointed General Airworthiness Officer and was now responsible for the management and control of the entire aviation technology as well as for the securing of the entire air force requirement while retaining his function as Chief of the Technical Office. After his suicide on 17 November 1941, the former Secretary of State for Aviation at the RLM, Generalfeldmarschall Milch, assumed these offices in personal union. In autumn 1941 a new command of the testing stations (Kdo.d.E) was established. In technical and operational terms, it was subordinate to the Commander of the Test Centres (K.d.E ), who in turn was subordinate to the Chief of the Technical Office and worked closely with the responsible development departments C to E of the Technical Office (GL/C). This post was held by Major Petersen until the end of the war. After the General Aircraft Master's Office was dissolved on 27 July 1944, the business area and thus the entire technical air armament was transferred to the Chief of Technical Air Armament (Chief TLR). The office was subordinated to the General Staff of the Luftwaffe and thus to the High Command of the Luftwaffe (OKL). The commander of the testing stations was now directly under the command of the Chief of Technical Air Armament, but was then subordinated to the commander of the Ersatzluftwaffe (BdE-Lw) shortly before the end of the war. Until 1945 the following E-positions were established and partially dissolved: Rechlin, Travemünde, Tarnewitz, Peenemünde, Udetfeld, Madüsee, Werneuchen, Süd (Foggia), Munster-Nord, Jesau, Arktis-Finsee, Cazeaux (Süd) and Karlshagen. In addition, a large number of test commands and test squadrons were set up from 1941 onwards, some of which were formed only briefly for the testing of individual aircraft types and quickly dissolved again after testing. ERPROBUNGSSTELLEN Torpedowaffenplatz der Luftwaffe Gotenhafen-Hexengrund (ca. 1942-1945) On April 2, 1942, the Luftwaffe Torpedowaffenplatz was repositioned as a branch office. He was subordinate to the General Airworthiness Officer (Technical Office) in terms of military service and discipline. He was assigned to Luftgaukommando I in terms of war classification, economy and administration. With effect from 1 May 1944, the Torpedowaffenplatz was then placed under the command of the E units. He was responsible for the testing of air torpedoes and associated dropping devices. Jesau (1943-1944) This E-Stelle was founded in 1943 as an outpost of the Peenemünde-West testing station. The main task of the E-Stelle Jesau was the execution of surveying work for distance and proximity fuses as well as the testing of the rocket-powered aircraft Messerschmitt Me 163. In August 1944 the E-Stelle Jesau was dissolved. Munster-Nord (1935-1945) As early as 1916, a test and production facility for gas ammunition was set up in Munster-Breloh for the first time on 6,500 hectares. From 1935, manufacturing and testing facilities for chemical warfare agents were again built on the site and the Munster-Nord Army Experimental Station, which was subordinate to the Army Ordnance Office, was set up. Both the Luftwaffe and the Weapons Office use the area for technical testing of high attack bombs and low attack spray containers. Peenemünde-West, later Karlshagen (approx. 1939-1945) After the start of construction work at the end of July 1937, Peenemünde-West started operations on 1 April 1938. Uvo Pauls was in charge until September 1, 1942, succeeding Major Otto Stams and Major Karl Henkelmann at the end of 1944. The task of the E unit was the testing of rocket engines and rocket-propelled, remote-controlled dropping weapons (e.g. Fi 103, Hs 298). The central group of the test centre was the air traffic control, which was responsible for the deployment of the aircraft fleet. She was also assigned a weather station. The following test groups were active at the experimental site, working on different tasks: E 2: Aircraft and missile systems with rocket propulsion, including support of the troop test commands (Fi 103 and Hs 117) E 3: Engines and fuels E 4: Radio and radio control systems E 5: Equipment (power supply, control systems, image station, measuring base) E 7: Drop systems, target and target training equipment E 8: Ground systems The E station was moved to Wesermünde air base near Bremerhaven in April 1945. Rechlin (approx. 1925-1945) Already planned in 1916, the "Flieger-Versuchs- und Lehranstalt am Müritzsee" started operations in 1918 during the First World War. Due to the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, however, the installations there were dismantled again at the beginning of the 1920s. As part of the camouflaged continuation of pilot testing in the Weimar Republic, a test airfield was built in Rechlin from 1925. On the initiative of Hauptmann Student, the German Aviation Research Institute (DVL) in Berlin-Adlershof set up a new "Department M" specifically for this purpose. The "Luftfahrtverein Waren e.V.", founded in 1925, acquired the necessary area on behalf of the Reich and took over the operation of the new airfield. Factory and flight operations began in the summer of 1926. From 1927/28 Albatros Flugzeugwerke GmbH in Berlin-Johannisthal leased the facility, which was now called the "Testing Department of Albatros Flugzeugwerke Johannisthal". After the Reichsverband der Deutschen Luftfahrt-Industrie (RDL) had taken over the site at the insistence of the Reichswehr troop office at the end of 1929, it was continued under the camouflage name "RDL Erprobungsstelle Staaken". After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the facilities in Rechlin were rapidly expanded to become the largest testing station (E station) for aviation equipment. From 1935, the E-Stelle Rechlin was regarded as a showpiece of the Luftwaffe. Until the end of the war, four large building complexes with different uses were built on the huge area: Group North management and technical administration, air base command and weather station; Testing of airframes (from 1936), of radio and navigation equipment, of aircraft on-board devices and equipment, aeromedical tests as well as high-frequency and ionospheric research Group South Testing of engines, of materials as well as of fuels and lubricants East Group Testing of ammunition for on-board weapons and drop-weapons West Group Military testing (only 1935-1938), test group and shipyard, fracture recovery, training workshop Initially, the focus of testing activities in Rechlin was on flight and engine testing. This included the flight testing of the engines, the measurements on the individual engine components as well as the creation of complete aircraft types. Other areas of activity include the testing of aircraft equipment - from on-board instruments to rescue and safety equipment, hydraulic systems - and radio and navigation equipment. From 1933 the testing of weapons was also carried out in Rechlin. The main focus was on the testing of ammunition for firearms as well as the testing of drop ammunition within the framework of flight testing. After the beginning of the 2nd World War, prey planes were thoroughly tested there and the results evaluated. In addition to the purely technical testing of all land aircraft and their equipment, new aircraft types are tested for their military suitability, especially after the start of the war. For this purpose, the Lärz Test Command was set up, to which these aircraft types were assigned for operational testing. From mid-1944 the testing of the new jet aircraft Me 262, Ar 234 and He 162 received highest priority. The E-Stelle Rechlin has undergone several organisational changes during its existence. An overview of the structure and filling of positions is attached as an annex. This is a compilation from the publication of Beauvais. South (Foggia) (c. 1941-1942) In the second half of 1941, the E-Stelle Süd started operations at the airfield in Foggia, Italy. It was intended for the testing of air torpedoes and underwater weapons, which had to be carried out in Grosseto due to unfavourable conditions. At the end of February 1942, it was decided to move the E-Stelle Süd to the French town of Cazaux, southwest of Bordeaux, and operations began at the airfield in May 1942. The test flights were used for the ballistic measurement of various types of bombs or dropping containers, the testing of target devices and bomb droppings. The commander of the E post was Captain Henno Schlockermann. After Allied air raids in March and September 1944, during which the installations were severely damaged and several test aircraft destroyed, operations had to be restricted and then discontinued altogether. By order of 10 October 1944, the E post was officially closed. Tarnewitz (1937-1945) Construction work began in 1935, and two years later the Tarnewitz electric power station was officially put into operation. The task of the new unit was to test new weapon systems for Luftwaffe aircraft. In addition to machine guns and bombs, this also included the newly developed rocket weapons. The various tasks were performed by the groups W 1 (installation), W 2 (ballistics and sights), W 3 (mountings and air discs) and W 4 (on-board weapons and ammunition). From 1938, the E post was subdivided into the specialist groups machine guns and ammunition, including rocket testing (IIA), mountings and air discs (II D), ballistics and sights (II E), installation of weapons in aircraft (II F). Travemünde (1928-1945) In 1928 a seaplane test centre (SES) was founded in Travemünde under the camouflage name "Reichsverband der Deutschen Luftfahrtindustrie Gruppe Flugzeugbau". Originally planned and established after World War I as a secret testing ground for independent naval aviation, the Travemünde testing ground was subordinated to the RLM in 1934 after the National Socialists seized power and expanded further. The focus of the testing activities in Travemünde was the testing of seaplanes and their equipment, naval mines and air torpedoes as well as special ships and boats for maritime flight operations. This also included testing seaplanes, landing on icy and snowy ground, landing attempts on aircraft carriers and rescue measures on the open sea with the aircraft. The E post was divided into the following groups in 1933: A: Navigation, radio, seaman's equipment, special installations B: Operation of aircraft, ships, docks, catapults and vehicles, ground services E: Flight service, holding pilots ready F: Aircraft testing, preparation, execution and evaluation of measurements, reports, assessments G: Testing of on-board devices, radio measuring devices, laboratory, precision mechanical workshop, photo service, duplication K: Administration, personnel, material, buildings, installations M: engines, propellers, aggregates, workshop and test benches Udetfeld (1940-1945) The Udetfeld electric power station was set up in 1940 near Beuthen/Oberschlesien. At the beginning it was led by Major Werner Zober, later by Lieutenant Colonel Rieser. The test leader was Fl.Stabsingenieur Rudolf Noch. The task of the E-Stelle was the testing of small explosive and incendiary bombs, parachute bombs and special detonators as well as the acceptance blasting of all German bomb types. At times she was also engaged in the testing of parachutes and ejection seats. For this purpose it was equipped step-by-step with a measuring base, several discharge points and a picture position. Last tests and measurements took place until shortly before the invasion of the Soviet army at the end of January 1945. The E-Stelle was dissolved by order of 15 February 1945 and its tasks taken over by the E-Stelle Rechlin. Werneuchen (1942-1945) The E post was established in April 1942 at the air base in Werneuchen. She was responsible for the testing and development of search and target devices for air and sea reconnaissance and worked closely with the Aeronautical Radio Research Institute in Oberpfaffenhofen. Field stations for testing ground radio measuring instruments were located in Weesow and Tremmen. The flight testing of newly developed equipment was initially carried out by the test squadron of the Technical Test Command (TVK), and was then transferred to the newly formed night fighter group 10. Their tasks also included the development and testing of equipment for the defence against interference and deception by the enemy air forces. In Werneuchen, the night hunt radio measuring devices FuG 202 "Lichtenstein", the ship's target search device FuG "Hohentwiel" as well as the ground search devices "Würzburg-Riese" and "Freya" were tested. In February 1945, the E-Stelle was moved to Stade and renamed to E-Stelle Stade in April 1945. The E post was commanded by Major i.G. August Hentz until April 1944, then until its dissolution by Major i.G. Cerener. ERPROBUNGSKOMMANDOS und ERPROBUNGSSTAFFELN Erprobungskommando 4 (ERPROBUNGSSTAFFELN Test Command 4) Set-up by order of 1 December 1944 by air fleet 10. Troop testing of the X4 guided missile and testing of operational procedures and tactical capabilities. Test Command 15 Formed from the Experimental Squadron Hs 293 and intended for troop testing of the Gleitbombe Hs 293. Test Command 16 Set up on the Command Path in April 1942 in Peenemünde-West, at the beginning of September budgeting and transfer to Zwischenahn, then in October to Brandis. Testing of the rocket-propelled hunter Me 163 B "Komet". Dissolution on 14 February 1945. Tasks were to be taken over by Jagdkommando 400, which also received the operational aircraft. Erprobungskommando 17 Transfer of the 2./Kampfgruppe 100 from Hannover-Langenhagen to the French Chartes, renaming into E-Kommando XY in January 1942 and temporarily into E-Kommando 100 (March to May 1942), then budgeted as E-Kommando 17. Further development of the X- and Y-process and deployment against England. Mid-September 1942 Renamed 15th Combat Squadron, 6th Experimental and Training Command, 18, set up on 1 August 1942 in Pillau and subordinated to the General of the Air Force by the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy (Ob.d.M.). Testing of the aircraft types intended for the aircraft carrier "Graf Zeppelin" including the instruction and training of the flying and ground personnel on this equipment. Test Command 19 Deployment on 1 July 1942 at the Castel Benito airfield near Tripoli on the Command Way. Testing of the aircraft types Bf 109 and Fw 109 for tropical suitability as fighter and battle planes. Personnel of the supplementary groups of the fighter squadron 27 and 53, respectively. Test and training command 20 formation on 1 October 1942 in Travemünde (later Kamp). Testing of on-board special aircraft as well as instruction and training of flying and ground personnel for on-board special aircraft. Test and Training Command 21 Set up on 1 August 1942 in Garz/Usedom. Personnel and equipment of the disbanded II. combat squadron 3. troop testing of the bomb PC 1400X. Test and teaching command 22 Set up autumn 1942 in Lärz. Testing of the Fw 190 fighter bomber version with long range (Jaborei). Personnel of the combat squadron 40, of the fighter squadrons 2 and 26 as well as of a destroyer school. Spring 1943 Transfer to St. André in France and use for the formation of the I./Schlachtkampfgeschwader 10. Test and training command 24 formation on 1 March 1943 in Mark-Zwuschen. Testing of aircraft types suitable for reconnaissance purposes, including equipment (navigation and heading devices). Dissolution in October 1944, assumption of the tasks and the personnel by the experimental association OKL. Test Command 25 Set-up in accordance with the order of 17 April 1943. Troop testing of the aircraft required for day hunting, aircraft radio measuring equipment, weapons and combat procedures as well as deployment within the framework of the Reich Defence. Reclassification into hunting group 10 with the same tasks. Test Command 26 Set-up in accordance with the order of 29 December 1943 by renaming the 11th (Pz.)/battle squadron at the airfield of the Udetfeld E station. Dissolution on 14 February 1945 and transfer of personnel to General der Schlachtflieger. Assumption of the tasks of the supplementary squadron of the Schlachtgeschwader 151. Experimental squadron 36 Set up in Garz according to the order of 10 August 1943 by renaming the 13th/fighting squadron 100. Testing of the suitability for troops of the successor models of the Hs 293 as well as briefing of observers on the He 177 equipped with the Kehlgerät FuG 203. Dissolution on 12 July 1944. Transfer of the personnel to the E-Kommando 25 for the continuation of the testing of the fighter missiles. Test Command 40 The Fliegerforstschutzverband was formed on 5 March 1940 as an independent association from the "Pest Control Group" of the Flugkommando Berlin, which had existed since 1936. It was mainly used for forest pest control and from October 1941 also took over malaria control in the occupied territories. Numerous spraying and pollination flights were carried out for this purpose. Another focus of his activities was the sowing of agricultural and forestry seeds and the spreading of artificial fertilizers. After being placed under the command of the E units on 1 January 1944, the Fliegerforstschutzverband was renamed E-Kommando 40. By order of 3 September 1944, the command stationed in Göttingen was dissolved and the remainder of the command was transferred to Coburg in November 1944, where it was used to set up E-command 41. Erprobungskommando 41 Formation on January 22, 1945 from remaining parts of the Erprobungskommando 40 and subordination in military service under Luftgaukommando VII and operational under Luftflottenkommando Reich. Test Command 100 See Test Command 17 Test Command Bf 109 G Report of arrival at Rechlin on 15 March 1942. Equipped with eleven Bf 109 G-1 and seven pilots in July. No more data. Test Command Ta 152 Positioning on the Command Way on 2 November 1944 in Rechlin. In accordance with the order of January 9, 1945, the deployment was extended until April 1945, and the deployment was reorganized into a group staff with a staff company as well as four task forces and a technical testing squadron. No formation of the four operational squadrons due to takeover of troop testing of the aircraft type Ta 152 by III/Jagdgeschwader 301. Dissolution on January 23, 1945. Test command Ta 154 formation on December 9, 1943 at the air base Hannover-Langenhagen. Testing of the front suitability of the aircraft type Ta 154. Dissolution according to the order of August 1, 1944. Transfer of personnel to the E-command Me 262. Test command He 162, deployment order of January 9, 1945 for an E-command in group strength (but not with this designation). Implementation of the operational testing of the aircraft type He 162 by I./Jagdgeschwader 1. Experimental squadron He 177 deployment on 1 February 1942 in Lärz. Testing of the aircraft type He 177. Dissolution on September 20, 1943. Transfer of personnel to combat squadron 40. Test squadron Ju 188 set up on March 1, 1943 in Rechlin. Transfer at the end of July 1943 to Chièvres near Brussels. Used for 4th/combat squadron 66th test squadron Me 210 set up in late spring 1942 in Lechfeld, relocated in July 1942 to Evreux in France. Operational testing of the aircraft type. After temporary renaming into 16th/fighter squadron 6 and 11th/destroyer squadron 1, finally reclassification into test squadron Me 410. Test squadron Ar 234 set up summer 1944 (July) in Lärz. Operational testing of the aircraft type Ar 234 B as a bomber. Personnel of the combat squadron 76th Erprobungskommando Me 262, deployment on 9 December 1943 at the Lechfeld air base. First testing of the V-model Me 262 and personnel supply of the III./Zerstörergeschwader 26 in April 1944. Starting from August 1944 formation of Einsatzkommandoos among other things in Lärz. At the end of September use of parts of the E-command, the III./ZG 26 to form the E-command "Novotny" and a new E-command 262 in Lechfeld. Official dissolution of E-command 262 on 2 November 1944. Test command Do 335 set up on 4 September 1944 by command of the E-positions. Troop testing of the aircraft type Do 335 as a mosquito night fighter, fighter, reconnaissance and combat aircraft. Relocation to Rechlin on 20 November. Revocation of the dissolution order of 14 February 1945. Test command JU 388 set up on 15 July 1944 in Rechlin. Testing the Ju 388 as a night hunter. Dissolution on 14 February 1945. Transfer of personnel to Combat Wing 76, E-Command Do 335 and various units. Test squadron Me 410 See test squadron Me 210. Troop testing of the aircraft type Me 410. Integration as 9th squadron of the combat squadron 101 and renaming into 12./KG 2 in October 1943 and finally April 1944 into 13./KG 51. Test squadron 600 formation according to order of April 1, 1945, intended for testing the rocket-driven interceptor Ba 349 "Natter". No further data known. Test command "Kolb", order of 20 November 1944. No further information known. Test command "Nebel" (Fog), order of 26 July 1944, for the testing and production of the Me 264 aircraft type, then from December 1944 also for the testing of long-range aircraft. Etatisierung des E-Kommandoos Ende Februar 1945. Lehr- und Erprobungskommando (W) After Colonel Wachtel had already been commissioned since April 1943 to carry out the war operation of the Fieseler Fi 103 (camouflage designation Flak sight FZG 76), the establishment of the Erprobungskommando began in June 1943. In military service it was subordinated to the higher commander of the anti-aircraft artillery schools and in questions of training and testing to the general of the anti-aircraft weapon. It was supplied by Luftgaukommando III, to which it belonged in terms of war classification. On 15 August 1943, the Wachtel Command formed the Flak Regiment 155 (W), which was soon transferred to France. Sonderkommando Fähre (Siebel) The Sonderkommando Fähre was responsible for the provision and operation of air force ferries for the transport of air force goods. (The information on the E-positions and E-commands were published in abbreviated form by Heinrich Beauvais/Karl Kössler/Max Mayer/Christoph Regel: Flugerprobungsstellen bis 1945. Johannisthal, Lipezk, Rechlin, Travemünde, Tarnewitz, Peenemünde-West. Bonn 1998). Characterisation of content: The collection mainly comprises work and test reports as well as correspondence between the command of the test centres and the test centres themselves and superior departments and various companies. Most of the test reports are for the two E posts Rechlin (approx. 200 AU) and Travemünde (approx. 160 AU). About 60 volumes of files with pollination and spray reports including the corresponding maps have been handed down by the Fliegerforstschutzverband. Of the remaining e-positions, only minor fragments of files have been preserved. The seven file volumes of the command of the e-offices, which deal with organizational matters of the e-offices and e-commands, are to be emphasized. State of development: Online-Findbuch 2007 Scope, Explanation: 573 AE Citation method: BArch, RL 36/...

BArch, NS 30 · Fonds · 1917-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) is one of the largest "robbery organisations" of the "Third Reich". Equipped with the authority to "secure" material in the occupied territories for the fight against the "ideological opponents" of National Socialism, he brought countless books, documents and other cultural assets from the possession of libraries, institutes, archives, private individuals, etc. into his hands in the occupied western and eastern territories; in addition, he was actively involved in art theft. The evaluation of the cultural property to be captured and secured by the ERR was to be carried out by the "Hohe Schule" or the "Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage" in Frankfurt, at least as far as research on the "Jewish question" could be useful, to which even "materials" of an incommensurable scope were then directed. The haste with which the "seizures" had to be made within a few years or months in areas often far from the borders of the German Reich, made final decisions about the whereabouts of the captured property, especially in the territory of the Soviet Union, at most theoretically visible; in its mass it remained in the territories cleared by German troops. In addition to the Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question, the East Library and the Central Library of Rosenberg in Berlin were the main places of reception, apparently for material on the "Study of Bolshevism". There were also numerous other recipients, such as the Wehrmacht (for entertainment literature, but also for "military files and archive material" from the occupied Eastern territories, which had to be handed over to the Danzig branch of the Army Archives). The following decrees are the basis for the establishment and mission of the task force: Führererlass of 29.1.1940 concerning the establishment of the "Hohe Schule": The Hohe Schule is to become the central site of National Socialist research, teaching and education. Their construction will take place after the war. However, in order to promote the preparations that have begun, I order Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg to continue this preparatory work - especially in the field of research and the establishment of the library. The services of the Party and the State shall give him every assistance in this work. Decree of the chief of the OKW of 4.7.1940 to the commander-in-chief of the army and the commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht in the Netherlands: Reichsleiter Rosenberg has applied to the Führer: 1. to search the state libraries and archives for writings of value to Germany, 2. to search the chancelleries of the high church authorities and lodges for political actions directed against us, and to confiscate the material in question. The Führer has ordered that this proposal be complied with and that the Secret State Police - supported by archivists of the Reichsleiter Rosenberg - be entrusted with the investigation. The head of the security police, SS-Gruppenführer Heydrich, has been notified; he will contact the responsible military commanders for the purpose of executing the order. This measure will be implemented in all the territories we occupy in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. It is requested to inform the subordinate services. Order of the chief of the OKW of 17.9.1940: To the commander-in-chief of the army for the military administration in occupied France In addition to the s.Zt. The Führer has decided, on the basis of the instructions given by the Führer to Reichsleiter Rosenberg to search lodges, libraries and archives in the occupied territories of the West for material of value to Germany and to secure it through the Gestapo: "The conditions before the war in France and before the declaration of war on 1.9.1939 are decisive for the possessions. After this deadline, transfers of ownership to the French Reichsleiter Rosenberg have been completed. State or the like are void and legally ineffective (e.g. Polish and Slovak library in Paris, holdings of the Palais Rothschild and other abandoned Jewish property). Reservations regarding search, seizure and removal to Germany on the basis of such objections shall not be accepted. Reichsleiter Rosenberg or his representative Reichshauptstellenleiter Ebert has clear instructions from the Führer personally regarding the right of access. He is authorised to transport the cultural goods that appear valuable to him to Germany and to secure them here. The Führer has reserved the right to decide on their use. It is requested that the relevant military commanders or services be instructed accordingly. Führer decree of 1.3.1942: Jews, Freemasons and the ideological opponents of National Socialism allied with them are the authors of the present war directed against the Reich. The systematic spiritual combat of these powers is a task necessary for war. I have therefore commissioned Reichsleiter Rosenberg to carry out this task in agreement with the head of the OKW. Its task force for the occupied territories has the right to investigate libraries, archives, lodges and other ideological and cultural institutions of all kinds for corresponding material and to seize it for the ideological tasks of the NSDAP and the later scientific research projects of the high school. The same regulation applies to cultural objects which are in the possession or property of Jews, of stray origin or of origin which cannot be clarified unobjectionably. The implementing regulations for cooperation with the Wehrmacht are issued by the head of the OKW in agreement with Reichsleiter Rosenberg. The necessary measures within the Eastern territories under German administration are taken by Reichsleiter Rosenberg in his capacity as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. For a short time the full name of the office was "Einsatzstab der Dienststellen des Reichsleiters Rosenberg für die besetzten westlichen Gebiete und die Niederlande", then "Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg für die besetzten Gebiete". The addition "for the occupied territories" was omitted according to the order of the Joint Staff Committee of 17.11.1944. The headquarters of the Joint Staff Committee was initially Paris. The expansion of the tasks made it necessary to relocate her to Berlin, where she temporarily stayed in the office building at Margarethenstrasse 17. The later office in Berlin, Bismarckstraße 1, was destroyed by an air raid. Organisation and structure: The structure of the ERR consisted in its main features of staff management, main working groups and working groups (set up regionally), occasionally also special detachments, branch offices, etc. The ERR was structured in such a way that it was able to provide a clear overview of the various departments. In addition, there were special staffs which were mainly charged with the "recording of cultural assets", which took place in constant collision with the equal interests of other authorities, such as the Reich Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda (in France with regard to the recording of musical works, musical manuscripts and instruments by the Special Staff for Music) and the Reichsführer-SS (for example with regard to the recording of prehistory and early history). The organisation and distribution of responsibilities of the staff management were adapted to the respective tasks of the ERR institution, which were constantly expanding until 1943 and have been changing ever since. The constant change of tasks, organisation and personnel conditions became a principle for the large number of the departments themselves active in the "worked" areas, which were also completely dependent on the politico-military and administrative conditions in these areas, caused by the respective military, civil or national administrations, and not least by the perpetual conflicts of competence of the party and imperial authorities touching or fighting each other in their areas of interest and ambitions. The development of the ERR began in France with the institution "Einsatzstab Westen" under the leadership of Kurt von Behr. Soon the "Westen" task force was divided into three independent main working groups: France (Paris), Belgium and Northern France (Brussels), Netherlands (Amsterdam). At the same time, V. Behr was the head of the Western Office, which was responsible for securing furnishings for the occupied eastern territories, the so-called M Action. This office was in itself "detached" to the East Ministry; according to Rosenberg's order of 24.11.1944, it was "taken back" to the task force. In the first half of 1944, both the M campaign and the "art collection campaign" were extended to southern France. Probably related to this is the establishment of the South of France Working Group, which finally set up a branch office in Nice and an external command in Marseilles. From the very beginning of its activity in France, the ERR had not confined itself to securing only material from libraries, archives, etc. for the "ideological struggle". He also began to collect and secure art treasures and thus entered into a certain competition with the actions carried out on behalf of Hitler ("Linz" Führer order) and Göring as well as with the art protection carried out by the military commander. Institutionally, he created a special task force "Fine Arts" (SBK) for this task, to which the collection points for fine arts in the Louvre and Jeu de Paume belonged. The Special Staff was only responsible for securing and inventorying the objects of art; the right of disposal over the objects of art - including those seized by the Office of the West in the course of the M Action and handed over to the Special Staff - had been reserved to the "Führer", a demand that was later extended to all works of art "that were or will be confiscated by German authorities in the territories occupied by German troops". The SBK maintained its activity in France to a certain extent until its dissolution. The struggle for responsibility for seized works of art continued until the end of the war, up to and including issues of relocation to Germany (Führer construction and salvage sites such as Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee, etc.) and ultimately works of art to be seized in Austrian mines (Alt-Aussee). The activities of the Italian working group are described in the report of its leader of 28.8.1944 as follows: "The procurement of material on the activities of ideological opponents will continue to be at the forefront of our work in Italy. In the form of translations, reports and evaluation work, this material is prepared by AG Italy and forwarded to the management. At the beginning of 1941, the ERR extended its activities to the Balkans and further to Greece. A Sonderkommando Greece was formed, which was dissolved in 1941. A Sonderkommando Saloniki is still provable until 1942. ERR services were also established in 1941 in Serbia - Special Staff of the Commanding General and Commander of Serbia, an Agram Liaison Office and a Belgrade Liaison Office for the Yugoslav Territories. Efforts to gain a foothold in Hungary failed apparently because of the resistance or influence of the envoy Dr. Veesenmayer. Later, a main working group for the southeast (Belgrade) can be proved, which was formed with effect from 15 February 1944 from the working group for the southeast, which in turn could have originated from the command "Southeast", proven for 1942, which was transferred from Belgrade to Thessaloniki on 10 July 1942. In Denmark, the ERR established a service in Copenhagen. Any approach to "profitable" activity was soon nullified by Dr. Best, representative of the German Reich in Denmark: "Confiscation in the style of the other occupied territories would never come into question". Immediately after his appointment as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories (RMbO), Rosenberg began to direct the initiative of his task force to the eastern territories as well. On April 2, 1941, Rosenberg had already conceived a Führer's order to instruct him "to carry out the same tasks as in the occupied western territories in all the countries occupied or still occupied by the German Wehrmacht within the framework of this war". Until the Führer's order of 1 March 1942 was issued, Rosenberg referred to "the orders issued by the Führer for the West and the tasks carried out in the Western territories by the departments of Art, Archive and Library Protection within the framework of military administration". Rosenberg's guidelines on the protection of cultural assets for "research into the activities of opponents of National Socialism and for National Socialist research" were issued to the Reichskommissariate Ostland and Ukraine on 20.8.1941 and 3.10.1941 respectively. By decree of 27.4.In 1942 Rosenberg finally commissioned the RKO and RKU as the RMbO to once again expressly "commission the ERR for the occupied Eastern territories with the recording and uniform processing of cultural assets, research material and scientific institutions from libraries, museums, etc.", which are found in public, ecclesiastical or private spaces". With the same decree, a central office was founded for the collection and recovery of cultural assets in the occupied Eastern territories. A special department for the collection and recovery of cultural assets was set up at the Reichskommissariaten (Imperial Commissionariats), whose leadership was entrusted to the head of the responsible main working group. For the two Reichskommissariate the main working group Ostland (Riga) with the working groups existed at first: Estonia (Reval), Lithuania (Vilnius), Latvia (Riga), White Ruthenia (Minsk) and the main working group Ukraine (Kiev, later Bialystok). With effect from 1.5.1943 the AG Weißruthenien was elevated to the main working group Mitte. In all HAG areas, in addition to the working groups, mobile staffs, known as "Sonderkommandos" or "Außenstellen", whose activities extended as far as the Crimea and the Caucasus region, worked directly under their command or under the command of the staff. The special staffs included, among others "Sonderstab Bildende Kunst", "Sonderstab Vorgeschichte", "Sonderstab Archive", "Sonderstab Sippenkunde", "Sonderstab Wissenschaft", "Sonderstab Volkskunde", "Sonderstab Presse" (founded 1944), "Sonderstab Dr. Abb", "Sonderstab Musik", "Sonderstab Zentralbibliothek" of the "Hohen Schule" (ZBHS), "Sonderstab weltanschauliche Information in Berlin". Structure of the staff leadership 1942 Staff leader: Utikal deputy: Ebeling 1st Division Organisation: Langkopf Group Indoor Service Group Human Resources Group Procurement Group Readiness to drive 2nd Division West and Southeast: by Ingram Group Planning Group Report 3rd Division East: Dr. Will Group Planning Group Report 4th Division Evaluation: Dr. Brethauer; Deputy: Dr. Wunder; from 1.11.1942: Lommatzsch Group General Group Library Group Inventory Group Photograph 5 Dept. Special Tasks: Rehbock Structure of the staff leadership 1944 Staff leader: Utikal representative: The senior head of department department I (head of department I: SEF Rehbock; head of department z.b.V.: SEF Brethauer) group I/1 personal adviser of the chief of staff: Rehbock group I/2 mob- and locksmith matters: Rehbock Group I/3 Personal Representative of the Chief of Staff for the Art Recording Action and Head of the Louvre Working Group: Rehbock Group I/4 Defense Representative of the Operational Staff: HEF Braune Group I/5 Procurement, Courier Service, Supply: OEF Jach Group I/6 Publications: HEF Tenschert Group I/7 Special Reports: EF Tost Division II (Head of Division: OSEF Dr. Will; Deputy: SEF Dr. Zeiß) Division IIa: Western Division, covering France, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Southeast: SEF Dr. Zeiß Division IIb: Division East, covering the occupied territories of the Soviet Union: OSEF Dr. Will Division III (Head of Division: SEF Zölffel) Division IIIa: SEF Zölffel Group III/1 Legal Affairs, Orders and Communications: SEF Zölffel Gruppe III/2 Wehrmachttfragen, Marschpapiere, Veranstaltungen, Marketenderei: HEF Gummert Abteilung IIIb: HEF Webendoerfer Gruppe III/3 Personal: HEF Sklaschus Gruppe III/4 Business Distribution: HEF Webendoerfer Gruppe III/5 Registratur: OEF Hechler Hauptabteilung IV (Head of Department: OSEF Dr. Wunder; Deputy: SEF Lommatzsch) Translation Office: OEF Dr. Benrath Gruppe IV/1 Archiv: HEF Dr. Mücke Group IV/3 Material preparation: HEF Reichardt Group IV/4 Evaluation by scientists: HEF Rudolph Group IV/5 Book control centre: HEF Ruhbaum Group IV/6 East Library: HEF Dr. Müller Abbreviations DBFU The commander's representative for the supervision of the entire intellectual and ideological training and education of the NSDAP EF Einsatzführer ERR Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg HAG Hauptarbeitsgruppe HEF Haupteinsatzführer IMT Internationales Militärtribunal MTS Maschinen-Traktoren-Station NKWD Volkskommissariat für Innere Angelegenheiten NSDAP National Socialist German Workers' Party NSPO National Socialist Party Organization OEF Upper Operations Leader OKH Army High Command OKW Wehrmacht High Command OSEF Wehrmacht Upper Staff Operations Leader RKO Reichskommissar für das Ostland RKU Reichskommissar für die Ukraine RMbO Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete SEF Stabseinsatzführer WKP (b) Communistische Partei der Sovietunion ZbV zur besonderen Verwendung Inventory description: Inventory history In the 1960s, scattered files of the ERR were brought into the Federal Archives, with various returns of written material from the USA and predominantly in association with other provenances from the Rosenberg business area as well as with individual levies from the Rehse Collection, which were formed into an inventory there. Most of these files are written documents which were last found in the alternative office of the ERR in Ratibor. A part of the staff and the management of the Ostbücherei with large stocks of books were evacuated from Berlin to there. The remains of documents rescued by the members of the HAG Ostland, Ukraine and White Ruthenia were also recorded in Ratibor. The preserved files should come from holdings that were moved from Ratibor to the west. Subsequent additions to the holdings were mainly made by levies from the military archives, by re-enlargements of microfilms from the YIVO Institute, New York, by late recorded files from American repatriation, by three volumes from the dissolved holdings of the Rosenberg offices of the Central State Archives of the GDR (62 Tue 1) and by personal documents from the so-called "NS Archive of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR". The documents preserved at the end of the war and accessible to the Western Allies were used as evidence for the IMT process. The essential components were then left to the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC), Paris. ERR documents can also be found today in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington, in the YIVO Institute for Jewish Reserch, Washington, and in the Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (NIOD), Amsterdam. Documents from Rosenberg offices also reached archives of the former Soviet Union. An extensive collection (especially the provenance ERR) is kept in the Tsentral`nyi derzhavnyi arhiv vyshchykh orhaniv vlady ta upravlinnia Ukraïny (TsDAVO Ukraïny) in Kiev, further files in the Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv (RGVA) in Moscow and in the Lithuanian Central State Archives, Vilnius. The Federal Archives, Bildarchiv, holds an extensive collection of photographs from the ERR (holdings Fig. 131). Inventories, directories and transport lists by the ERR of "seized objects" are contained in the holdings of B 323 Treuhandverwaltung von Kulturgut. Archive processing The NS 30 collection is a conglomerate of scattered files and individual documents. In the interest of rapid utilisation, the documents were recorded provisionally without costly evaluation and administrative work. Mrs. Elisabeth Kinder produced the preliminary finding aid book in 1968, from which essential elements of this introduction are taken. The "new entries" were recorded by the undersigned in 2003/2004. Citation method BArch NS 30/ .... State of development: Findbuch (1968/2005), Online-Findbuch (2004). Citation style: BArch, NS 30/...

BArch, R 901 · Fonds · 1867-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventor: 1867 Interim assumption of the foreign policy tasks for the North German Confederation by the Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; on 1 January 1867, the Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs took over the tasks of the North German Confederation. January 1870 Foundation of the Foreign Office of the North German Confederation, 1871 of the German Rei‧ches as a subordinate authority of the Reich Chancellor with the main departments Politics, Han‧delspolitik, Law (from 1885) and News (from 1915); until 1918 at the same time foreign Ver‧tretung Prussia; 1919 appointment of a politically responsible Reich Minister of Foreign Affairs; 1920 extensive reorganization in regional departments and assumption of cultural-political tasks, 1936 dissolution of the regional departments, reintroduction of the departments inventory description: The Foreign Office, which emerged in 1870 from the Royal Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the North German Confederation (since 1867), underwent numerous reforms and restructurings during the Bismarck period and the Wilhelminian Empire, the Weimar Republic until the end of the National Socialist dictatorship. old office) comprise only a fraction of the total volume (approx. 1.6 shelf kilometres) from this period. The largest part (about 18 shelf kilometres) of the files remaining after the losses in the final phase of the Second World War is now in the Political Archive of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. In the 1920s, mainly for reasons of space, the Political Archive had deposited most of the local archival material in the Potsdam Reichsarchiv (mainly files of the Imperial Office, the Trade Policy Department and the Legal Department). Together with other holdings, the Reichsarchiv also stored these documents in 1944/45 in the salt mine shafts near Staßfurt (Saxony-Anhalt) to protect them from bombing. Confiscated by the Soviet occupying forces, most of the material was transferred after 1949 to the then German Central Archive Potsdam (later the Central State Archive of the GDR, inventory signature 09.01) via the Ministry for State Security of the GDR in several charges, and after the German division was overcome to the responsibility of the Federal Archive. Residual files of the Trade Policy and Legal Departments (Dept. II and III, 1885-1920), which for official reasons had remained in the Political Archives of the AA and had finally been taken to England after confiscation by the British occupying forces, were recorded by the then Federal Archives after their return to the Federal Republic (1957) in October 1962 under the inventory signature R 85. About 350 file units are currently still in the "Special Archive" at the Russian State Military Archives in Moscow under the ("Fund") stock number 1357. They are described there in 3 finding aids (for further information and contact see www.sonderarchiv.de). The Federal Archives have lent important documents and files to the Political Archive of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin (Auswärtiges Amt, Politisches Archiv, 10117 Berlin; Tel.: 49 (0) 30/5000-3948). They can only be used and evaluated there (see the respective finding aids for further information). Archival evaluation and processing The first archival revision of the volumes took place at the end of the 1950s in what was then the German Central Archive. They were originally described in a total of 44 finding aids from the Reichsarchiv. The file titles of the units of registration recorded in the Potsdam DZA at the time were integrated into the database of the Federal Archives by means of a retroconversion procedure. When processing the data records, numerous corrections were made to the file titles and runtimes. The currently valid archive rules could not always be applied. While maintaining the existing classification, which was predominantly no longer based on the organisational structure of the AA, series or series of bands were formed as required, whereby numerous subordinate series of bands were also created in series. In some cases, the existing factual structure was expanded and supplemented with modern terminology (e.g. legal department). The Potsdam tradition was merged with that of the old Federal Archives in Koblenz (old finding aids for stock R 85, legal department and trade policy department). Characterization of content: Traditional focus Office of the Reich Foreign Minister 1928-1943: Minister's Office and Personal Staff 1928-1944, Personal Press Archive of the Minister 1934-1943 Personnel and Administration Department (incl. Protocol) 1876-1944 [loaned to Political Archive AA] Commercial Policy Department 1869-1920: Exhibition 1875-1920, Service 1885-1914, Railways 1866-1915, Fisheries 1903-1913, Trade, Generalia 1884-1921, Trade, Countries 1868-1920, Foreign Trade 1867-1922, Trade and Shipping, Generalia 1862-1906, Trade and Shipping, Countries 1858-1909, Agriculture 1868-1920, Literature 1847-1917, Marine 1853-1913, Weights and Measures 1911-1920, Medical 1868-1913, Coinage 1867-1913, Minting 1853-1913, Trade, Generalia 1884-1920, Trade, Countries 1868-1909, Agriculture 1868-1920, Trade and Shipping 1847-1917, Marine 1853-1913, Weights and Measures 1911-1920, Medical 1868-1913, Coinage Shipping, Generalia 1887-1914, Inland Navigation, Countries 1907-1913, Shipping, Countries 1844-1913, River Navigation 1869-1913, Telegraphing 1866-1913, Transportation 1890-1920, Insurance 1895-1920, Economics, Generalia 1887-1920, Economics, Countries 1881-1920, Water Management 1907-1913, Customs and Tax, General 1910-1919, Customs and Tax, Countries 1902-1920 Commercial Policy Division 1936-1945: Exhibitions 1936-1943, emigration 1937-1943, railway 1921-1943, finance 1936-1943, fishing 1936-1943, business 1937-1943, health 1937-1942, trade 1936-1945, industry, technology, Trade 1936-1943, Internal Administration of the Länder 1936-1943, Motor Vehicles 1936-1942, Agriculture 1936-1943, Politics 1941-1942, Post, Telegraph and Telephone 1936-1943, Legal 1936-1942, Raw Materials and Goods 1936-1943, Shipping 1936-1943, social policy 1941-1942, taxation 1936-1943, transport 1936-1945, veterinary 1936-1942, roads 1936-1942, economy 1936-1944, customs 1936-1945, trade in war equipment 1936-1944, Handakten 1920-1944, telegram correspondence with the German representations, offices and commercial enterprises 1941-1943 Länderabteilung II und III (1920-1936) [loaned to Political Archive AA] Rechtsabteilung 1858-1945: Emigration, General 1868-1932, Citizenship and Liquidation 1928-1944, Emigration, Countries 1858-1932, International Law Differences 1867-1920, Clergy, School and Abbey Matters 1867-1933, Border Matters 1862-1944, Hand Files 1900-1926, Internal Administration of Individual Countries 1862-1940, Intercessions 1871-1932, Art and Science 1865-1914, Mediatized 1866-1913, Militaria 1869-1942, News 1869-1936, neutrality 1854-1918, passport matters 1816-1932, police matters 1865-1937, postal matters 1829-1932, press 1861-1931, cases, general 1836-1944, cases, countries outside Europe 1869-1936, cases countries Europe 1869-1936, international law 1941-1945, delivery of documents and orders 1937-1945 news and press department 1915-1945: General 1915-1938, war 1914-1921, colonies 1915-1920, head of state 1910-1919, parliaments 1910-1921, state parliaments 1917-1921, imperial government 1916-1924, revolution 1910-1921, League of Nations 1918-1920, parliamentarization and democratization 1918, right to vote 1917-1918, armistice and peace 1914-1923, news about individual countries 1918-1921, news 1914-1921, Business files of the Press Department 1939-1945, German News Office 1940-1943, Interception Service 1942-1943, Foreign Agencies 1942-1945, Own Service 1942-1943, News Material 1933-1945, Press Attachments 1939-1944, Press Archive 1927-1945, Press Information Service 1936-1945, Foreign Information Bodies 1934-1945, Central Office for Foreign Service 1912-1922: Service and business operations 1914-1921, personnel affairs 1912-1921, passport affairs 1917-1920, budget and cash affairs 1914-1922 , relations with institutions and individuals 1914-1920, libraries, publishing houses, bookshops and art dealers 1915-1920, Economic, Political and Military Situation 1915-1920, Propaganda 1914-1921 Department of Cultural Policy 1865-1945 Department of Broadcasting Policy 1939-1945 Department D (Germany) [Liaison Office to the NSDAP] 1939-1943 State of Development: Files from the Personnel and Administration Department and the Country Department were transferred to the Political Archive of the AA as a permanent loan to supplement the holdings there. Citation style: BArch, R 901/...

Federal Foreign Office
BArch, RH 12-21 · Fonds · 1934-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: The Feldzeug-Inspektion (Fz In) was newly formed on November 10, 1938 by merging the Army Field Tool Department in the OKH (Fz) and the Army Field Tool Mastery (H.Fzm.). The H.Fzm. for its part had been established on April 1, 1935, with the Nvst. (Supply distribution points) 1-3 as a downstream area and was subordinate to the Army Ordnance Department in the OKH. The first Nvst. was established in 1931 in Spandau to relieve the then Wa N of non-ministerial tasks. In 1933 two more Nvst. were set up in Hanover and Munich, in 1935 the three Nvst. were renamed to Feldzeug-Gruppen 1-3. In the spring of 1936 the tasks of the ordnance groups were severely restricted. In the course of the intensified army armament, the aim was to enable direct traffic of the H.Fzm. with the ordnance commands and ordnance services grouped together in the ordnance groups in order to achieve an accelerated provision and distribution of weapons, equipment and ammunition. The field tool groups lost their authority to issue orders to the FzKdos and FzDstst, only had to exercise official supervision and were only aware of the implementing orders, but the responsibility for operation remained with them. As early as October 1936, the field tool groups were finally dissolved and established instead of their three field tool inspectors. Background was above all the impossibility of a sufficiently tight supervision by the H.Fzm. with increasingly growing area of responsibility. The field tool inspectors, one each for weapons and equipment, ammunition and motor vehicles and for workshops, had the task of supporting the H.Fzm. in the supervision of their area. With the installation of the Fz In, a further intermediate instance between OKH and the downstream ordnance area was omitted due to the omission of the H.Fzm. In 1939, two more stage managers, one each for weapons and equipment on the one hand and ammunition on the other hand, were set up. At the same time the Fz.Inspizient for workshops was omitted. Finally, in 1940, a fifth Fz.Inspizient was established for tank combat and motor vehicles. In 1941 there was a change in the areas of responsibility of the stage managers from the previous areas of responsibility to a territorial responsibility, in addition, the responsibilities of the stage managers were extended to order powers vis-à-vis the stage managers in the context of the rectification of identified deficiencies. On 2 July 1941, a fundamental reorganization finally took place. The Fz. stage managers 1-4 were transformed into the Fz. groups 1-3, whereby again an intermediate instance with command power between Fz. In and the individual Fz. Kdos and Fz. Dstst was created. The Fz.Inspizient 5 (responsible for motor vehicles in the entire area) was retained as such and was renamed Fz.Inspizient K. The tasks of the Fz In as the highest department for the entire ordnance system consisted in the supply of the army with weapons, equipment and ammunition, thus also appropriate storage and stockpiling, as well as the training of army weapon masters and army fireworkers. According to the business division for the Fz In of November 8, 1938, the Fz In was headed by the Feldzeugmeister and as his deputy the Chief of Staff. The Fz In was divided into four groups. Group I was responsible for the organisation, general administration and budget of Fz In, subdivided into units Ia to Ie. Group II was responsible for personnel and training in the field of ordnance, subdivided into units IIa to IIe. Group III was responsible for ammunition, divided into Divisions IIIa to IIIf. Group IV was responsible for weapons and equipment, divided into units IVa to IVh. The division of wartime peaks on 1 March 1939 provided for one department each for Groups I and II and two less departments for Group III. It now provided for a Group V, responsible for buildings, workshops and construction measures, subdivided into the units Va to Vc. The business distribution plan of Fz In of 2 February 1940, on the other hand, still contained four groups. Group I with units Ia to Ie, Group II with units IIa to IId, Group III with units IIIa to IIIf and Group IV with units IVa to IVh. In the telephone directory of the Fz In of 1 June 1943, however, there are the additional papers IIf (in addition to a double paper IIc/d), IIIg and IVi. Units IVa, IVb, IVc and IVe are divided into several parallel units. Until 2 July 1941, the subordinate area of Fz In comprised the following departments: Weapon Master Schools I and II, Fireworker Schools I and II, Firearm Inspector 1 for weapons and equipment, Firearm Inspector 2 for ammunition, Firearm Inspector 3 for weapons and equipment, Firearm Inspector 4 for ammunition, Firearm Inspector 5 for motor vehicles in the entire area, 18 Firearm Commands, 7 Upper Field Duty Bars. A total of 19 army witness offices, 94 army subsidiary witness offices with 350 equipment stores, 65 army ammunition depots, 120 army subsidiary ammunition depots and the field equipment working staffs Metz and Strasbourg with 6 Fz.Dstst. The H.Zä and H.N.Zä formed the test area for the Fz.Stage Managers 1 and 3, the H.Ma and H.N.Ma formed the test area for the Fz.Stage Managers 3 and 4. The Fz.Arbeitsstäbe Metz and Strasbourg belonged to both test areas. Subordinated to the upper field stuff rods were 27 Fz. rods, 26 Fz. battalions, 26 Fz. motor vehicle columns and 3 Fz. offices. After the reclassification on 2 July 1941, the subordinate area was as follows: Weapon Master Schools I and II, Fireworker Schools I and II, Armament Group 1, Armament Group 2, Armament Group 3, Armament Inspector K for motor vehicles in the entire area, 7 upper armament rods. Fz.Group 1 was responsible for Fz.Kommandos I, II, III, VIII, XX, XXI and the ordnance in the occupied northern and eastern territories. The Fz.Group 2 was responsible for the Fz.Commands VI, IX, X, XI, XII, XXX and the ordnance of the occupied western territories. Fz.Group 3 was responsible for the Fz.Kommandos IV, V, VII, XIII, XVII, XVIII and the ordnance in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The individual Fz.Kommandos were again subject to different numbers of H.Zä, H.Ma, H.N.Zä, H.N.Ma and equipment stores. The Fz.Dstst subordinate to the upper field tool rods now amounted to 7, of which 3 were field tool parks. According to the address book of the Feldzeug services of 1 July 1944, the subordinate area of the Fz In consisted of the following services: Army Weapon Master School I, Army Fireworks School I, Army Replacement Army Commandant, Army Commandant K for Motor Vehicles in the Entire Area, 17 Army Commandant Commandos associated with the Deputy General Commands of the Army Corps (Fz.Kdos I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XVII, XVIII, XX, XXI), a ordnance command associated with the Deputy General Command of the General Government, a ordnance command associated with the Deputy General Command of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, a tank ordnance command, an independent ordnance command (Fz.Kdo XXX). The individual ordnance commands were subordinated to army ordnance offices, army ancillary ordnance offices, army ammunition stations, army ancillary ammunition stations, equipment stores, ammunition stores, army clothing offices and army ancillary clothing offices. The Panzer-Feldzeug-Kommando was also responsible for Army Tank Zeugugämter, Army Tank Nebenzeugämter and Army Tank Workshops. Appendices: 1st diagram: Structure of the field tool area until 2 July 1941 2nd diagram: Structure of the field tool area from 2 July 1941 3rd telephone directory Greater Berlin (area Fz In) from 1 June 1943 Processing note: The inventory was newly indexed in 2002 on the basis of an older finding index. Stock description: The stock contains the documents of the army's field tool inspection. The documents of the subordinate area (Army Ammunition Offices; Army Command Forces; Zeugämter) are in the inventory RH 56. Characterization of the contents: The tradition of the Fz In is altogether extremely thin. Of the 60 files available, 26 contain almost exclusively written communications on general army matters, which had also reached the Fz In via the distribution channel within the OKH. Sometimes, however, these documents also contain notes and orders by the field tool master or the chief of staff in matters that directly or indirectly concerned the field tool system. In some cases there is also correspondence. In the case of more extensive matters, these have been included in the notes on contents of the titles. However, information on places, units and services not specifically ejected may also be contained in these files. In addition, files on the organisation of field tool services in general and reports of individual field tool services take up a lot of space. Apart from the reports mentioned above, there are only a few files on the Fz In's actual areas of responsibility. There are only 7 files on the management of services, of which 5 on human resources. At least 2 files are available for the ammunition sector, no files are available for the weapons and equipment sector. All in all, the inventory provides information on the organisation and activity of the subordinate ordnance sector, also in the occupied territories, in particular the annual and activity reports of individual ordnance services. State of development: Online-Findbuch Scope, Explanation: 100 AE Citation method: BArch, RH 12-21/...

BArch, R 8023 · Fonds · 1887-1936
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: 1887 through merger of the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation (founded 1884) with the Deutscher Kolonialverein (founded 1887). Founded 1882) in Berlin; Objective: Dissemination of national understanding and interest in the colonial question, practical solution of colonial problems through support of German-national colonization enterprises, fostering the togetherness of the Germans abroad, scientific research of the colonies, expansion of German colonial property and support of the German fleet program to secure the colonies; organs of the Society were Presidium, Committee, and Board; subdivisions into Colonial Economic Committee (founded 1896); German Colonial Economic Committee (founded 1896); German Colonial Economic Committee (founded 1896); German Colonial Committee (founded 1896); German Colonial Committee (founded 1896); German Colonial Committee (founded 1896).), Hauptverband deutscher Flottenvereine im Ausland (founded 1898), Frauenbund der deutschen Kolonialgesellschaft (founded 1907); 1936 within the framework of the National Socialist Gleichschaltung integration into Reichskolonialbund; 1943 dissolution for reasons of war economy. Editing note: Findbuch (1953) Inventory description: Archivische Bewertung und Bearbeitung It is a confirmed fact that an archive was established in the D e u t s c h e K o l o n i a l g e s c h e l l s c h a f t . The Colonial Economic Archive, which was established at the Berlin Central Office in 1909, already had records of more than 600 colonial enterprises in its founding year. Due to a lack of documents, it is not possible to determine when the documents were transferred from these archives or the registries to the Reichsarchiv. For the period of the Second World War it can be assumed that the holdings, together with other holdings of the Reichsarchiv, were outsourced and taken over by the German Central Archive Potsdam (later the Central State Archive Potsdam) after 1945. Due to the lack of old finding aids, no information can be given on war-related outsourcing losses. The first processing of the holdings was already carried out at the Central State Archives in Potsdam. In the holdings of the D e u t s c h e K o l o n i a l s c h e G e l l l s c h a f t , the majority of the traditional file titles were newly created and partly supplemented by notes on contents. In addition to the already existing series and volume sequences, additional archival ones were added where appropriate. Since the already existing thread-stitching had predetermined the creation and delimitation of files, especially of the volumes of the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft holdings, temporal overlaps in the series and volume sequences could not be avoided. The transfer of the data records of the D e u t s c h e K o l o n i a l g e s e l l s c h a f t to the database took place in 2003. Content characterization: Antislavery; exhibitions, congresses, conferences and rallies; emigration; authorities and offices; Deutscher Frauenbund and its institutions; Deutscher Kolonialverein and Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft; expeditions and research trips; naval affairs; research and science; societies and associations; trade and economy; Herero uprising; church and missions; Colonial Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft; Colonial policy Colonial propaganda and honours; Colonial economic committee; Agriculture and settlement; Military affairs; Museums and archives; Personnel and correspondence; Press cuttings; Legal and administrative affairs; Shipping and waterways; School and education; Donations and lottery; Tropical hygiene; Support and loan applications; Experimental and investigation stations; Veterinary medicine. State of development: Publication Findbuch and Online Findbuch 2003 Citation method: BArch, R 8023/...

German Colonial Society
BArch, NS 1 · Fonds · 1906-1919, 1922-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventor: The function of the Reich Treasurer was already enshrined in the statutes of the NSDAP of 1926. As chairman of the party's finance committee, he was responsible for the entire treasury system and for securing the financial basis of the "movement". 1931 by order of Hitler, authorized to administer and represent all economic, financial, property, and legal affairs of the Party; also responsible for all membership matters. He was responsible for the entire financial and administrative organization. Offices under the control of the Reich Treasurer and/or over which he exercised financial sovereignty: I. Party 1. Reichsleitungsdienststellen Zentralkassen- und Vermögensverwaltung Amt für Lotteriewesen Reichszeugmeisterei Hilfszug Bayern Catering facilities of the Reichsleitung Reichsautozug Germany Reichsorganisationsleitung Reichspropagandaleitung Verwaltungsleitung der Organisationsleitung der Reichsparteitage Local Group Brown House Section Reichsleitung Adolf-Hitler Schulen Hohe Schulen Reichsschule Feldafing Reichslager Bad Tölz 2. Reichsdienststellen Chancellery of the Führer Party Chancellery Nußdorf Reich Press Office Offices of the Reichsleiter Rosenberg including World Service Frankfurt/M. Reichsamt für das Landvolk Rassenpolitisches Amt für Sippenforschung NS-Schrifttum Party Liaison Office Prague 3. Special facilities of the Reich Administration - Reichspropagandalleitung: Deutsche Filmherstellungs- und Verwertungs-GmbH, Institut für Deutsche Kultur- und Wirtschaftspropaganda, Deutsche Kulturpropaganda GmbH, Dr. Goebbels Rundfunkspende, Reichszentralstelle Gemeinderundfunk - Wirtschaftsbetriebe der Reichsleitung: Hotelbetriebs-GmbH "Der Deutsche Hof" Nürnberg, Hotelbetriebs-GmbH "Berchtesgadener Hof", Berchtesgaden 4. Gaue, districts and local groups NSDAP Gaue NSDAP Districts NSDAP Local groups NSDAP Gau- und Kreisschulen Auslandsorganisation Landesgruppe Norwegen Arbeitsbereich Niederlande einschließlich Bezirksstellen Arbeitsbereich Generalgouvernement einschließlich Distrikte Arbeitsbereich Ostland einschließlich Bezirksstellen 5. Special facilities of the Gauleitungen Parteiforum Bayreuth Münchener Großveranstaltungen Gemeinschaftshaus München-Oberbayern 6. special offices of the Germanische Leitstelle including domestic and foreign offices Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle including domestic and foreign offices II. divisions of the NSD-Dozentenbund NS-Frauenschaft including Reichsfrauenführung, Gaufrauenschaften and NS-Frauenwarte NSD-Studentenbund SA SS NS-Kraftfahrkorps Hitlerjugend III. divisions of the NS-Kraftfahrkorps Hitlerjugend III. divisions of the NSD-Dozentenbund NS-Frauenschaft including Reichsfrauenführung, Gaufrauenschaften and NS-Frauenwarte NSD-Studentenbund SA SS NS-Kraftfahrkorps Hitlerjugend III. divisions of the Gauleitungen Parteiforum Bayreuth Munich major events Gemeinschaftshaus München-Oberbayern 6. special offices of the Germanische Leitstelle including domestic and foreign offices Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle including domestic and foreign offices Affiliated Associations of the German Medical Association NS War Victim Care Reichsbund of the German Civil Servants NS Teachers' Association NS Legal Guardian Association NS German Technology Association including School Plessenburg NS People's Welfare Nutrition Aid Association NS Sisters German Sisters Winter Aid Association of the German People German Work Front Strength through Joy IV. Other Organisations NS-Altherrenbund Working Group for Comradeship Houses German Volksgemeinschaft in Lothringen Volksdeutsche Bewegung in Luxemburg Kärntner Volksbund e. V. Sacrificial ring in Alsace Volksbund for the Germans abroad Reichsluftschutzbund Kyffhäuser Foundation Parteiforum Weimar Reichsbund German Family Stillhaltekommissar Ostmark Stillhaltekommissar Sudetenland Stillhaltekommissar Alsace Stillhaltekommissar Lothringen Stillhaltekommissar Luxemburg Aufbaufonds GmbH Heimattreue Front Eupen-Malmedy Steirischer Heimatbund e. V. Anhalt-Dank-Stiftung Dessau NS-Schulungsverein Schwerin Association Stedingsehre e. V., Bookholzberg Ostmark-Selbsthilfe GmbH, Bayreuth Lebensborn e. V. Deutsches Jugendherbergswerk Deutsche Gemeinschaft im Generalgouvernement Reichsbeauftragter für die Altmaterialerfassung Verein zur Pflege des deutschen Volkstums in Böhmen und Mähren Erholungsheime Verwaltungs-GmbH, Berlin Tag der Deutschen Kunst Gemeinschaft "Das Ahnenerbe" Reichstagfraktion der NSDAP Deutsches Frauenwerk Through administrative release of 1. In October 1940, the Reich Treasurer elevated the previous office for membership to the main office under the name of Hauptmitgliedschaftsamt. With Announcement 14/41 of 5 August 1941, the Hauptamt VII - Hilfskasse - was renamed Hauptamt VII - Sozialamt - with effect from 1 July 1941. By resolution of 22 May 1942, the Reich Treasurer decreed that the membership system be reintegrated into the Hauptamt V. The Reich Treasurer's office was to be reinstated on 22 May 1942. The dissolution of the Main Office II - Reich Budget Office - took place on 1 July 1943. The area of responsibility of the previous Main Office II was integrated into the Main Offices I and VI. Willi Damson, the previous head of the Hauptamt II, was called to Berlin to be the representative for folklore issues. Processing note: Online-Findbuch (2011) Inventory description: Inventory history In September/October 1962, a large stock of documents from the collections of the former Berlin Document Center Berlin, including those of the Reich Treasurer of the NSDAP, was transferred to the Federal Archives. Further charges by the Berlin Document Center followed in 1978, 1980 and 1988. 68 bundles of files were handed over by the Bavarian Main State Archives in Munich in 2003. These were applications for admission and the questionnaire attached to the application for admission. As before, the personal records of the former Berlin Document Center include above all the NSDAP's Reichskartei (Central and Gaukartei), which is part of the Membership Office, the applications for membership as well as processes of individual party members, such as the loss of membership books, payments of dues, recognition of former memberships, etc. The NSDAP's membership records are still recorded in the personal records of the former Berlin Document Center. Archive evaluation and processing Only for a small part were the files indexed by an inadequate list of deliveries, which formed the provisional NS 1 finding aid. The overwhelming majority of the documents were handed over by the Berlin Document Center in a completely disordered and undeveloped manner. Part of the portfolio - reported by the BDC as "asset, property and legal matters" - was ordered in 1968 and recorded by Mr Gregor Verlande. The first structure of the stock resulted from the organization of the office of the Reich Treasurer of the NSDAP. Since 1937 this included the office of the chief of staff, the main offices I - VIII as well as two special commissioners, since 1939 also the office for lottery affairs, which had been separated from the main office I, and the office physician of the Reich leadership. The files from the access of the BDC originate from the areas of the Chief of Staff as well as from the main offices I, II, IV, V and VII. These are only relatively small parts of the files created in the individual offices with the exception of the files of the main office V. This major part consists of files relating to the NSDAP's asset management. Such files were created by the chief of staff and in the main offices I, III and V. The main part of them are files of the main office V on the administration of the party's own properties, buildings and homes. These are not only properties which were acquired or rented by the NSDAP for sale or by donation, but also those which originated from confiscated Jewish property within the territory of the Reich which had been transferred to the NSDAP or from hostile property in the territories incorporated and occupied before and during the Second World War. In a smaller subgroup of files, the administration is mainly reflected in the movable assets of dissolved associations and other organisations in the incorporated and occupied territories that have been transferred to the NSDAP. Additional information can be found in the corresponding volumes of the Hauptamt I and the Staff Chief, the latter also containing an incomplete list of NSDAP properties. The files of the Main Office III contain property overviews of the Gaue, districts and local groups of the NSDAP for the period from December 1936 to December 1938. In addition to annual and monthly balance sheets, the number of party members of the Gaue and districts is also indicated monthly, so that for the years 1937 and 1938 the growth of the NSDAP in the Gaue and districts can be followed. At that time, the receipts of the central accounting were cashed in the central, cash and asset management of the Hauptamt I. In the course of the further levies by the Berlin Document Center, the inventory was revised in 1988. However, the indexing was so different with regard to many different agents that the completion of a finding aid book was initially postponed. A complete revision of the holdings, including the 1293 archive units already recorded, was started in 2009. The existing classification according to the organization chart of the Reich Treasurer was adopted and only slightly changed. The individual head offices essentially worked according to the file plan, so that the classification of the files, provided they were still in their original state, was relatively unproblematic within the classification. It was more difficult to assign the files taken over from the BDC. In the BDC, files were for the most part newly created according to the pertinence principle, so that especially in the area of the Membership Office, documents from the Arbitration Office, the Card Index Office and the Admission Office can be found in one file. Since the files were already in use, however, a reorganization of individual files was dispensed with, also for reasons of time. Only too large files were separated. The files were indexed in accordance with the valid indexing guidelines for the Federal Archives and included corrections (nominal style, valid grammar and spelling rules) and the adaptation of titles (often abbreviations) in accordance with the technical possibilities of the BASYS S database. Abbreviations a. D. out of service b. registered with BDM Bund Deutscher Mädel DAF Deutsche Arbeitsfront Dr. Doktor d. R. der Reserve e. V. association E. Z. Deposit number HJ Hitlerjugend HZD Hilfszug Bayern i. L. in Liquidation year born Krs. Kreis NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei NSKK NS-Kraftfahrkorps o. Dat. ohne Datum OS Oberschlesien Prof. Professor RAD Reichsarbeitsdienst RJF Reichsjugendführung State of development: Online Findbuch (2011) Citation method: BArch, NS 1/...

Knight, Gerhard (inventory)
BArch, N 1166 · Fonds · 1907-1967
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: Andreas Dorpalen, Gerhard Ritter. In: Deutsche Historiker I, Göttingen 1971, p. 86-99 Historiker, Hochschullehrer Description of the holdings: Manuscripts of his lectures at the University of Freiburg/Breisgau, of his workers (with material collections), essays, lectures, expert opinions; extensive academic and private correspondence; documents, including on academic institutions, the Association of German Historians, historian meetings, school and university questions and the Protestant Church. Family correspondence in the State Archives Marburg/Lahn. (Status: 1977) - Special terms of use - Citation method: BArch, N 1166/...

Kraut, Georg (stock)
BArch, N 861 · Fonds · 1909-1941
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the inventor: History: 1892 sec.Lt. in the Inf.Regt. 95, Oblt. (16.11.99), 16.4.1905 kdrt. z. Ob.Kdo. d. Schtr., Hptm. (27.1.06), 27.1.1906 moved to Inf.Regt.167 and commanded to Ob.Kdo. d. Schtr, 18.2.1908 moved to Kdo. D. Schtr. i. Reichs-Kol.Amt, since 18.11.1909 Schtr. f. DOA, 30.5.-24.7.1912 kdrt. to inf.reg. 95); Staff (kdrt. to northern border); 23.8.1914 Fhr. North-Abt.; Major (5.9.14); 25.3.1915 z.b.V. Kdo.; 14.4.1915 Fhr. Abt. Taveta; 15.4.1916 Nord-Befhb.; 2.8.1916 Abt.Fhr.; March 1918 Kdo.Stab until the armistice on 14.11.1918; 31.3.1920 Farewell. char. Obstitol. Awards: Red Eagle Order 4th A.K.I., off-duty. Cross, Bayer. Mil Order of Merit 4th AI, Knight's Cross. 2nd Kl. d. Grand Duke Hess. Order of Merit of Philip the Magnanimous, Knight's Cross 2nd Class of the King of Saxony. Albrechts-Ordens, Knight's Cross 2nd KI. d. Sachsen-Ernestin. House Order, Knight's Cross of Bulgaria. Order of St. Alexander, Russian. St. Stanislaus Order 3rd Class (27.1.06), Ice Cross 2nd Class. (2.9.16) Method of citation: BArch, N 861/...

Kraut, Georg
BArch, R 19 · Fonds · 1917-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventor: Established in June 1936 by Heinrich Himmler's decree as Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police; the Main Office was responsible for the administrative and protective police (including traffic and water police), the gendarmerie, the municipal and Feuerschutzpoli‧zei police, and the Technical Emergency Aid Long text: Overview of the internal official organization of the Main Office Ordnungspolizei The Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich of 30 June 1936 provides for a comprehensive overview of the internal administrative organization of the Main Office. Jan. 1934 (RGBl. I,75) the police sovereignty rights of the countries were transferred to the Reich. As a result, a police department (III) was established in the Reich Ministry of the Interior on May 1, 1934, which, after the merger of the Reich Ministry of the Interior with the Prussian Ministry of the Interior in November 1934, was united with the police department (II) of the latter. Organizationally, this development came to an end on 17 June 1936 with the appointment of Heinrich Himmler as "Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior" (RGBl. I,487). By decree of 26 June 1936 (MBliV, 946), the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police divided his authority into the main offices of Ordnungspolizei and Sicherheitspolizei and subordinated them to their own bosses. The head of the Ordnungspolizei was Kurt Daluege, the former head of the police department of the Reich and Prussian Ministry of the Interior, who became ministerial director and SS-Obergruppenführer (most recently general colonel of the police and SS-Oberstgruppenführer). On 31 August 1943 he was replaced by the General of Police and Waffen-SS Alfred Wünnenberg (m.d.F.b.) until the end of the war. The administrative police, the protective police (including traffic and water police), the gendarmerie, the municipal police, the fire police and the technical emergency aid belonged to the department of the order police. The Main Office of the Ordnungspolizei was divided into "offices", of which there were initially only two: the Office of Administration and Law (VuR) and the Command Office (Kdo). The Administration and Law Office was responsible for handling all administrative police, legal and economic tasks of the entire Ordnungspolizei. Until the end of 1938, it was divided into departments, then into official groups, groups, sub-groups and subject areas. In the course of the organisational changes in the main office of the Ordnungspolizei it was dissolved in September 1943 (see below) and was headed by Ministerialdirektor Bracht until 1943. The command office dealt with all management and other general service matters of the order police. It was initially divided into offices and, since the end of 1940, into groups of offices according to the military model, etc. such as the Office of Administration and Law. From September 1943 there were special inspections at the Command Office for the technical fields of work (communication and motor vehicle systems, weapons and equipment) as well as for veterinary, air-raid protection and fire-fighting matters. The heads of the office were Lieutenant General von Bomhard (until October 1942), Lieutenant General Winkelmann (until March 1944), Major General Diermann (until July 1944) and Major General Flade (until May 1945). These two core offices of the Ordnungspolizei main office were joined by two other offices in the course of 1941. By circular decree of the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police of 14 January 1941, the Colonial Police Office was established in preparation for the colonial deployment of the Ordnungspolizei. However, it lost its importance with the deterioration of the military situation in 1943 and was dissolved in March 1943 by order of the Führer. On 9 May 1941, the Fire Brigades Office was formed as the fourth office and on 30 December 1941, the Technical Emergency Assistance Office was formed as the fifth office in the Ordnungs- Polizei main office. Fundamental changes in the organization of the Ordnungspolizei main office occurred after Himmler's appointment as Reich Interior Minister (August 1943). With effect from 15 September 1943, the offices of Administration and Law, Fire Brigades and Technical Emergency Aid were dissolved. The tasks of the Office of Administration and Law were mainly transferred to the two new bodies, the Economic Administration Office and the Legal Office. However, the legal office was dissolved at the beginning of December 1943. The majority of his areas of work came to the Office of Economic Administration. By the end of the war, this office had essentially taken over the tasks and position of the old administration and law office again. Its chief became the SS-Obergruppenführer and general of the Waffen-SS and police August Frank from the SS-Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt. Most of the areas previously dealt with by the Fire Brigades and Technical Emergency Aid Offices fell to the Command Office, parts also to the newly formed "Reichsämter" Volunteer Fire Brigades and Technical Emergency Aid. The designation "Reichsamt" expressed the special character of these organizations as public corporations. As an office directly subordinated to the head of the Ordnungspolizei, the Sanitäts-Amt, which was detached from the Kommando-Amt (Amtsgruppe III) on 1 Oct. 1944, is to be mentioned. Relocation measures during the war (For this and the following section compare: Jürgen Huck; alternative places and file fate of the main office Ordnungspolizei in the 2nd World War in: Neufeldt, Huck, Tessin: Zur Geschichte der Ordnungspolizei 1936 - 1945; Koblenz 1957) Until 1942, most of the Ordnungspolizei main office was housed in the old office building of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior in Berlin NW 7, Unter den Linden 72/74. In the course of the year 1942, the office administration and law was transferred to Berlin-Halensee, Kurfürstendamm 106/107. His successor, the Wirtschaftsverwaltungsamt, had to leave the building as a result of bombing and in February 1944 moved into an office building in Berlin-Lichterfelde, Unter den Eichen 126, together with the official groups I (Economy) and III (Accommodation) and the group "Personnel". The official group II (administration) sat in the barracks camp in Berlin-Zehlendorf, Potsdamer Chaussee, and the official group IV (supply and law) in the building Unter den Linden 72/74 until its dissolution in February 1944. At the end of March 1944, after parts of the group "Personal" and the official group II had already gone to Biesenthal, the entire economic administration office was transferred to the alternative camp "Heidenberg" near Biesenthal/Mark in the district of Oberbarnim. After the air raid of 23/24 November 1943 had severely damaged the building Unter den Linden 72/74, the Kommando Office was transferred to the barracks of the alternative camp "Paula" near Biesenthal in December 1943. Only the inspection L (Luftschutz) remained in the service building in Berlin, Schadowstraße 2, until April 20, 1945. The inspection Feuerschutzpolizei (in the Offiziersschule der Ordnungspolizei in Eberswalde), parts of the inspection Veterinärwesen (in Cottbus) and parts of the personnel groups (in the Offiziersschule der Ordnungspolizei in Berlin-Köpenick) were accommodated elsewhere. The group "War History" was transferred to the Waffenschule der Ordnungspolizei in Dresden-Hellerau in August 1943 and one year later to the castle of Prince Carl von Trauttmannsdorff in Bischofteinitz near Taus (Bohemia). On the other hand, the parts of the motor vehicle inspection initially transferred to Dresden were moved to Biesenthal in November 1944, so that this inspection was closed in the "Paula" camp until April 1945. In March 1945, the relocation to Potsdam-Babelsberg was ordered for the offices of the Chief of Ordnungspolizei in and around Berlin. As a result of the rushing war events, this and other projects (Suhl and Weimar) could not be carried out. At the end of March/beginning of April 1945 it was therefore decided to divide the main office of the Ordnungspolizei into a south and a north staff. The division of services between the two staffs is opaque. The mass, however, has been assigned to the south staff. In the 2nd half of April, the "Süd" task force moved to the officers' school of the Ordnungspolizei in Fürstenfeldbruck. A large part of his staff was dismissed here. On April 28, 1945, the miniaturized working staff drove to Eben/Achensee (Tyrol) and was captured by the Americans in mid-May 1945 in Rottach-Egern (Tegernsee). The "North" task force left Biesenthal on 18 April 1945, reached Flensburg via Lübeck at the beginning of May and was captured there by the English at the Harriesleefeld fire brigade school. Inventory description: Inventory history Reference: Koblenz Inventory Fate of the files of the Main Office Ordnungspolizei The mass of files of the Chief of Ordnungspolizei must be considered lost. The processes that led to this loss are still largely in the dark. We are relatively well informed about the fate of larger parts of the old registries of the Chief of the Ordnungspolizei, which mainly contained files of the former police departments of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior and the Reich Ministry of the Interior as well as those of the Prussian State Police dissolved in 1935/36, and about the files of the group "War History". The old registries of the Chief of the Ordnungspolizei were located in the so-called "Archive of the Main Office of the Ordnungspolizei", which was renamed "Aktenverwaltung des Hauptamtes Ordnungspolizei" from October 1941 on the objection of the General Director of the State Archives. During the war, the holdings of this file administration can be found in the service buildings Unter den Linden, Kurfürstendamm and Breitestraße. From 1941 to 1944, about 8,500 volumes of files from the police department registries of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, taken over by the head of the Ordnungspolizei, were handed over to the Prussian Secret State Archives in Berlin-Dahlem. The Secret State Archives had for the most part outsourced these files to Central German mines. From there, together with the other outsourced holdings, they probably came to the Central State Archives II of the GDR in Merseburg. Files of unknown size of the police department of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, mainly through the Schutz- und Kriminalpolizei-, which had been taken over by the head of the Ordnungspolizei in 1936, arrived in 1941/42 from the Hauptamt Ordnungspolizei to the Reichsarchiv in Potsdam, where they were most probably destroyed by the air raid of 14./15. 4. 1945. The files of the Prussian State Police from 1933 to 1935, which were transferred to the Wehrmacht in 1935, appear to have been transferred to the Army Archives in Potsdam during the war. Here they were probably burned as a result of the air raid of April 1945. Far more incomplete than the old registries are our knowledge about the fate of the current registries at the Main Office Ordnungspolizei. At the end of the war the following registrations have to be proved: O - Adjutantur O - HB Head Office O - Jurist O - Kdo Adjutantur O - Kdo WF Weltanschauliche Führung O - Kdo Org/Ia Organisation, Einsatz, Führung O - Kdo I - Ib Nachschuf O - Kdo I Ausb Ausbildung O - Kdo I Sp. Sport O - Kdo I KrG War History O - Kdo II P O - Kdo II P Allg) Personal Data O - Kdo II P R 1) O - Kdo II P Disciplinary Matters 2) O - Kdo II P KrO War Orders and Decorations of Honor 3) O - Kdo In K Inspection Motor Vehicles 4) O - Kdo In N Inspection Communications 5) O - Kdo In WG Inspection Weapons and Appliances 6) O - Kdo In L inspection air raid protection 7) O - Kdo In F inspection fire police 8) O - Kdo In Vet inspection veterinary 9) O - W personal data 10) O - W verse supply 11) O - W I economy 12) O - W II administration and law 13) O - W III accommodation 14) O - medical 15) O - I. - S Inspector General of the Schutzpolizei O - I. - G Inspector General of the Gendarmerie and Schutzpolizei der Gemeinden 16) O - I. - Sch Inspector General of the Schools O - I. - FSchP Inspector General for Fire-fighting 17) (Fire Police and Fire Brigades) O - I. - FwSch Inspector General for Firefighting 18) extinguishing system (fire schools, factory fire brigades and fire show) 19) O - RTN Reichsamt Technische Nothilfe 20) O - RFw Reichsamt Freiwillige Feuerwehren 21) Secret registry Most of these 35 running registries seem to have been completely lost. Only the following incomplete news about their whereabouts have become known to the Federal Archives so far. A part of the personnel files of the command office (registries O-Kdo II P) seems to have been moved in 1943/44 in agreement with the Reichsamt Technische Nothilfe to the castle Eisenhardt in Belzig/Mark (TN school). His fate is unknown. Another part came in spring 1945 first to the police administration Gera, then to Weimar or Gschenda, Kr. Arnstadt, was temporarily brought back to Biesenthal and went in April 1945 with the south staff to Fürstenfeldbruck. Already in Biesenthal the mass of files about the law for civil servants burned, and further losses entered on the march from there to Fürstenfeldbruck by low-flying fire. In Fürstenfeldbruck and at the beginning of May 1945 in Eben, the mass of the files carried along by members of the South Staff was burned. The personnel files of the Economic Administration Office (registry O-W Pers.) were moved to Thuringian towns together with those of the Commando Office in the spring of 1945. They arrived via the police administration in Gera at the Linda police supply camp near Neustadt a. d. Orla - according to other news also to Gschwenda - and returned to Biesenthal for a short time when the Americans arrived, after considerable parts had been burned in Thuringia due to a misunderstood radio message. From there, they were taken to Fürstenfeldbruck by the hourly staff in April 1945, losing their lives in air raids. Here and in Eben, most of the files were destroyed at the end of April/beginning of May 1945. According to other sources, however, it was burned in Maurach/Achensee at the beginning of May 1945 according to further files. A special fate had the files of the group "War History" of the command office (registry O-Kdo I KrG). In the course of the war, a "special archive" had been created for the group through the release of material from the area of the Ordnungspolizei that was important for the history of the war. Among its best sands, the diaries of the SS Police Division established in 1939, the 35th SS (Police) Grenadier Division established in 1945, the SS Police Regiments, the Police Shooting Regiments, the police battalions and other police troop units, as well as a collection of the most important decrees of the Main Office of the Ordnungspolizei (Ordnungspolizei - Ordnungspolizei - Order Police Department) are to be emphasized. These valuable documents were completely destroyed at the end of April/beginning of May 1945 by members of the group "War History" in Bischofteinitz/Bohemia. It is still unclear to what extent the records of the chief of the Ordnungspolizei are kept today by GDR offices. It is only certain that the holdings "Reichsministerium des Innern" of the Central State Archives I in Potsdam under Dept. III contain 46 volumes about the police from the period 1934 to 1937 and personnel files from the main office of the Ordnungspolizei. The remains of the personnel group registries not destroyed in Fürstenfeldbruck and Eben, and apparently also parts of other registries of the Main Office Ordnungspolizei, were confiscated by the Americans. After the occupation of the Offiziersschule der Ordnungspolizei in Fürstenfeldbruck, the police inspected the files they had found, took them to a warehouse, transported them away in the autumn of 1945, leaving behind the person of no interest to them. The material remaining there from the personnel registry of the Economic Administration Office was transferred directly to the Federal Archives in November 1954 via the Bavarian Main State Archives, Dept. I, that of the Command Office in January 1955 and in July 1957 from the Bavarian Police School Fürstenfeldbruck. As early as December 1956, about 550 personnel notebooks of the Kommando-Amtes with the initial letters M - Z had arrived here, which, initially confiscated, had been handed over by the American military government to the Command of the Schutzpolizei in Wiesbaden in 1949 and there - with a stock of originally about 900 notebooks - had been reduced by the handing over of documents about reused police personnel to their office. The main mass of the removed files, however, was first transferred to the file depot of the U.S. Army (Departmental Records Branch) in Alexandria/Virginia and filmed within the Records Group 1010/EAP 170 - 175 (Microfilm Guide 39). The transfer from there to the Federal Archives took place in April 1962. Further file takeovers took place from documents that had initially been brought together in the Document Center in Berlin - first in 1957 personal files on gendarmerie officials via the Hessian Ministry of the Interior, then in 1962 on a larger scale and directly in connection with the so-called Schumacher Collection of documents from various organizational units and at about the same time Daluege's reconstructed files from biographical materials of the Adjutantur of the Chief of Ordnungspolizei. Other provenances that have been grouped according to biographical criteria can still be found in the Berlin Document Center. In the summer of 1957, the former chief of the command office, Lieutenant General of the Ordnungspolizei a. D. Adolf v. Bomhard, two volumes of files personally secured by him (R 19/282 and 283) and, in addition, the documents listed under C in the Annex. 1958 followed tax, salary and wage documents of former employees of the main witness office of the Ordnungspolizei of the Versorgungsanstalt des Bundes und der Länder in Karlsruhe. Finally, files of the Reich Office Voluntary Fire Brigades were handed over by the Oberfinanzdirektion Hamburg in 1957 and 1964. Archival evaluation and processing Reference: Koblenz stock In view of the insignificance or absence of other records handed down by the police and the need under pension law for proof of service time for members of the police force, a thorough cassation was dispensed with. On the other hand, in order to fill at least some of the gaps in the status quo, not only the official printed matter of the Main Office Ordnungspolizei was listed, but also important matters concerning the Ordnungspolizei from the holdings of the Federal Archives R 43 (Reich Chancellery), R 18 (Reich Ministry of the Interior), R 2 (Reich Ministry of Finance), R 22 (Reich Ministry of Justice), NS 19 (Personal Staff Reichsführer SS), NS 7 (SS and Police Jurisdiction) and R 36 (Deutscher Gemeindetag (German Community Day) were incorporated, without the aim of completeness. On the other hand, the stocks R 20 (chief of the gang combat units; schools of the order police) and R 70 (police services of integrated, affiliated and occupied areas of the 2nd world war), which must be consulted anyway with appropriate investigations, were completely omitted. When classifying the stock, it was not possible to structure the stock in accordance with the registry principle, given the incomplete nature of the preserved files, any more than it was possible to do a close analogy to the administrative structure of the main office. Therefore, an ideal structure of the competence area of the Main Office Ordnungspolizei was developed which was adapted to the importance of the subject areas actually handed down in the inventory. Dr. Neufeldt, Mr. Huck, Mr. Schatz, Dr. Boberach, Dr. Werner and Mr. Marschall were particularly involved in the chronological order in which the inventory was developed. Koblenz, October 1974 Content characterization: Adjutant of the Chief of Ordnungspolizei 1933-1945 (24), Dienststellenverwaltung 1933-1945 (50), Nachrichten- und Befehlsblätter, Erlasses, Besprechungungen 1933-1945 (41), Orga‧nisation and Zuständigkeit 1933-1945 (58), Haushalt 1933-1944 (9), General service law and police service law 1931-1945 (37), courses and schools 1930-1945 (89), assessment, promotion, secondment and transfer of members of the police 1931-1945 (38), remuneration and pensions 1933-1945 (19), Criminal and disciplinary matters 1937-1945 (8), uniforms and orders 1933-1945 (8), Comradeship Association of German Police Officers 1933-1945 (6), personnel statistics 1938-1945 (7), accommodation, equipment and armament 1933-1945 (8), Sanitäts- und Vete‧rinärwesen, Polizeisport 1933-1945 (12), Polizeiverwaltungs- und Vollzugsdienst 1935-1945 (93), Einsatz von Polizeiverbände und -einheiten 1933-1945 (108), Personalakte 1917-1945 (1.067), State Hospital of Police in Berlin. Medical records (ZX) of patients 1940-1945 (1946) (3,149), file of the State Hospital of Police in Berlin (n.a.) State of development: Findbuch (1974) Citation method: BArch, R 19/...

BArch, RM 116 · Fonds · 1914-1918
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

Inventory Description: The Naval Airship Department was established by Allerhöchste Kabinettsordre on 3 May 1913 from the "Aviation Personnel of the Imperial Navy" next to the Naval Airship Department as an independent department with the temporary location Johannisthal. (1) The commanders of the departments were given "judicial, disciplinary and leave powers". In all training and technical matters, both departments were under the control of the State Secretary of the Reichsmarineamt, in all others of the inspection of coastal artillery and mines, as well as the head of the "North Sea Naval Station". (1) The State Secretary of the Reich Naval Office, Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, established 1 June as the day of formation by order of 8 May 1913. (2) As early as April 1912, members of the navy, including Corvette Captain Friedrich Metzing, were commanded for training at Deutsche Luftschifffahrts-AG. The airship command was subordinated on 15 July 1912 under the designation "Luftschiff-Detachement" with the Johannisthal site near Berlin Metzing as commander. (3) After the death of the commander of the naval airship department Friedrich Metzing in the accident of "L 1" on 9 September 1913, Corvette Captain Peter Strasser became his successor. Responsibility for the airship sector in the navy lay with the BX "Luftschiff- und Fliegerwesen" department of the shipyard department of the Reichsmarineamt formed on 12 October 1912. On 1 April 1913 an organisational change followed: Department BX was restructured to become the "Aviation Section" (Section BX with Divisions BXa and BXb). (4) At the beginning of the First World War, the command structure of the Naval Airship Division changed. By the Most High Cabinet Order of 29 August 1914, the office "Commander of the Aviation Departments" was created as the highest central command post of the entire naval aviation. (5) The Naval Airship Department and the Naval Aircraft Department were subordinated to this. The cabinet order assigned the following tasks to the new commander: Provision and training of personnel, management of schooling outside departments, test drives and maintenance of aircraft operational capability. The Most High Cabinet Order of May 1, 1916 assigned the naval airship division Cuxhaven (Nordholz) as a new location and divided the division into airship troops. (6) On November 23, 1916, the Naval Aviation Departments were divided into the Airship and Aircraft divisions by the Most High Cabinet Order. (7) The post of Commander of the Naval Aviation Divisions was transformed into Commander of the Naval Aviation Division and the Commander of the Naval Airship Division was elevated to "Chief of Naval Airships". The newly appointed Naval Airship Leader was in charge of the Naval Airship Division and the Naval Airships. The newly created position was subordinate to the command of the high seas armed forces in "matters of use and training of the North Sea front airships, to the State Secretary of the R e i c h s m a r i n e a m t , in technical and experimental matters and in matters of the school and experimental airships, and in all other matters to the naval station command of the North Sea". (7) For the airships deployed in the Baltic Sea, a new "Airship Ladder East" was formed as division commander. (7) The latter acted independently or according to the orders of the Commander-in-Chief of the Baltic Sea, but remained subordinate to the Commander of the Naval Airships. (8) The post of Airship Manager East was vacated in November 1917 due to staff shortages and the cessation of airship operations in the Baltic Sea. (9) This structure remained in place until the end of the war. After Strasser's death in the "L 70" on 5 August 1918, the post of commander of the naval airships was not reoccupied. (10) Due to the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles to abandon military aviation in Germany, the Naval Airship Department was dissolved in Nordholz on 10 December 1920. (11) During the First World War, naval airships were used for reconnaissance in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, securing and supporting mine search units, sighting and reporting of enemy naval forces and mine barriers, reports on merchant shipping and for offensive voyages, in particular on Great Britain. Commander of the Naval Aviation Departments 29 August 1914 - 23 November 1916 Rear Admiral Otto Philipp Leader of the Naval Airships 23 November 1916 - 5 August 1918 Frigate Captain Peter Strasser from 5 August 1918 August 1918 unmanned (representative: Hans-Paul Werther) Airship Leader East 23 November 1916 - November 1917 Corvette Captain Hans Wendt Naval Airship Troops Status: May 1916 (12) I. Nordholz II. Fuhlsbüttel III. Ahlhorn IV. Hage V. Tondern VI. Seerappen VII. Seddin VIII. Düren IX. Wainoden Status: November 1918 (13) I. Nordholz III. Ahlhorn IV. Wittmundhaven V. Tondern VI. Seerappen VII. Seddin-Jeseritz XI. Wainoden Characterisation of the contents: The collection covers the period 1914 to 1938, with a focus on the deployment of the naval airship department in the First World War from 1914 to 1918. The records also include other provenances based on circulars and forwarded communications from other or superior agencies such as the Navy Admiral Staff, the Commander of the Reconnaissance Ships of the Baltic Sea or the Commanding General of the Air Force, etc. The collection is also available in German. The operations of the naval airships are reflected in the tradition. The focus is on the operational and enterprise files for the reconnaissance voyages in the North Sea and Baltic Sea as well as the attack voyages, especially in Great Britain. War diaries and orders are available on a large scale for this purpose. The war diaries were created for individual airships or naval airship troops. Further few file complexes are found to the organization and to the personnel of the naval airship department. The structure of the documents mainly consists of war diaries, orders (daily and departmental orders) and so-called driving reports of the numerous reconnaissance and attack drives. The trip reports contain information on the trip task, names of crew members, weather conditions, technical data and square maps with the marked route. In addition, there are radio messages (some encrypted), spark telegraphy bearings, weather and barometer maps and telegrams. The collection also includes photographs, press articles, technical drawings, sketches and a large number of maps. The overdelivery is not complete. Only the war records have survived. Documents from the pre-war and post-war periods may have been destroyed in the air archives in 1945. State of development: Online-Findbuch Vorarchivische Ordnung: Bestandsgeschichte After the end of the First World War, the documents of the disbanded naval services, including the Naval Airship Department, were collected in the War History Department of the Admiral Staff of the Navy (established on 15 February 1916) for the purpose of setting up a new naval archive. From 1919 the name of the naval archive was changed to "Head of the Institute for Naval History and Chairman of the Naval Archive". A second renaming took place on 22 January 1936 in "Kriegswissenschaftliche Abteilung der Marine". However, this did not belong to the Reichsarchiv, but was subject until 31 March 1934 to the Inspectorate of Naval Education, then to the Chief of Naval Management, and later as a subordinate authority to the Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine. During the First World War some war diaries (RM 116/185-199) were already forwarded to the admiral's staff of the Navy for information and were thus integrated into his written material, but are handed down in this inventory. During the Second World War, naval records were moved to Tambach Castle near Coburg on 22 November 1943. (14 ) After the end of the war, the archives were confiscated by US troops and taken to London. There the files were filmed on a large scale, combined into bundles, provided with consecutive F-numbers ("Faszikel", "File" or "Fach") and partly with a seven-digit number with the prefixed letters "PG" ("pinched from the Germans"). The archives were then handed over to the British Admiralty. In the 1960s, the marine files were returned to the Federal Republic of Germany as part of the process of returning files and were transferred to the Document Centre of the Military History Research Office in Freiburg i.Br. With the transfer of the Document Centre in 1968, which is based on the 1968 interministerial agreement between the Federal Ministry of Defence and the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the documents were transferred to the Federal Archives and Military Archives moved from Koblenz to Freiburg. In 1977 an access with a photo album to the naval airships (access number 2005/77) took place, which was transferred under RM 116/200 into the inventory. An LL signature (LL 410) refers to a storage in the air archive. A note in English on the file cover indicates a seizure by British and/or US troops. During the file repatriations, the photo album was also handed over to the Document Centre at the Military History Research Office, where it received an I L signature (I L (B) 11). (15 ) The tradition is not complete. A large part of the documents may have been transferred to the Luftarchiv at that time and destroyed in 1945. In 1936, the Luftwaffe set up its own archive under the name "Kriegswissenschaftliche Abteilung der Luftwaffe" (War Science Department of the Air Force) and collected the entire archives of the Air Forces of the Army and the Navy Air Forces. (16) It may have included parts of the naval airship department files, which would justify the small size of the file delivery. Archivische Bearbeitung A rough list of files was available on the holdings, which contained only imprecise file titles and durations as well as old signatures. An evaluation of the documents was not carried out due to the loss of written records and the resulting gaps in the records before 1945. The existing rules of procedure were retained. The documents had already been formed; most of them were in Prussian thread stitching, a small part in archive folders. The file structure is uneven; thus, in part, uniformly formed and coherent files were found for a task or an assignment. On the other hand, there were also documents with heterogeneous contents, such as aerial reconnaissance and attack drives. The inventory of the stock was carried out with the archive management system of the Federal Archives BASYS-S-2. The files were recorded and classified on the basis of the specified overdelivery due to a lack of organisational documents. The old signatures F and PG numbers as well as the file numbers were recorded. The terms "Detachement" and "Trupp", for the units subordinated to the Naval Airship Department, were not used uniformly in the files despite the same meaning. The collection contains numerous photographs and maps, the content of which is linked to the files and have therefore been left in their context. Only the oversized maps which were not sewn in due to damaged files were removed for conservation reasons and are now stored together in a map folder in the inventory under RM 116/201. The files are in a poor state of conservation. The damage ranges from dissolved thread stitching, mechanical damage as a result of use, to paper decay and ink corrosion. The collection needs to be restored soon. The stock is not completely foliated. Scope, explanation: Holdings without increase 7.4 linear metres 198 AU Citation method: BArch, RM 116/...

BArch, NS 6 · Fonds · 1933-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

On April 21, 1933, Hitler appointed his personal secretary Rudolf Hess, the former head of the "Political Central Commission" of the NSDAP, as "deputy of the Führer" and authorized him to decide in his name on all matters concerning the leadership of the party. The main task of the deputy leader and his staff, formed at the headquarters of the NSDAP in Munich, was to "align the Gauleitungen, divisions and affiliated associations of the NSDAP uniformly and to give them political guidelines"(1) This function of a central authority of the internal party leadership had to be fought for and defended first and foremost against the resistance of the Reichsorganisationsleiter Robert Ley, who regarded himself as the main heir of Gregor Strasser and his concentration of power within the party. (2) The "NSDAP liaison staff" set up on 24 March 1933 in the former building of the Prussian State Ministry in Berlin was subordinated to Hess and subsequently served as the Berlin office of the Führer's deputy, without achieving or even exceeding the importance of the Munich staff, also with regard to the later coordination functions vis-à-vis the Reich government. As was already the case when Hess was commissioned to head the Central Political Commission, which had been created at the end of 1932 after Gregor Strasser's dissolution of the Reichsorganisationsleitung, which had developed into a central party-internal power apparatus, as a supervisory organ for its previous main departments III and IV,(3) Hitler's appointment of his private secretary as deputy to the leader was by no means intended to strengthen the position of the party or its Reichsleitung within the National Socialist power structure. While the comparatively generous endowment of the deputy leader's central authority of the party leadership should undoubtedly also serve to curb the power ambitions of other, personally stronger party leaders, the personality of Hess, who had always been a devoted follower of his leader without any independent power within the party leadership, offered a guarantee that a center of power alongside Hitler, as it threatened to develop in the short term in 1932 with Gregor Strasser's rise to "a kind of general secretary of the party with comprehensive powers of attorney" (4), could no longer emerge in the future. Hess could not speak of a supremacy over other "law firms" (law firm of the leader of the NSDAP, Reich Chancellery and - after Hindenburg's death - Presidential Chancellery). Even the later use of the central competences of the office of the deputy of the Führer under the energetic and ruthless leadership of Martin Bormann to develop his known personal position of power could only succeed, since Bormann consciously built up his position, but never only that of Hitler. Rudolf Hess, who was personally rather weak, was, however, granted comprehensive powers in state affairs by the Law of 1 December 1933 on Securing the Unity of Party and State. Like Röhm, the head of the SA staff, Hess was appointed Reich Minister without a portfolio in order to "ensure the closest cooperation between the Party and the State".(5) The position of the deputy leader was decisively strengthened by Hitler's unpublished circular of 27 March, which was issued by the Reichsminister in Berlin. On July 7, 1934, "the deputy of the Führer, Reich Minister Rudolf Hess", was given the position of a "participating" Reich Minister in the legislation without exception.(6) This gave Hess the opportunity to comment on all drafts of laws and ordinances and to assert the party's position. By the "Erlass über die Beteiligung des Stellvertreter des Führers bei der Ernennung von Beamten" (Decree on the Participation of the Deputy Fuehrer in the Appointment of Civil Servants) of 24 September 1935 (7), Hitler also ordered Hess to participate in the appointment of Reich and Land officials in such a way that he received a copy of the proposal for promotion or appointment with more detailed information about the civil servant and was granted a reasonable period of time to comment. As a rule, this deadline was used to obtain the opinion of the local party organisation, particularly on the political position of the candidate. After this decisive expansion of competence, the office of the deputy leader, whose staff comprised "two, three men" when Martin Bormann took over the leadership of the staff in July 1933, (8) took on firmer contours. In 1937, the deputy of the Führer or his staff leader, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, was headed by Rudolf Mackensen, the staff manager, and a number of clerks, representatives, special representatives, heads of offices, and other officials, only some of whom served exclusively on the staff of the Führer's deputy, while the vast majority headed party institutions that only formally served Hess or (9) The latter included (1937): Main Archive of the NSDAP: Head of Headquarters Dr. Uetrecht The Head of the Foreign Organization of the NSDAP: Gauleiter Bohle The Commissioner for Foreign Policy Issues: Ambassador von Ribbentrop The Commissioner for all Issues of Technology and its Organization: Head of Headquarters Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. G. Bohle The Commissioner for Foreign Policy Issues: Ambassador of Ribbentrop The Commissioner for all Issues of Technology and its Organization: Head of Headquarters Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. G. Bohle The Commissioner for Foreign Policy Issues: Ambassador of Ribbentrop The Commissioner for all Issues of Technology and its Organization: Head of Headquarters Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. G. Todt Der Sachbearbeiter für alle Fragen der Volksgesundheit: Hauptdienstleiter Dr. Wagner Commission for Higher Education Policy: Haupttellenleiter Prof. Dr. Wirz The representative for the new building of the Reich: Gauleiter Adolf Wagner The official for questions of job creation, for financial and tax policy: Hauptdienstleiter State Secretary Reinhardt The official for art and culture: Amtsleiter Schulte-Strathaus The official for music: Head of main office Adam The clerk for school questions: Head of main office Wächtler The clerk for practical-technical questions: Head of office Croneiß Party official examination commission for the protection of Nazi literature: Reichsleiter Bouhler The representative for building industry: General Building Inspector Head of Office Speer In 1938, the following were added: Central Office for the Economic Policy Organisations of the NSDAP: Head of Main Office Keppler Commission for Economic Policy: Head of Office Köhler. In addition to the already mentioned office of the deputy of the Führer in Berlin (liaison staff under head of the main office Stenger), there were also: Special representative of the deputy of the Führer: head of the main office Oexle Representatives for special use (e.g. V.): head of the main office Brockhausen and head of the main office Seidel (Nazi camp for civil servants in Tutzing and Reich camp for civil servants in Bad Tölz). De facto, the Munich office of the deputy leader's deputy consisted essentially of two parts, in addition to the leadership of the staff and the adjutants: Internal party affairs and constitutional issues. According to the published organisational overviews, they were headed by 'clerks', referred to as 'Division II or Division III' in the secret business distribution plans (10 ). During the preparation of this finding aid book, a business distribution plan (1938) of Division II, headed from March 1934 until the end of the war by Helmuth Friedrichs, former Gaug Managing Director of the NSDAP in the Gau Hessen-Kassel region, was determined for the first time for the office of the deputy leader's deputy. There the organisational level below the department level was also called "department" instead of "group" or "main office" as was later the case. Division II - Internal Party Matters - Field: Political Issues of the Party and the State Staff: Head of Main Office Helmuth Friedrichs Division II A Establishment and Expansion of the Party, its Structures and Associated Associations. Observation of economic, social and agricultural policy issues. Head: Head of Office Albert Hoffmann Representative: Head of Head Office Erich Eftger II A a Head of Head Office Pannenborg Organisational questions of the whole party, orders and orders of the deputy of the leader, as far as they concern organisational questions. Observation of the organizational relations of the affiliated associations and the divisions to the party and among each other. liaison with organisations outside the Party dealing with human leadership, as far as the organisation's issues are concerned. II A b Head of Headquarters Franz Schmidt II Social, economic and agricultural policy issues, labour front and questions of the Reich's nutritional status. Connection to the NSBO main office and the Reichsamt für Agrarpolitik. II A d Head of main office Long connection to the main offices and affiliated associations and their fields of activity; in particular local politics, civil servants, educators, war victims, NSDStB, women's affairs, people's welfare with the exception of the National Socialist Association of Lecturers, the National Socialist Association of Physicians, the German Labour Front, the Office for Agricultural Policy, the Office for Technology. Division II B Observation of domestic political developments and their impact on the party and the state. Head: Head of Office Gerland Representative: Witt II B a Head of Witt Reporting (in cooperation with all departments of the staff); orders of the deputy of the leader, as far as they concern ideological questions. II B b Head of Gerland Propaganda and Press Liaison Office (film, radio, post and celebration). II B c Head of office Schütt Liaison office training (training questions of the party in connection with the Reichsschulungsamt). II B d Head of the Lindhorst office Connection guide to the RAD Schnurbein connection office SA, SS, NSKK, Arbeitsdienst, HJ. II B e Head of department Gerland Liaison office KdF. II B f Head of Office Gerland Lutze Liaison Office Wehrmacht. II B g Office for Guests of Honour R e i c h s p r t a g e s . Department II C Head of Office Opdenhoff Führungsamt und Personalamt des Stellvertreters des Führers. Recording and supervision of junior leaders of the NSDAP. Processing the personal files of the political leaders to be confirmed by the deputy leader and the leader. Supervision of the Gauamts- and Kreisleiter detached to the staff. Membership system. Division II D Head of Office Opdenhoff Handling of complaints concerning party departments. Head of the Thurner headquarters Supervision of the junior staff members who have been seconded to the staff for one year. For the Department for Questions of Constitutional Law (Division III) set up in the summer of 1934 after the transfer of the authority to participate in the preparation of state legislation, there is no business distribution plan for the office of the deputy of the Führer. In the 1938 and 1939 National Socialist Yearbooks, in addition to the "official in charge of questions of state law", Hauptamtsleiter Sommer, the heads of the departments Dr. Johann Müller, Heim and von Helms are only listed as heads of department (11) This department, which was responsible for "supervising" the legislation and personnel policy of the Reich government, was subdivided, analogous to the individual ministries, into respective organisational units (groups or main offices, offices, main offices) for domestic, legal and economic policy. Since it could itself be regarded as a part of the state administration in terms of civil servant and budgetary law and had almost exclusively to do with draft laws and civil servant issues, it was obvious for Hess to entrust the work of this department to experienced administrative officials with legal knowledge. At the request of the deputy of the Führer, the officials were transferred from the respective Reich or Land departments to the staff of the deputy of the Führer. Until 1941, Head of Division III was the administrative lawyer Walther Sommer in the rank of Ministerial Councillor; his successor became State Secretary Dr. Gerhard Klopfer in 1941. Due to the composition and origin of the staff, Division III was hardly in a position to bring about the originally intended implementation of a radical party position in state legislation and civil servant policy. Rather, we can speak of a mediating function between party offices and ministries. Within this framework, the public authorities expected "their" officials transferred to the staff of the deputy leader to have a supportive influence on the responsible NSDAP department, which was usually actually exercised (12). Nonetheless, it is beyond doubt that the party's right to participate in the appointment and promotion of civil servants, from which only the Wehrmacht was able to keep itself free, had a considerable influence on the civil service and, among other things, had to impair its traditional view of service. Immediately after the England flight of his deputy Rudolf Hess, Hitler made the order on 12 May 1941 that the previous office of the Führer's deputy should bear the name "Party Chancellery" and be subordinated to him personally. The leader was "as before Reichsleiter Martin Bormann" (13). In his decree of 29 May 1941 "On the Position of the Head of the Party Chancellery" Hitler specified "in order to ensure the closest cooperation of the Party Chancellery with the Supreme Reich Authorities: The Head of the Party Chancellery, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, has the powers of a Reich Minister, he is a member of the Reich Government and of the Council of Ministers for the Defence of the Reich". Hitler then affirmed that the previous head of staff of the office of the deputy leader's deputy did not receive the title of his former superior, but rather all of his powers: "Where in laws, ordinances, decrees, orders and other orders the deputy leader's deputy is named, he shall be replaced by the head of the Party Chancellery" (14). According to the NSDAP's self-image, the Party Chancellery was Hitler's office in his capacity as leader of the party. Their Hitler leader, who was directly responsible for Hitler, had "to process all fundamental plans and suggestions from the area of the party centrally" for Hitler. The instructions issued by Hitler himself or prepared on his behalf for the entire party were sent exclusively via Bormann to the departments responsible for implementation. Not only the political leadership of the party, but also all work arising from the party's supremacy towards the state was to be done in the party chancellery. During the war, these tasks included, as a matter of course, the "versatile deployment of the party organs in total internal warfare" and the work of the party in the integrated and occupied territories. In addition to the party and the Wehrmacht, the focus of the jurisdiction of the party chancellery was on "securing the unity of party and state" (15). In the Ordinance of 29 May 1941 on the Implementation of the Decree of the Führer on the Position of the Head of the Party Chancellery, the Reich Minister and Head of the Reich Chancellery Lammers and the Head of the Party Chancellery ordered the following on 16 January 1942: (16) The Party's participation in the legislation was to be effected exclusively through the head of the Party Chancellery, unless Hitler determined otherwise in individual cases. Proposals and suggestions from the area of the Party, its divisions and affiliated associations could only be forwarded via Bormann, the responsible ministries and other supreme Reich authorities, as far as the legislation was concerned. This practically amounted to a concentration of power on the person of Bormann. The party also played a central role in processing the personal data of the civil servants. In any case, the head of the Party Chancellery had the position of a b e t e i l t e Reich Minister in the preparation of state legislation in legislative work. This also applied to the laws and ordinances of the provinces and governors of the empire. In addition to these formal competences, it was stipulated that, in matters other than legislative matters, the communication between the supreme Reich and Land authorities, insofar as these were responsible regionally for several districts of the NSDAP, on the one hand, and the services of the Party, its divisions and affiliated associations, on the other hand, took place solely via Bormann if these were "fundamental and political questions". Direct traffic was expressly declared inadmissible. Thus an instrument of power equipped with far-reaching competences came under the exclusive leadership of an energetic party functionary who was just as servile upwards as he was after him under brutally ruthless party officials, who of course used it as far as possible to expand his own position of power, which of course was not exclusively based on his position as head of the party office. Bormann's rise from organizer of illegal Freikorpsgruppen and Feme desk murderers to head of the relief fund of the NSDAP and finally to chief of staff of the Führer's deputy, his constant approach to the person of Hitler - from the administration of Hitler personally from various sources funds available, the conversion of the House of Wachenfeld to the "Berghof" and "Berghof" respectively. the expansion of the entire Obersalzberg complex into Hitler's summer residence, up to Hitler's constant company in the Führer's headquarters or "special Führer train" during the war - cannot be traced here in detail (17). The coupling of these two functions - the leadership of the political coordination centre of the party (staff of the deputy leader or party chancellery) and Hitler's constant support and advice, also in personal matters - formed the basis of Bormann's special position of power, which could not easily be equated with the strengthening of the party leadership as such. Structurally, even an energetic head of staff or head of the party office was unable to change the desolate weakness of the NSDAP's Reich leadership. Even under Bormann, the party chancellery did not develop into an all-powerful, bureaucratic command center comparable to communist politburo. Bormann's special position was based on the personal, independent power of attorney as Hitler's personal clerk, which was institutionalized on April 12, 1943 with Bormann's official appointment as "Secretary of the Führer" (18). From Bormann's dominant position in the Führer's headquarters - not actually from his function as head of the Party Chancellery - the path led to the Super and Control Minister of the Reich Government, when the Bormann was not only seen by dissatisfied party and contemporaries in the final years of the war, but is also portrayed in historical studies on the Nazi regime in general (19). The two-pronged organisational structure of the office of the leader's deputy, which was essentially based on the two departments for internal party affairs and for questions of constitutional law, remained basically unchanged, even under the name of the party chancellery. In Division II, the following groups or main offices were added in accordance with the expansion of the tasks: II M (Reich Defence, Planning of Operations for the War Tasks of the Party), II W (Fundamental Questions of the Wehrmacht, Liaison Office to the OKW), II E (Foreign and People's Growth Work of the Party, including Occupied Territories), II F (Nazi Leadership in the Wehrmacht and Nazi Lead Officers) and II V (Staff Leadership Volkssturm). The offices II C and IID, on the other hand, which dealt with the party's junior leaders and personnel issues, were merged to form the II P office. The organisational overview of Division II given below is essentially taken from a note in Division III of 11 April 1945. The offices II A 2, 3 and 5 as well as II B 6 and II W 1 - 4 no longer listed there were supplemented from earlier business distribution plans from 1942 and 1944. Apart from a few exceptions, the names given as heads of organizational units originate from a plan for the introduction of dictation marks dated 26 March 1942 (20) and a telephone directory of 20 Jan 1945 (21), divided into departments and official groups/main offices. Head of Department: Friedrichs Hauptamt II A Management duties and organisation of the party, its divisions, affiliated associations and organisations Neuburg (1945: Keitel) II A 1: Organisational matters and fundamental questions of party structure, fundamental membership issues, staffing plan in cooperation with II P. Examination of content, coordination and publication of orders, circulars and announcements of the party office. Monitoring and evaluation of the announcements of all other Reich management offices. steering of the party's alignment sheets. Design of the arrangement. Collection of guide words, laws and decrees for evaluation for party work. Welsch (as representative) II A 2: The Party's commitment to economic, agricultural, financial and transport policy affairs Stengel (as representative) II A 3: Social policy affairs Elberding II A 5: Volkstumspolitik Seekamp (as representative) II A 6: General complaints and petitions Gerber Hauptamt II B: Ritterbusch (1945: Wall) II B 1: Propaganda and press, events and lectures Buhler (as representative) II B 2: Training and education in the party, adult education, leader training Schenke (as representative) II B 3: Culture and celebration design, written material Dr. Hammerbacher II B 4: Reporting and information system, events and lectures of the Brandes II B 5: Structure Detering (in representation) II B 6: e.g. V. Haar (in representation) Hauptamt II E II E 1: Party political leadership and organisational questions of the working areas of the National Group Norway and Belgium, the Adriatic Coastal Region, the Alpine Foothills and the Party Liaison Office Prague, as well as their coordination within the party to the national political and Germanic control centre. Refugee issues from evacuation areas outside the empire. Evaluation of the reporting material produced by the party sector. II E 2: Party political leadership issues of the AO National Group, the NSDAP and the Gauinspektionen See-Schifffahrt. Intergovernmental work of the party abroad by coordinating within the party and cooperating with the AA. (Domestic I and II) Align the Party's foreign work with the policy of the people and evaluate the foreign policy material generated in the Party sector. II E 3: Treatment of folklore issues within the Reich through the political orientation of German folk growth, consolidation of the endangered German folk growth and treatment of foreign peoples in the territory of the Reich. German folklore groups abroad, folk-political questions in the Generalgouvernement, Protectorate and in the occupied territories. Racial Issues in People's Growth Work. Corresponding work with: Main Office for Folklore Issues, Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, Reichskommissar für die consolidation deutscher Volkstums, VDA, Kärntner Volksbund, Steirischer Heimatbund, Volkstumsreferenten der Gliederungen und angeschlossenen Verbände. Hauptamt II F NS leading officers as leadership in the Wehrmacht. Rudder (1944/45) Hauptamt II M II M 1: Air war measures and operational planning. Beier (1945) II M 2: Securing personnel and material needs. (UK positions, fuel management, home flak, etc.) Zander Hauptamt II P Personalamt Hesseldieck (1945: Walkenhorst) II P 1: General personnel policy, seniority and service issues, pay and pensions. Young drivers and driver selection. II P 2: Disciplinary and appeal matters, judgments of war courts II P 3 Orders and decorations. care for surviving dependants and general care measures. Personal care for the soldiers of the service. Elections and conscripts to the Reichstag II P 4: Kommandiertenheim Rauchstraße. Hauptamt II V Staff management "Volkssturm" Bofinger (1945) Hauptamt II W Wehrmachtsfragen, at the same time liaison office to OKW Passe II W 1: Fundamental Wehrmachtsfragen. Rodegerts II W 2: Leadership office for Wehrmacht issues in parties, divisions, affiliated associations and supervised organisations. Rodegerts (in representation) II W 3: Special tasks of Rodegerts (in representation) II W 4: Questions of welfare and support for party comrades and people comrades vis-à-vis the Wehrmacht Rodegerts (in representation) The organisational structure and distribution of tasks of Division III are best derived from an undated "Provisional Business Distribution Plan of Division III - Party Law, Economy, Church", which was drawn up before 1944 at any rate: (22) Head: State Secretary Head of Command Dr. Klopfer Representative: Ministerialdirektor Dienstleiter Klemm, (at the same time Head of Group III C) Personal advisor: Oberregierungsrat Mainchnittsleiter Dr. Lincke Personalstelle III PSt.: Regierungsamtmann Klein, Regierungsinspektor Hausrath Special tasks: III V: Government Councillor Section Head Dr Beyer Government Councillor Dr Beyer Lang SS-Hauptsturmführer Will SS-Hauptsturmführer Klauß Affairs of the Security Police and the SD, procurement and evaluation of intelligence material, general questions of competence, political science investigations and research tasks, assessment of the political science literature - cooperation with the Party Official Examination Commission -, magazine and press editorial office of the department, affairs of the Black Corps, archive and map office of department III S: Regierungsrat Bereichsleiter Knöpfel Studienrat Dr. Scheele Lehrer Funk Frau Thomas Special orders of the Reichsleiter, Sonderbücherei, Archiv, Reichsschule Feldafing Gruppe III A: (Internal Administration, Folklore) Leiter: Oberregierungsrat Dienstleiter Ancker Vertreter: Oberregierungsrat Oberbereichsleiter Kap III A 1: Ministerialrat Dr. Dr. Hillebrecht Amtsrat Blankenburg Amtsrat Erler Amtsrat Verwaltungs- und Verwaltungsreformfragen; Administrative simplification; New areas; Reichskanzlei III S 2: Oberregierungsrat Oberbereichsleiter Kap Gemeinschaftsleiter Wöll Volkstumsfragen; Nationality matters; Eastern issues; Sammlungssagen III A 3: Currently unoccupied, distributed among III A 2, 4, 7 Public health (incl. (civil status, special sovereign matters); presidential chancellery (especially decorations); Federal Foreign Office; colonial matters Group III B: (economy, labour, nutrition, transport) Head: Ministerialrat Dienstleiter Dr. Bärmann 1st representative: Oberregierungsrat Oberbereichsleiter Fröhling 2nd representative: Oberregierungsrat Bereichsleiter Dr. Geißler III B 1: Head: Gauhauptstellenleiter Mittag Organisation der gewerblichen Wirtschaft Gauwirtschaftsberater - Ausschüsse III B 1 a: Regierungsrat Section head Dr. Densow Energie; Ostwirtschaft; Preise; Handel; Handwerk; Entjudungen; Allgemeine Wirtschaftsfragen III B 1 b: Regierungsrat Section head Kopp Produktion der gewerblichen Wirtschaft (außer Kohle, Bergbau, Energie); Rohstoff- und Warenbewirtschaftung; Personalien in der gewerblichen Wirtschaft III B 1 c: Reichsbankrat Vellmer Kohle-Bergbau; money and capital markets; banking and credit; insurance; foreign trade; tourism III B 2: Head: Oberregierungsrat Bereichsleiter Dr. Geißler Basic questions of social policy III B 2 a: Regierungsrat Section head Schwingenstein Amtsrat Gemeinschaftsleiter Fiedler Arbeitseinsatz; Sozialversicherung; Versorgungswerk III B 2 b: Regierungsrat Beimes Lohnpolitik; Gewerbeaufsicht; Berufserziehung III B 2 c: Section Head Gölz Construction Industry; Housing and Settlement; Transport; Post III B 3: Senior Government Council Section Head Kok Government Officer Eisermann Food Industry; Agriculture; Forestry; Hunting; Price Policy in Food, Agriculture and Forestry; Reich Office for the People of the Reich; Reich Nutrition Office; Armament of the German Village; Regional Planning; Battle of Production III B 4: Attorney at Law Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. (German Federal Law Gazette) On top of that, support of the Gauwirtschaftsberater; conferences; reporting; newsletter "Der Gauwirtschaftsberater"; editing; economic policy training and propaganda; special assignments III B 5: main editor, section leader Vollmann Wirtschaftswissenschaft; archive; business press and magazines; magazine "Nationalsozialistische Wirtschaftspolitik" Group III C: (Justice, law of the NSDAP) Head: Ministerialdirektor Dienstleiter Klemm Representative: Oberregierungsrat Oberreichsleiter Dr. Enke III C 1: Ministerialdirektor Dienstleiter Klemm Reserved special areas: NSRB; Academy for German Law; Participation in personnel matters of the judiciary III C 2: Oberregierungsrat Oberreichsleiter Dr. Enke Justizinspektor Gemeinschaftsleiter Ungethüm Party Law; Civil Law; Commercial Law; Labour Law; Procedural Law; Voluntary Jurisdiction; Bar Law; Civil Cases; Individual Cases III C 3: Oberlandesgerichtsrat Müller Justizinspektor Gemeinschaftsleiter Ungethüm Criminal Law; Wehrmacht Criminal Law; Juvenile Criminal Law; Grace Cases; Compensation Act; Criminal Cases, Individual Cases III C 4: Prosecutor von Kaldenberg Secondary criminal laws; traffic law; criminal proceedings for racial defilement; criminal procedural law; costs and fees; testimony approvals (interrogation law) III C 5: District Court Council Section leader Klemm-Werner participation in III C 2; industrial property law; copyright and publishing law; shipping law; treatment of hostile property III C 6: Higher Regional Court Council Dr. Hopf Strafsachen, Einzelfälle; Heimtückesachen; study and training reform; prison group III D: (Church, school, university, youth leader of the German Reich, Ministry of Propaganda, organization of celebrations, provision for war survivors) Head: Ministerialrat Dienstleiter Krüger Representative: Oberregierungsrat Reichsleiter Dr. Schmidt-Römer III D 1: Oberregierungsrat Abschnittleiter Dr. Fruhwirth Central steering of political and denominational affairs in the new areas, insofar as they are not dealt with in Divisions III D 2 to III D 4. Confessional contributions; right to leave and enter the church; cemetery law; public holiday law; acquisition of the right of the dead hand; confessional activities in hospitals; church statistics; general legal issues; insofar as they concern political-confessional matters III D 2: Oberlandesgerichtsrat Dr. Birk Steuerinspektor Wischer Allgemeine Kirchenfragen; Special Questions of the Protestant Church; Special Questions of the Catholic Church; Church and Wehrmacht; Other Churches and Sects; God-believers III D 3: Oberregierungsrat Bereichsleiter Dr. Schmidt-Römer Tax Inspector Wischer Finance and Property Affairs of the Churches, including Church Matters of the Reich Ministry of Finance; Church and Economy III D 4: Government Councillor Dr. Schlapper Tax Inspector Wischer Transfer of clergy and church officials to other professions; Personnel and Salary Matters of Political and Denominational Significance III D 5: Head of Office Dr. Wischer Landwehr Reichspropagandaministerium Restriction of confessional propaganda work and deconfessionalization of political and cultural means of leadership (literature, press, music, film, visual arts); celebration design; Reich Aviation Ministry; Confidential Information III D 6: Head of Studies, Section Head Dr. Anton Allgemeine Erziehungsfragen; personal details of teacher training institutions; HJ participation in educational matters at schools; German education abroad and in the areas incorporated into the Reich III D 7: Regierungsrat Section leader Kristandt Allgemeine Verwaltungs- und Rechtsangelegenheiten der Schule; Schule und Kirche; Landjahr; Heimschule; Kinderlandverschickung; Minderheitenschulwesen; Lehrerbesoldung; Jugendführer des Deutschen Reiches III D 8: z. Philipp Government Inspector Gerst University Affairs, including Personal Data; Technical and Vocational Schools; High Command of the Wehrmacht, in particular Wehrmacht Welfare III D 9: Kreisleiter Dr. Kurt Schmidt Displacement of denominational influences, especially denominational influence on youth outside school and on adult education; denominational interventions in hero worship; denominational superstition (miracles, prophecies, chain letters, pilgrimages, processions, etc.).); denominational influence on foreign peoples in the Reich; the abusive use of National Socialist terms, symbols and institutions as well as German customs by the churches; Churches and Party Group III E: (Finances) Head: Ministerialrat Oberbereichsleiter Dr. Gündel Representative: Oberregierungsrat Gemeinschaftsleiter Dr. Brack Financial policy; property and transport taxes; family burden equalisation; customs and excise taxes; monopolies; budget matters, financial equalisation; financial relations with the incorporated territories and with non-German territories and states; Reich assets and Reich debts; compensation issues Group III P: (civil servant matters and participation in state personnel policy) Head: Ministerialrat Dienstleiter Dr. Kernert Representative: Oberregierungsrat Oberbereichsleiter Döll III P 1: Ministerialrat Dienstleiter Dr. Kernert Reserved special areas: III P 2: Landrat Dr. Grazer General and internal administration; questions of junior staff and training III P 3: Landrat Dr. Hoffmann Auswärtiges Amt; Ministry of Labour; Unterrichtsverwaltung III P 4: Oberregierungsrat Oberbereichsleiter Döll Reichsjustizministerium; individual cases according to §§ 42 and 71 DBG III P 5: Oberregierungsrat Abschnittleiter Dr. Grazer Bode Amtsrat Gemeinschaftsleiter Sommer Beamtenrecht; Remuneration Law; Reich Finance Administration; Court of Audit; Prussian Finance Ministry; East Ministry; Colonial Policy Office III P 6: Reich Bank Council Section Head Grimm Reich Economics Ministry; Four-Year Plan; Reichsbank; Freemason Issues III P 7: Oberregierungsrat Section Head Kirn Reich Transport Ministry; Division Reich Minister Speer; Reich Post Ministry III P 8: Head of the section Brändle Beurlaubungen for purposes of the NSDAP; service penal cases - individual cases; civil servants of the simple, middle and upper service of all business areas; OKW; Reich Aviation Minister; Reich Forester III P 9: Regierungsrat Section leader Tent Jewish and mixed-race issues; police, medical, veterinary, and surveying administration; Reich Labor Service; Reich Ministry of Food; Reich Nutrition A business distribution plan for Division I, which was exclusively concerned with the administration of the Reich's agencies and whose leader in the years 1941 - 1943/44 was to be proven to be Hauptdienstleiter Winkler, from 1944 Dienstleiter Zeller (23), could not be determined. Externally, the three departments of the Party Chancellery continued to appear as "managing directors, internal party affairs officers and constitutional affairs officers". In addition to these three departments, which de facto constituted the "Party Chancellery" office, the published organisational overviews also continued to include other institutions de iure as parts of the Party Chancellery, which in practice developed as relatively independent independent entities or whose heads did not appear in their Party Chancellery function or appeared only marginally. Listed are (1942/1944): (24) Special representative at the party chancellery: Oberdienstleiter Oexle Main archive of the NSDAP: Reichsamtsleiter Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944: Bereichsleiter Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944: Head of the Department Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944 on: Head of the Department Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944 on: Head of the Department Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944 on: Head of the Department Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944 on: Head of the Department Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944 on: Head of the Department Dr. Uetrecht. Brügmann The Head of the Foreign Organization: Gauleiter Bohle The Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Popular Growth (from 1944: The Commissioner of the NSDAP for all Popular Issues): Reichsleiter Himmler The Commissioner for the New Construction of the Reich: Gauleiter Adolf Wagner The Commissioner for all Issues of Technology and its Organization: Commander-in-Chief Dr. Todt, Oberbefehlsleiter Speer The official in charge of all public health issues: (Chief) Befehlsleiter Dr. Conti The head of the NSDAP's Race Policy Office: Ober- bzw. Hauptdienstleiter Dr. Groß The head of the Office of Genealogy: Reichsamtsleiter bzw. Hauptbereichsleiter Dr. Mayer Der Beauftragte für Fragen der Finanz- und Steuerpolitik: Fritz Reinhardt, Reichslager of the NSDAP, Bad Tölz: Seidel, Reichsschule of the NSDAP, Feldafing am Starnberger See: Reichsamtsleiter or Oberdienstleiter Görlitz Remarks: (1) Thus the contemporary terminology of the task description in the organization and yearbooks of the NSDAP; here: Organisationsbuch der NSDAP, edited by the Reichsorganisationsleiter der NSDAP, 2.-4. Aufl., Munich 1937, p. 152 (BArch NSD 9/17). (2) On the overall complex of the relationship between party and state during Nazi rule, cf. in particular Martin Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers. Foundation and development of his internal constitution, Munich 8th edition 1979; Peter Diehl-Thiele, Party and State in the Third Reich. Studies on the relationship between the NSDAP and general internal state administration 1933-1945, Munich 1969. (3) Broszat, Staat Hitlers, p. 80, on the structure of the Reichsorganisationsleitung der NSDAP under Gregor Strasser see p. 73 ff. (4) Broszat, Staat Hitlers, p. 80, on the structure of the Reichsorganisationsleitung der NSDAP under Gregor Strasser cf. p. 79. (5) RGBl. I p. 1016. (6) BArch R 43 II/694. (7) RGBl. I. S 1203. (8) Information from the unprinted essay by Kurt Borsdorff: "Mit Reichsleiter Martin Bormann auf dem Obersalzberg" in BArch NS 6/789; cf. Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat, p. 218, note 46 (9) See above all the NSDAP Organization Books available until 1941 (BArch NSD 9/16-19) and the National Socialist Yearbooks published until 1938 "with the cooperation of the Reichsleitung der NSDAP" by Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler, from 1939 by Reichsorganisationsleiter Robert Ley (BArch NSD 9/22-26). (10) Organisational overviews and business distribution plans of the department of the deputy leader or of the party chancellery are summarised in NS 6/451. (11) NSD 9/25-26. (12) Cf. Broszat, State of Hitler, pp. 311 ff. (13) Printed, inter alia, in the Organisation Book of the NSDAP, 1943, p. 151 (NSD 9/20). (14) RGBl. I p. 295. (15) Cf. the detailed task description of the Party Chancellery in the National Socialist Yearbook 1944, p. 181 f. (NSD 9/28). (16) RGBl. I p. 35. (17) See above all Josef Wulf, Martin Bormann - Hitlers Schatten, Gütersloh 1962, Lew Besymenski, the last notes by Martin Bormann. A document and its author, Stuttgart 1974, and Jochen von Lang, The Secretary. Martin Bormann: The man who ruled Hitler, Stuttgart 1977. The various depictions of Rudolf Hess concentrate above all or even exclusively on his flight to England, the conviction in Nuremberg and in particular the prison time in Spandau, so that a comprehensive, scientific representation of the "deputy of the Führer" and his activities 1933 - 1941 is basically still outstanding. (18) NS 6/159. (19) Cf. in detail Broszat, State of Hitler, pp. 392 ff. (20) All plans and overviews in NS 6/451. (21) NS 6/138; below the group leader level it was not possible to assign the names listed there to certain organizational units. (22) NS 6/451; there also the less detailed organizational overview printed by Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat, pp. 222 ff. For the staff at the beginning of 1945, see also the telephone directory of 20 Jan. 1945 in NS 6/138. (23) In addition to the organizational overviews in NS 6/451, see NS Yearbooks 1942 and 1944 (NSD 9/27-28). (24) NS Yearbooks 1942 and 1944 (NSD 9/27-28). Inventory description: Inventory history of written records management in the party office Although file plans and other registry aids have only been handed down in fragments for certain periods of time, even then, a clear picture of the written records management of the Hess and Bormann offices can be drawn. A file plan from the year 1937 is divided into two main areas (10 party, 20 state) and then divided into four levels according to the subject system. Files that could have been listed according to this plan, which was valid until about 1940, are only preserved in the form of single sheets or small processes, so that this file plan was of no particular importance for the indexing of the holdings. On the other hand, an excerpt from the file plan for matters of Reich defence (1) dating from 1939 proved to be a useful aid. It provides for up to 80 small subject series, of which 3 to 18 each are grouped into five groups (operational planning, subject areas, defence, preparation of mobilisation and general affairs); finally, collective folders for routine processes could be created as required. The systematic weaknesses that are typical of small subject series became clearly apparent in the distortion. The division of the records into "destination files", "auxiliary files" and "files for correspondence" is not convincing and could be neglected in the listing of the files of the competent Division M and Group II M respectively. File plans for the mass of the surviving records, i.e. from the time of the Party Chancellery (1941 - 1945), have not been preserved. After all, Rotulus sheets preserved for a sub-area with titles to essentially completed processes show the systematics of the underlying file plan (2). Rotulus leaves for the file numbers 1010/0 to 3230/4 have been preserved, whereby a further stage in the numerical classification was partly formed. The classification was based on the department principle. The file plan was used until the end of the war, as the comparatively closed tradition from Department III shows, and was observed in principle. The reference number consisted of the name of the respective organizational unit and the file number. The fate of the holdings since the conquest of Germany by the Allies corresponds to the history of German contemporary historical sources in the war and post-war period in general. Perhaps there is a specific feature typical of the existence of a political party in that self-destruction by party functionaries accounts for a larger proportion than destruction by enemy action. Of course, the acts of annihilation cannot be proven in detail. Since 1955, the Federal Archives have received splinter-like remnants and a few closed groups of records, essentially from offices of the victorious powers USA and Great Britain, to a lesser extent from authorities and universities in the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as about two dozen individual donations from private holdings, whereby takeovers from other holdings of the Federal Archives are added. In 1955, the Federal Archives took over copies of letters from the Chief of the Security Police and the SD to Bormann, of judgments handed over to Bormann by the Reich Minister of Justice, and of other documents from the Provenance Party Chancellery, all relating to events in connection with the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, all of which - supplemented by a small amount of material from private collections - were combined in the NS 6 "Party Chancellery of the NSDAP" as a special "Collection July 20, 1944" due to their common provenance. The originals of these documents, which had already been transferred to the main archive of the NSDAP before the end of the war, were received by the Bundesarchiv in 1962 in the course of the repatriation of German files from the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia (USA). These historically highly significant materials were already made accessible in detail by Jürgen Huck in November 1955. His title recordings have been completely incorporated into this finding aid book (p. 94 ff.). The other contributions come from the University Library of Heidelberg, the American Document Center in Berlin, the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia, and the National Archives of the United States in Washington, D.C., the Library of Congress there, and the British file depot in Whaddon Hall. In addition, there were a large number of smaller statements from German authorities and private owners. The holdings received a larger increase in the course of many years of organizing work from other holdings of the Federal Archives, above all from the NS 26 holdings (main archive of the NSDAP) and the "Schumacher Collection", which is to be dissolved altogether. In total, no more than 5 documents of the Party Chancellery should be preserved in the Federal Archives. This rough estimate may disregard the registries of the State Secretary Reinhardt in his capacity as "representative of the deputy of the leader or of the Party Chancellery for matters of job creation, financial and tax policy" and his personal adviser Dr. Hans Gündel, who was head of Group III E Public Finances in the Party Chancellery, remaining in inventory R 2 (Reich Ministry of Finance). Comments: (1) Both file plans in NS 6/69. (2) NS 6/803 - 804. Archival processing While the "Collection 20. July 1944" and which became known according to their core as "Kaltenbrunner Reports", were subjected to a detailed indexing, which already led in 1955 to a finding aid book with a detailed introduction and comprehensive index, the remaining parts of the inventory, fed by a multitude of duties and takeovers, were first recorded in the order of access, provided with provisional signatures, and in some cases marked summarily in terms of content - whereby, if available, the delivery directories of the delivering agency, for example the "Kaltenbrunner Reports", were usually followed. B. of the US Document Center -, Z. T. however, also downright according to archivfachlichen points of view registered. The final organizing and indexing work now carried out on this stock could therefore only partly be concerned with recording a number of accesses that had not been indexed at all up to now. The main task was rather the consolidation, standardisation and, in particular, the overall classification of the archival records - also from other holdings of the Federal Archives - which had been divided into numerous accesses and indexed to varying degrees of intensity up to that point, and which naturally necessitated an examination, but mostly also a reformulation, of the provisional titles found. This applied in particular when, on the one hand, the dissolution of predefined archive units, which had previously only been described in summary form and which had mostly been formed formally in Allied custody, into individual processes was offered, and, on the other hand, the combination of scattered parts of processes into processes or also of scattered individual processes into uniform series, some of which were provided for by the file plan, became possible. The intensive recording to Bormann of the reports of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD on the events in connection with the assassination attempt on 20 July 1944, made almost thirty years ago, was taken over in the finding aid book. Since, of course, it was not necessary to index the remaining components at this extraordinary depth, this complex of archival records described in Section C 8.1 continues to occupy a special position within the holdings, which is also clearly discernible according to formal criteria. This can be justified both on the basis of the exceptional importance of the documented object, proven by the very high user frequency, and on the remarkable quality of the sources. The "originals" of the above-mentioned documents, which arrived in the Federal Archives considerably later (1962) - the indexing in 1955 had been done on the basis of copies taken over from the Federal Archives at the time and made in American custody - had been formed according to American principles of order and were provided with their own provisional archive signatures in the Federal Archives. They have now been adapted to the order and distortion as they were created in 1955 for the distortion of the corresponding copies. This adaptation also extends to the signatures, so that the found distortion of the copies can also be applied without any restriction to the corresponding volume of originals - which now bears the same signature. In principle, attempts were made to adopt predefined registry units, to retain grown processes as archive units, and to use existing titles as a basis for title formation during indexing wherever possible. This attempt, however, could essentially only succeed with the organically grown written material from the years after 1940/41 handed down from Division III in the areas of "Foreign Trade" (C 12), "Money and Capital Markets" (C 14), "Construction Industry" (C 18) and "Housing Construction, Housing Management, Settlements" (C 19) - i.e. from the offices III B 1 and III B 2 - with limitations also in the surviving records of the main offices and the main offices with restrictions. Groups II M (mobilization of the party and distribution of the Reich) and II F (Nazi leadership and education of the Wehrmacht). As a rule, only scattered and incoherent remnants from the other organisational units, i.e. also from the registries of the deputy leader, his staff leader or the head of the party chancellery, the department heads, from the groups II A and II B concerned with the actual party leadership in the narrower sense, as well as from the years 1933 to 1936 in general, reached the holdings. Here, therefore, there was only the choice of registering individual pieces as such - if the historical value made it appear justified - or of combining documents that belonged together thematically or according to formal criteria to form artificial processes in which either the documented object or the formal criterion (e.g. Führer's discussions with Bormann, templates for Reichsleiter Bormann, lectures by Friedrich's head of department to the Führer's deputy) were decisive for the process formation. The relatively complete and complete series of orders, decrees and circulars of the deputy of the leader or of the party chancellery is of central importance not only with regard to the overall wrecked tradition of the entire collection, but also because of its outstanding independent source value. The information contained in these documents (cf. Section C 1) on all areas of the Party Chancellery's leadership and administrative activities was primarily intended for higher Nazi functionaries and constitutes a high-quality collection of sources, both in terms of quality and quantity, for research into the ruling apparatus of both the NSDAP and the Nazi regime in Germany, which could be used not only for special studies on Hess and Bormann's offices, but also for a variety of questions in the research of the Nazi era. It therefore seemed advisable not to leave it - under the influence of the party announcements printed in the Reichsverfügungsblatt - with a conventional recording of titles by volume, which was limited to chronological information, but to make the content of both the subject matter and the text of the decrees, orders and circulars as accessible as possible using the possibilities of automatic data processing. The result of this indexing will be presented in the second part of this finding aid book, while in the first part the series of party announcements will be recorded and listed in purely chronological order within the overall systematics of the stock (Section C 1). As far as possible, the classification of the records is based on the remaining business distribution plans of Divisions II and III. The "regulatory registration principle" was applied insofar as, for practical reasons, it proved necessary to provide for several development sections (Sections C 18 and C 19) at a relatively low organisational level (e.g. head office III B 2 c) in the case of relatively dense parts of the transmission from offices III B 1 and III B 2. In organisational areas with a ruinous tradition, on the other hand, written records of several groups were sometimes combined, e.g. groups II F and II W in section C 5. It goes without saying that in cases in which a classification was not formally possible due to a lack of business signs or due to the dissolution of the registry discipline at the end of the war, a decision was made on the basis of factual aspects. This applies in particular to the documents in connection with 20 July, which went directly to Bormann at the Führer's headquarters without any noteworthy processing by the Party Chancellery and from there went directly to the main archive of the NSDAP. In the classification scheme of the index they now appear under the generic term "Combating political opponents by security police and SD", although an assignment to Bormann's reference files in Chapter B would also have been conceivable. This applies mutatis mutandis to the documents relating to general party management matters, which are combined under "Management, Adjutant's Office" and in Sections C 2 and C 3 and for which there was no recognisable regulatory approach - not even in the form of a reference number - to registration. As it were, those documents were appended to the inventory under the designation "Special Tasks" which did not arise from Bormann's activity as head of the Party Chancellery, but were related to Bormann's activity as an administrator of Hitler's private assets. These are remnants of the traditions of the equipment of the planned "Führer Museum" in Linz and the recovery of the art treasures already "acquired" for this purpose, as well as a few files from the management of the "Führerstiftung Wohnungsbau Linz" and the administration of the "Führerbauten" on the Obersalzberg. A total of three concordances not only ensure that certain signatures of the holdings can be easily identified in the finding aid book (Concordance I), but also guarantee that archival documents cited after Allied signatures (Concordance II), after the provisional numbers of the Federal Archives or after earlier signatures from other holdings of the Federal Archives (Concordance III) remain easily accessible. In principle, an inventory of the Federal Archives is to be used according to the Federal Archives' specially prepared finding aids, since the Allied signatures indicated, for example, in the American "Guides to German Records microfilmed at Alexandria" or other finding aids for confiscated German files, mostly represent an outdated state of order of the files and can only be used for ordering American microfilms. For practical reasons, it should still be possible in individual cases to move from the Allied signature possibly cited in publications to the signature of the original in the Federal Archives. The present finding aid book was created as part of a retro-digitisation project of the Federal Archives and contains the digitised indexing results of the present conventional finding aid. In connection with the planned online launch, the portfolio was revised in 2008. The entire collection was supplemented above all by files and dossiers from the collection "NS Archive of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR". Citation method BArch NS 6/ .... Characterization of the content: The fact that a user of the inventory is repeatedly reminded of the fact that these are only highly unequally distributed debris or even scattered fragments of a formerly quantitatively and qualitatively important registry body, roughly comparable with the inventory of the Reich Chancellery (R 43), is certainly the main reason why considerations of the historical value of the existing traditions must have an ambivalent result. Due to the closed series of the "Verfügungen, Anordnungen und Rundschreiben" and the - admittedly for the most part for a long time published -(1) Überlieferung zum 20. Juli 1944 (1) the holdings certainly belong to the qualitatively most significant from the time of the Nazi rule. However, even against the background of the most recent outstanding importance and competence of the party law firm and in particular of its head, the tradition still received cannot make up for the loss of important parts of the registry. Thus Bormann's much-described closeness and position of trust in relation to Hitler is documented at best in some splintery notes on "Führerbesprechungungen". The party's relationship to the state, Bormann's role in the Nazi power structure, in particular also considerations of the actual power of Hitler's directly assigned offices and the forms of rule exercised by them cannot be conclusively assessed on the basis of Bormann's preserved sources and the party chancellery, in which some important conclusions could rightly have been expected for the aforementioned reason. The fact that, instead, the Nazi regime's efforts to build social housing during the war are very closely documented and can largely make up for the loss of the Reich Housing Commissioner's tradition is a pleasing finding for the detailed researcher in this context, but it is undoubtedly of subordinate importance overall. The question remains as to whether the decisive files - such as the personal registry - will be filed by the applicant.

BArch, NS 19 · Fonds · (1806-1807) 1925-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: With effect from 9. November 1936 Transformation of the Chief Adjutant's Office of the Reichsführer SS into the organizational unit "The Reichsführer SS Personal Staff"; function of the Persönli‧chen Staff Reichsführer SS - one of the main offices of the Reichsführung SS - as sachbear‧beitende Office of the Reichsführer SS for tasks that did not fall within the competence of SS departments; division of the Personal Staff Reichsführer SS into offices in the years 1942-1944: Amt Wewelsburg, Amt Ahnenerbe, Amt Lebensborn, Amt/Abteilung Presse, Amt München (artistic and architectural tasks in connection with the SS-Wirt‧schafts-Verwaltungshauptamt), Amt Rohstoffe/Rohstoffamt, Amt für Volkstumsfragen, Zen‧tralinstitut for optimal human recording (statistical and practical evaluation of the "human recording" at the SS and police), Amt Staffführung (internal affairs of the staff and the offices) Long text: As Heinrich Himmler at the age of 28 years by order of Hitler from 20. When the SS was appointed Reichsführer-SS on January 1, 1929, only about 280 men belonged to the SS, at that time still a special formation of the SA. The supreme leadership organ of the "Schutzstaffeln der NSDAP", set up in the spring of 1925 for Hitler's personal protection and protection of the assembly, whose abbreviation "SS" was probably to become the best-known cipher symbolizing the reign of terror of the National Socialist regime in Germany and Europe, was the "Oberleitung der Schutzstaffeln der NSDAP", which functioned organizationally as part of the Supreme SA leadership in Munich. At the height of the Second World War, on 30 June 1944, the SS then comprised almost 800,000 members, of whom almost 600,000 were in the Waffen SS alone [1]. During these 15 years, the bureaucratic apparatus of the SS had grown enormously through the establishment of new offices, main offices and other central institutions at the highest level of management and through the formation of numerous subordinate offices and institutions. At the same time - also as a consequence of Himmler's leadership principle of the division of competences on the one hand and the linking of institutionally divided competences by personal union on the other - the organisational network at the top of the SS [2], which had become an if not the decisive instrument of power, had turned out to be almost unmanageable. The formal separation of the SS from the SA took place in two steps. Himmler's communication to the SS of December 1, 1930, according to which "the complete separation of SA and SS had been completed" [3], was followed by an order issued by Hitler as the Supreme SA Leader on January 14, 1931, that the Reichsführer-SS, as leader of the entire SS, be subordinated to the Chief of Staff, and the SS, as an independent association with its own official channels, be subordinated to the Reichsführer-SS [4]. With the "elevation" of the SS "to an independent organization within the framework of the NSDAP" ordered by Hitler on July 20, 1934, the binding of the SS to the SA was finally concluded. This was justified by the great merits, "especially in connection with the events of 30 June 1934" [5], i.e. the so-called "Röhm Putsch". At the same time the Reichsführer-SS, like the chief of staff of the SA, was directly subordinated to Hitler. In 1929, the Reichsführung-SS, which at first still knew a "managing director of the overhead management", had a very modest cut within the framework of the then equally underdeveloped Obersten SA leadership. The institutional expansion of the SS leadership pursued by Himmler ran clearly parallel to the development of the Supreme SA leadership, after Ernst Röhm had taken it over as Chief of Staff in January 1931. As with the latter, several departments and departments were created in the Reichsführung-SS until May 1931 in the following structure [6]: Ia Structure, Training, Security Ib Motorisation, Transport Ic Intelligence, Press Id Clothing, Catering, Accommodation Iia Personnel Department, Staffing Iib Proof of Strength III Matters of Honour, Legal Matters Iva Money Management Ivb Medical Care of the SS (Reichsarzt-SS) V Propaganda The SS Office developed from these organisational units in 1932. The department Ic became the SD Office, a race office, later race and settlement office, at the beginning of 1932 newly created. With Himmler's appointment as inspector of the Prussian Police on April 20, 1934 and Reinhard Heydrich's function as head of both the Secret State Police Office and the SD Main Office, the SD Office, later known as the SD Main Office, underwent a development that was separate from the narrower Reichsführung-SS. In 1939, this led to the merger of the SD Main Office and the SD Main Office Security Police to form the Reichssicherheitshauptamt [7]. Although the Reich Security Main Office, the Ordnungspolizei Main Office, the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German People's Growth, and the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle were all part of the SS leadership, according to the understanding of the SS and the NSDAP; these authorities, however, apart from the joint leadership by Himmler as Reichsführer-SS and head of the German Police, and as Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German People's Growth and the linking of state and party-official tasks, essentially performed state functions [8]. The SS Office of 1932, which from 1935 was known as the SS Main Office [9], changed its tasks and became the nucleus of new main offices into the war years. They arose as the Reichsführung-SS continued to expand through increasing leadership and administrative tasks: Development of the armed units, development and leadership of the Waffen-SS during the war, administration of the concentration camps (KL) and the economic enterprises of the SS, activities in the ideological-political field. The order issued by the Reichsführer-SS on January 14, 1935, to reorganize the Reichsführung-SS with effect from January 20, 1935, named the "Staff Reichsführer-SS" in addition to the SS Main Office, the SD Main Office, and the Race and SS Main Offices, the SD Main Office, and the Race and Settlement Main Office. It was divided into a chief adjutant's office, a personnel office, a SS court, an audit department and a staff treasury [10]. The Chief Adjutant's Office was later to become the Main Office of Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS. The staff of the Reichsführer-SS and the SS-Hauptamt were closely linked in terms of personnel by the fact that the chiefs of individual offices of the Hauptamt simultaneously performed functions in the staff. So corresponded in the SS-Hauptamt: Staff Reichsführer-SS: Personalamt (II) Personalkanzlei (II) Gerichtsamt (III) SS-Gericht (III) Verwaltungsamt (IV) Verwaltungschef-SS und Reichskassenverwalter (IV) Sanitätsamt (V) Reichsarzt-SS (V) In addition, the Führungsamt (I) and the Ergänzungsamt (VI) as well as the inspector of the KL and the SS-Wachverbände - directly subordinated to the head of the SS-Hauptamt - were added to the SS-Hauptamt, from 1936 the SS-Totenkopfverbände, and, from autumn 1935, the inspector of the disposal troop. One after the other, the corresponding organizational units in the SS Main Office or the SS Main Office were subsequently transformed into in the staff Reichsführer-SS 1939: - the SS-Personalhauptamt für die Personalangelegenheiten der SS-Führer [11], - the Hauptamt SS-Gericht [12], - the Hauptamt Verwaltung und Wirtschaft [13], which from 1942 was united with the Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten des Reichsführers-SS and Chefs der Deutschen Polizei und dem SS-Verwaltungsamt to form the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt [14], 1940: - the SS Main Office "for the military leadership of the Waffen SS and pre- and post-military training of the General SS" [15], - the "Dienststelle SS-Obergruppenführer Heißmeyer", which supervised national political educational institutions and home schools within the portfolio of the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and Popular Education, as it were the preliminary stage of a planned Main Office for national political education [16]. The SS-Hauptamt under its leader SS-Gruppenführer Gottlob Berger essentially retained the registration and supplementary services as well as matters of training, especially for SS members recruited in the "Germanic Lands". In addition to these main offices and offices, Himmler had early established his own office to direct the apparatus and to supervise institutions directly subordinated to him and tasks in his adjutant's office that remained outside the offices. On June 15, 1933, the SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Wolff [17], who was the same age as Himmler, had joined them as full-time adjutant. Wolff very soon became Himmler's closest confidante, accompanied him on his travels and took part in his leadership tasks. In 1935 he became chief adjutant. Himmler took the upgrading of the Chief Adjutant's Office as an institution that had outgrown its original function into account when he transformed it into the Personal Staff by order of November 9, 1936 [18]: "1.) With effect from 9 November 1936, the previous Chief Adjutant of the Reichsführer-SS was given the designation 'The Reichsführer-SS Personal Staff' in view of its size and its greatly expanded service area over the years. 2.) I appoint SS-Brigadeführer Wolff as Chief of the Personal Staff. 3.) The new Adjutant of the Reichsführer-SS to be established forms a department of the Personal Staff." The simultaneous elevation of the Personal Staff to a main office was not only not pronounced, but probably also not intended. The increasing tasks of the Personal Staff on the one hand and the consideration of Wolff's position in relation to the newly established Heads of Main Office in 1939 may have persuaded Himmler to subsequently interpret another order of November 9, 1936, later, in 1939, to the effect that he had already at that time elevated the Personal Staff to a Main Office. In this order of November 9, 1936 [19] on the "Reorganization of the Command Relations in the All SS", he had announced the "Structure of the Office of the Reichsführer SS" as follows: SS Main Office, SD Main Office, Race and Settlement Main Office, Reichsführer SS Personal Staff; in addition, the Chief of the Ordnungspolizei, SS Obergruppenführer Daluege, had the rank of Head of Main Office. In the order of June 1, 1939, with which he formed the SS Personnel Main Office and the SS Court Main Office, he took up this order again and formulated that he had "established" them as the Main Offices. Still in the order of April 20, 1939, to found the Hauptamtes Verwaltung und Wirtschaft, however, he had declared that it was "a Hauptamt like the other Hauptämter of the Reichsführung-SS (SS-Hauptamt, SD-Hauptamt, Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt, Hauptamt Ordnungspolizei, and Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei). So there was still no talk of a main office Personal Staff here. Wolff was only appointed head of the main office retroactively on 8 June 1939 [20]. The function and task of the Personal Staff are described as follows in a directive of 3 April 1937 on command management and administration in the area of responsibility of the Reichsführer-SS [21]: "The Personal Staff of the Reichsführer-SS is the administrative office of the Reichsführer-SS for those matters which do not belong to the areas of activity of the heads of the SS-Hauptamt, the SD-Hauptamt, the Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt or the administrative central offices. For reasons of competence, the Chief of the Personal Staff must finally hand over to the SS Headquarters, the SD Headquarters, the Race and Settlement Headquarters, or the Central Offices in charge all matters which fall within the competence of the Heads of the SS Headquarters, the SD Headquarters, or the Central Offices in charge. The Chief of the Personal Staff simultaneously supervises a) the Adjutant's Office of the Reichsführer-SS, b) the entrance office of the Reichsführer-SS, c) the "Chancellery of the Reichsführer-SS". Two characteristics of the Personal Staff are thus shown: It should not perform any tasks in competition with the SS specialist departments, but should be Himmler's administrative office for tasks outside these departments, i.e. at least partially exercise the specialist supervision over Himmler's directly subordinate institutions. The function of the Personal Staff as a "central command post of the Reichsführung-SS" [22], which has brought about the quality of its records and thus of the archive records to be described here, is not addressed here. In addition, a number of chief positions were assigned to the Personal Staff, whose holders functioned in personal union as heads of the corresponding offices in the SS Main Office or in the SS Main Office, but which in turn did not develop into their own SS Main Offices: The chief defender of the Reich was at the same time chief of the Office for Security Tasks in the SS-Hauptamt, later in the SS-Führungshauptamt. The Inspector for Physical Education was head of the Office for Physical Education in the SS Main Office. The Inspector for Communications, who was also Chief of the Office for Communications in the SS-Hauptamt and later in the SS-Führungshauptamt, was renamed Chief of Telecommunications and, towards the end of the war, traded as Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Chief of Telecommunications. From 1942, for example, he was ordered by Himmler to set up and train a female SS intelligence corps [23]. The head of the SS-Fürsorge- und Versorgungsamt, which was established in 1938, dissolved in 1944, and initially placed under Himmler's personal control, also held a chief position in the Personal Staff. Among the institutions that Himmler directly controlled through the Personal Staff were the economic enterprises of the SS [24] (Nordland-Verlag GmbH, Porzellanmanufaktur Allach, Photogesellschaft F.F. Bauer GmbH, Anton Loibl GmbH, Gemeinnützige Wohnungs- und Heimstätten-GmbH and the Spargemeinschaft-SS, later SS-Spargemeinschaft e.V.), the Gesellschaft zur Förderung und Pflege Deutscher Kulturdenkmäler e.V. [Society for the Promotion and Maintenance of German Cultural Monuments], which were established in the mid-30s, and the SS [24], which was the first German society to establish a "Society for the Promotion and Maintenance of German Cultural Monuments", the Externsteine-Stiftung and the König-Heinrich I.-Gedächtnis-Stiftung. All these institutions served financial as well as cultural, ideological or social purposes at the same time. For example, the licence fees from the exploitation of the patent for a pedal reflector for bicycles - the inventor Loibl was a motorist of Hitler - by Anton Loibl GmbH benefited "Ahnenerbe" e.V. and the association "Lebensborn". In addition to tableware, Porzellanmanufaktur Allach produced gift articles which were not sold but were distributed by Himmler alone to SS members and their families as well as to other recipients on certain occasions via the Personal Staff or the SS Adjutant's Office [25]. Among the articles that were produced for Himmler's "gift chamber" were life candlesticks and children's Frisians, Jul candlesticks and Jul plates, sculptures such as SS flag bearers, SS horsemen, lansquenets with lance, Garde du Corps, jugglers, dachshunds, mountain deer, traditional costume groups, and much more. In the Personal Staff, these businesses were assigned to a "cultural department", with the exception of the Savings Community SS, for which the "Economic Aid Department" was responsible. The old cultural department became obsolete in 1938, when all economic enterprises were economically and organizationally subordinated to the SS-Verwaltungsamt in the SS-Hauptamt. One exception was the porcelain manufactory Allach, which was institutionalized in the Personal Staff as the "Amt München". Among the institutions economically subordinated to the SS-Verwaltungsamt in 1938 were also the Externsteine-Stiftung with the purpose of preserving the alleged Germanic cult site near Detmold [26], the König Heinrich I.Gedächtnis-Stiftung, which was responsible for the care and preservation of the Quedlinburg Cathedral, and the Gesellschaft zur Förderung und Pflege Deutscher Kulturdenkmäler e.V. (Society for the Promotion and Care of German Cultural Monuments), which looked after a number of objects, the best-known of which were the Wewelsburg near Paderborn, the Sachsenhain near Verden/Aller and the Haithabu excavation site near Schleswig. Thus also the "Department for Cultural Research", which until then had been in the Personal Staff - together with a Department for "Excavations" - for these institutions and other Himmler ambitions in culturally-historically oriented areas, lost its idealistic competence and finally also its organizational basis. The beneficiary was the "Lehr- und Forschungsgemeinschaft Das Ahnenerbe", founded in 1935, which had been affiliated to the Personal Staff since the end of 1936 and belonged to the Personal Staff from April 1, 1942 in the organizational form of an office [27]. Economically, however, the "Ahnenerbe" was also subject to the SS-Verwaltungsamt since 1938. The "Ahnenerbe" - with Himmler as president at the helm - had the statutory task of "researching the space, spirit, deed and heritage of North-Rassian Indo-Europeanism, bringing the research results to life and communicating them to the people". Objectives to make the "Ahnenerbe" the "reservoir for all cultural efforts of the Reichsführer-SS" were questioned by Himmler's leadership style, however, "that he did not necessarily want to unite everything in the "Ahnenerbe" in order not to concentrate too many important and essential things in one place" [28]. In the course of its complicated history, which succinctly documented the mental aberration and confusion of Himmler's ideology and scientific ideas, the "Ahnenerbe" attempted to go beyond its early conception and become a bizarre research site for various areas of the "cultural sciences" and natural sciences that could serve both the Nazi ideas of domination and the very concrete ones. During the war it expanded its activities further, e.g. in the form of the so-called "Germanic Science Mission" in the occupied "Germanic" countries. For its journalistic activities, it had an Ahnenerbe-Stiftungs-Verlag publishing house. The "Ancestral Heritage" finally fell into direct entanglement with the inhuman and criminal practices of the Nazi regime through the affiliated "Institute for Military Research", whose establishment Himmler had personally ordered. Under the guise of research allegedly important to the war, cruel experiments were carried out on concentration camp prisoners, which were linked to the names of doctors involved, such as Dr. Siegmund Rascher. Prof. Dr. August Hirt conducted perverted "research" at the Reich University of Strasbourg with his anthropological investigations of skulls and skeletons of "Jewish-Bolshevik Commissioners" who had previously been killed in Auschwitz [29]. A "cultural object" that remained outside the jurisdiction of the "Ancestor's Heritage" was the Wewelsburg castle in East Westphalia, with which Himmler intended to create a permanent place of worship for the SS order's idea [30]. Himmler remained personally concerned about their development, up to the planting of the castle slope with walnut trees. Organizationally, it was also anchored in an office at the Personal Staff. Another office in the Personal Staff, which represented an association, was the office Lebensborn. The association "Lebensborn" had been founded in 1936 and - contrary to what was published after the end of the war - had the statutory purpose of supporting families with many children and assisting single mothers [31], in keeping with the Nazi racial ideology and population policy "racially and hereditarily biologically valuable". Special homes were set up to accommodate them. The "Lebensborn" became directly culpable during the war as a caring organization for "racially valuable" children whose parents had been persecuted, transferred to concentration camps or killed; among them, for example, were the children of the inhabitants of Lidice and Lezáky, who had been shot dead or sent to concentration camps in the course of retaliatory measures for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, and children whose parents had been executed as members of the Czech resistance movement [32]. The observation of the press was an early concern of Himmler. The later office press in the personal staff had the task of keeping Himmler informed about press news. In addition, he was responsible for cooperation with party and state press control agencies, certain censorship tasks and the development of word and image documentation. Among other things, the Office also prepared an "Organization Book of the SS," since, according to its leader, "very few SS leaders have a complete overview of the organization of the Reichsführer-SS's area of work in detail" [33]. In order to carry out Himmler's tasks within the framework of the 2nd Four-Year Plan, an "Office Four-Year Plan" was created in the Personal Staff. It was involved in labour recruitment, construction and raw materials management, energy problems and research. In 1942 it was "tacitly" dissolved and incorporated into the "Rohstoffamt" [34], which had emerged from the staff office of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Popular Growth [35]. A very early office that Himmler permanently linked to the Personal Staff was the office "Reichsarzt SS und Polizei", headed by Dr. Ernst Robert Grawitz until the end of the war. Grawitz has become less well known than Dr. Karl Gebhardt, the chief physician of the SS hospital Hohenlychen, in whose treatment Himmler very often went and who traded as "Supreme Clinician of the Staff of the Reich Physician SS and Police" [36]. Finally the "SS-Mannschaftshäuser" are to be mentioned; since the mid-30s they served to bring together the SS members at the universities "for the training of the scientific offspring required by the SS", as Himmler put it in 1939 [37], when he withdrew this institution from the Race and Settlement Main Office and turned it into an "SS office in the Personal Staff". According to staffing plans and job descriptions [38], the Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS in 1942/44 was structured and staffed as follows: Chief of the Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS Karl Wolff Offices Wewelsburg: SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS Siegfried Taubert, Burghauptmann der SS-Schule "Haus Wewelsburg" Amt Ahnenerbe: SS-Oberführer Professor Dr. Walter Wüst, curator and head of office; SS-Standartenführer Wolfram Sievers, Reichsgeschäftsführer and deputy head of office Amt Lebensborn: SS-Standartenführer Max Sollmann, board member and head of office Amt/Abt. Presse: SS-Obersturmbannführer Gerhard Radke, later SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Behrendt Amt München: SS-Standartenführer Professor Karl Diebitsch (processing of all artistic and architectural questions in connection with the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt) Amt Rohstoffe/Rohstoffamt: SS-Standartenführer Albert Kloth Amt für Volkstumsfragen: SS-Brigadeführer Erich Cassel, head of office and liaison officer to the Reichsleitung der NSDAP and the offices of the Reichsführer-SS Zentralinstitut für optimale Menschenerfassung: SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Albert Bartels (Statistical and practical evaluation of the entire "human recording" in the SS and police) Office staff management: Staff leader SS-Oberführer Otto Ullmann, from February 1943 SS-Standartenführer Paul Baumert (responsible for all internal affairs of the staff and the offices) with the directly subordinate main departments: SS-Adjutantur: SS-Obersturmbannführer Werner Grothmann Police-Adjutantur: Lieutenant Colonel of the Schutzpolizei Willy Suchanek and SS-Hauptsturmführer Martin Fälschlein Personal Department Reichsführer-SS: SS-Standartenführer Dr. Rudolf Brandt, Ministerialrat, Personal Officer of the Reichsführer-SS and Reichsminister des Innern Sachbearbeiter Chef Persönlicher Stab (S.B.Ch.P.): SS-Obersturmführer Heinrich Heckenstaller Orden und Gäste: SS-Standartenführer Hans von Uslar, later SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Helmut Fitzner Administration: SS-Hauptsturmführer Oskar Winzer, later SS-Obersturmbannführer Christian Mohr (administration of the staff and the subordinated offices) Economic Aid: SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Helmut Fitzner (debt relief and loan matters for the SS) Staff: SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritz Breitfeldt SS-judicial liaison officer: SS-Standartenführer Horst Bender The representative for service dogs at the Reichsführer-SS: SS-Oberführer Franz Mueller (Darß) (service dogs questions of the Waffen-SS and police at the Reichsführer-SS) and departments: - Awards and orders (subordinate to the SS-Adjutantur; processing of high awards in Waffen-SS and police) - records management and office (records registration and custody) - intelligence office (monitoring of all intelligence means of the Berlin office of the Reichsführer-SS) - driving service - commander of the staff department of the Waffen-SS (leadership and supervision of all Waffen-SS members transferred to the Personal Staff). This overview also mentions a number of other institutions that Himmler personally subordinated, were "worked on" in the Personal Staff and are documented there. These included, for example, the Reichsführer-SS Personal Staff, Department F, SS camp Dachau - Haus 13, Ernährungswissenschaftliches Versuchsgut. The director was Dr. Karl Fahrenkamp; his main task was the development of preparations for the promotion of plant growth. Around 1940 the Statistical Inspectorate was set up. From January 1944 it was called the Statistical-Scientific Institute of the Reichsführer-SS, was headed by Dr. Richard Korherr and was commissioned with the preparation of statistical work for Himmler. To be mentioned in this context are still ad hoc special institutions such as the representative of the Reichsführer-SS in the staff of the Special Representative for the Investigation of the Appropriate Use of War, General von Unruh, SS-Standartenführer Harro With, and the Reichsführer-SS Sonderstab Oberst Streck, who had to follow letters about grievances in offices and troops. Another of Himmler's countless areas of interest, the development of raw materials during the war, is probably to be attributed to the fact that he was not only very personally concerned, for example, with the breeding of caraculae and perennial rye or with the extraction of oil shale, but that he had Göring officially appoint him special envoy for all questions of plant rubber [39]. In the occupied Polish and Soviet territories, cultivation trials with Kok-Sagys, a plant found in European Russia, were undertaken at great expense in order to obtain usable quantities of natural rubber for the German war economy. The business of the Personal Staff in the narrower sense was conducted by the Office Staff Management with the subordinate main departments and departments. The other offices - the Amt für Volkstumsfragen and the Zentralinstitut für optimale Menschenerfassung (Central Institute for Optimal Human Recording) (with tasks of statistical labour force recording using the Hollerith method), which were established only towards the end of the war and apparently remained without significance and precipitation, were listed only for the sake of completeness - belonged to the Personal Staff, but had separate offices and their own registries. The most important organizational units in the Office of Staff Management were the main departments Personal Department Reichsführer-SS and S.B.Ch.P. (Head of Personal Staff) and the adjutant offices. The Dog Service Officer worked outside the Personal Staff Unit. Although the SS-richterliche Verbindungsführer was always located in the vicinity of Himmler, he conducted his official business separately from that of the staff; his registration was not included in the records of the Personal Staff [40]. Wolff's main task as Chief of the Personal Staff was to support Himmler as the closest employee and confidant in his leadership tasks. His function changed when he was appointed liaison leader of the Reichsführer-SS at Hitler on 26 August 1939. He now stayed in the immediate vicinity of Hitler, i.e. also in his field quarters. Without having any technical competence, he should keep Himmler up to date on developments at the Führer's headquarters and be available to answer questions from the Führer's headquarters. The position directly assisting the Chief of Personal Staff was the S.B.Ch.P. Main Department. (clerk chief of personal staff). The incumbent or one of his employees had to work for Wolff at the Führer's headquarters [41]. When Wolff fell seriously ill in February 1943, Himmler took over the leadership of the Main Office Personal Staff "until further notice" himself. Wolff did not return to this position; after his recovery in the summer of 1943 he prepared for his function in Italy [42]. Himmler did not appoint a new chief of the Personal Staff, but continued to perform this function himself. He dissolved the S.B.Ch.P. department. Himmler's closest collaborator after Wolff, especially since Wolff's appointment as Liaison Leader at Hitler and finally as Supreme SS and Police Leader in Italy, was his personal advisor Dr. Rudolf Brandt. Himmler's already large area of responsibility was expanded by Himmler's appointment as Reich Minister of the Interior to include the processing of tasks from the area of this ministry. Brandt always worked in the immediate vicinity of Himmler. His powers extended far beyond those of a personal speaker who accompanied Himmler on his travels and, for example, as a trained stenographer, recorded Himmler's speeches. He decided which post was presented to Himmler or not, gave a daily lecture on the problems involved, independently implemented instructions from the Reichsführer-SS, and fended off requests if they did not appear to be presentable as Himmlers in terms of content or time. Even without personally obtaining Himmler's decisions, in individual cases he could take his decision or opinion for granted and act accordingly. The police adjutants essentially had "speaking" or "transmitting" functions. The Police Adjutant's Office was the office of the two liaison officers of the Reich Security Main Office and the Main Office of the Ordnungspolizei. Suchanek was always in Himmler's field command post during the war, while Fälschlein was on duty in Berlin. In contrast to the Police Adjutant's Office, the SS Adjutant's Office, in addition to the adjutants' task of "accompanying" the Reichsführer SS, also carried out administrative tasks such as setting appointments, preparing trips, processing invitations, congratulating and giving gifts. It also dealt with factual and personnel matters of the Waffen SS, maintained contact with the SS Main Office and SS Head Office as well as with the front units of the Waffen SS. In Munich, Karlstraße 10, the SS-Adjutantur maintained a branch office occupied by SS-Hauptsturmführer Schnitzler. The headquarters of the Personal Staff was the building Prinz Albrecht-Straße 8 in Berlin, which was also Himmler's headquarters as Reichsführer-SS and chief of the German police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior as well as the chief of the security police and the SD (Reichssicherheitshauptamt) [43]. During the war Himmler often worked in various "field command posts". One of the most constant places of residence was the field command post "Hochwald" in a forest near Großgarten in East Prussia, about 40 km away from the Führer's headquarters "Wolfsschanze" [44]. Commander of the Feldkommandostelle Reichsführer-SS and responsible for its security was the SS-Obersturmbannführer Josef Tiefenbacher. He was in charge of the SS and police escort units as well as the special train "Steiermark", Himmler's rolling field command post, which brought him to the desired destinations or also let him follow Hitler's special train. This happened, for example, after the German invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, when Himmler's special train was parked near Hitler in Bruck/Murr. His motorcade was called "Sonderzug Heinrich". Near Hitler's Führer Headquarters "Wehrwolf" near Vinnitsa in the Ukraine, Himmler had established his field command post "Hegewald" in a German ethnic settlement area south of Shitomir. The increasing air raids on Berlin made it necessary to look for alternative quarters outside the city. These apparently accommodated larger areas of the service and had facilities that could do justice to Himmler's safety and that of his closer staff even if they were present for a longer period of time. The largest and most systematically developed object was apparently the alternative site "Birkenwald" near Prenzlau (Uckermark). On an area of approx. 290,000 m2 with some permanent buildings, which had been given over by the city administration, extensions were carried out until the last months of the war; the laying of a connecting track for the special train "Steiermark" was still in the planning stage in November 1944. The alternative place also had accommodations for Himmler, his personal adviser and the adjutants. For the year 1944 the existence of the alternative sites "Bergwald" and "Tannenwald" is proven in the files of the Personal Staff, as well as for March 1945 the alternative camp "Frankenwald" in Bad Frankenhausen (Krs. Sondershausen/Thüringen) [45]. _ [1] Cf. the data of the Statistical-Scientific Institute of the Reichsführer-SS in NS 19/1471. [2] Cf. Hans Buchheim, Die SS - Das Herrschaftsinstrument. Command and Obedience (Anatomie des SS-Staates, vol. 1), Olten and Freiburg i. Br 1965 [3] SS Command No. 20 of 1. 12. 1930 (NS 19/1934). 4] SA command no. 1 (simultaneously for SS) dated 16. 1. 1931 (NS 19/1934). 5] Hitler's Order of July 20, 1934 by Gerd Rühle, Das Dritte Reich, 1934, p. 237 [6] Staff Order of May 12, 1931 (NS 19/1934). 7] See Shlomo Aronson, Reinhard Heydrich and the Early History of the Gestapo and SD, Stuttgart 1971, and Buchheim (note 3 above). 8] The Federal Archive and its holdings, edited by Gerhard Granier, Josef Henke, Klaus Oldenhage, 3rd ed., Boppard 1977, p. 41 ff., 51 and 53 [9] Federal Archive holdings NS 31 [10] SS-Hauptamt, Staff Order No. 6 (NS 31/70). In an order to reshape the Reichsführung-SS dated February 9, 1934, Himmler had issued a new order for his staff with the Departments I. Adjutantur, II. Personalabteilung, III. Gerichtsabteilung, IV. Revisionsabteilung and V. Pressabteilung only the official title "Der Reichsführer-SS" (NS 17/135, copy in NS 19/4041). 11] Order of 1.6.1939 (NS 19/3901); residual files of the SS Personnel Main Office in the Federal Archives NS 34. [12] Also order of 1.6.1939 (ibid.); Federal Archives NS 7. [13] Order of 20.4.1939 (NS 19/1166). 14] Command of 19.1.1942 (NS 19/3904); Federal Archives holdings NS 3. 15] Commands of 15.8.1940 and 5.9.1940 (NS 19/3903); preserved files of the SS-Führungshauptamt in the Federal Archives holdings NS 33. 16] See Himmler's order of 12.1.1941 (NS 19/3903), also letter of 7.11.1941 from the Reich Minister of Science, Education and People's Education to the Reich Minister of Finance (R 2/12745). 17] Documents on Wolff's personal and private service affairs can be found in NS 19/3456 as well as in the other archive units described below in Section B. 2; in addition also the dossier concerning Wolff (copies) in the documents of the Freundeskreis Reichsführer-SS in NS 48/81. 18] NS 19/3901. Himmler announced the wording of the order in a speech at the SS-Gruppenführertagung on 8.11.1936 in Dachau (NS 19/4003; see also note 72), which had long been regarded as incomplete. 19] NS 19/3902 [20] See the documents of the Friends of Himmler concerning Wolff (copies) in NS 48/81 [21] NS 19/2881 [22] Gunther d'Alquen, Die SS. History, task and organization of the Schutzstaffeln of the NSDAP, Berlin 1939, p. 24 [23] The preserved files of the SS-Helferinnenschule Oberehnheim are in the Bundesarchiv stock NS 32 II. 24] See note 23. 25] See, for example, the archives described in section B.1.6 below. 26] Cf. Klaus Gruna, Die Externsteine kann sich nicht fhren, in: Menschen, Landschaft und Geschichte, edited by Walter Först, Cologne and Berlin 1965, pp. 239-249 [27] Tradition of the "ancestral heritage" in the Federal Archives NS 21 - Cf. Michael H. Kater, Das "Ahnenerbe" der SS 1935-1945. A contribution to the cultural policy of the Third Reich, Stuttgart 1974. [28] File note of the Reich Secretary of the "Ahnenerbes", Wolfram Sievers, from 4.11.1937 about a visit of Pohl to the "Ahnenerbe" on 2.11.1937 (NS 21/779). 29] See, among others, Reinhard Henkys, Die Nationalsozialistischen Gewaltverbrechen, Stuttgart und Berlin 1964, p. 66, 69 f., 247. Sievers was sentenced to death and executed for the criminal activities of the Institute in the Nuremberg medical trial. Shepherd's been missing since the end of the war. Rascher was executed on Himmler's orders for child undermining. 30] Cf. Heiner Lichtenstein, Wo Himmler wollte residieren, in: Menschen, Landschaft und Geschichte (above Note 29), pp. 115-128 and Karl Hüser, Wewelsburg 1933 to 1945. Cult and Terror Site of the SS. Eine Dokumentation, Paderborn 2nd edition 1987 [31] Cf. Georg Lilienthal, Der "Lebensborn e.V." Ein Instrument Nationalsozialistischer Rassenpolitik, Stuttgart, New York 1984 [32] Cf. the correspondence on the accommodation of Czech children 1943-1944 (NS 19/375) as well as Marc Hillel and Clarissa Henry, Lebensborn e.V. In the name of the race, Vienna, Hamburg 1975 [33] Accountability report of the head of office from 1.11.1942 (NS 19/2985). 34] Letter from SS-Standartenführer Kloth to SS-Obergruppenführer Wolff of 3. 8. 1942 (NS 19/349). 35] File note of SS-Standartenführer Kloth of 4.10.1943 to. Establishment of the office m.W. of 15.1.1942 and letter of the Rohstoffamt to the administration of the Personal Staff of 22.9.1943 (NS 19/1786). 36] See Henkys (note 36 above) and Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, Vols. 1-2, Washington, D. C. 1950, and Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke (ed.), Medicine without Humanity. Documents of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial, Heidelberg 1949 [37] SS Order of 12.2.1939 (NS 19/3901). 38] NS 19/2881. 39] Letter of appointment dated 9.7.1943 (NS 19/1802). 40] Remains of tradition in the Federal Archives NS 7 [41] Indictment of the Public Prosecutor's Office at the District Court Munich II in the criminal proceedings against Karl Wolff; see also Note 22 [42] On the takeover of the Personal Staff by Himmler himself see NS 48/81; on Wolff's later use in Italy see also NS 19/3456 [43] Cf. Topography of Terror. Gestapo, SS and Reich Security Main Office on the "Prinz-Albrecht-Gelände". Eine Dokumentation, ed. by Reinhard Rürup, Berlin 8th ed. 1991 [44] Cf. Peter Hoffmann, Die Sicherheit des Diktators, Munich 1976, p. 219 [45] The construction of alternative sites essentially documents the archives described in section A.1 below as well as other documents scattered throughout the indices. For Birkenwald see above all NS 19/2888, 3273, 2211 and 1518. Inventory description: Inventory history The file tradition developed at the offices of the Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS essentially shares the general fate of German contemporary historical sources described elsewhere in the war and post-war period [1]. Losses of files as a result of air raids in November 1943 are documented several times in the files of the Personal Staff. The office building at Prinz-Albrecht-Str. 8 was destroyed by bombs in February 1945 [2]; members of the Soviet and U.S. occupying forces are said to have recovered files from the ruins of the building after the end of the war [3]. There is no information about the fate of the files of the Personal Staff at the end of the war, nor about where the traditions of U.S. troops now kept in the Federal Archives were captured. The first message is conveyed by a file directory of the "7771 Document Center OMGUS", the subsequent U.S. Document Center in Berlin-Zehlendorf which existed until 1994 and which, as of July 1948, records an inventory of 2.5 tons of Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS "transferred to another location". It had been made available to the prosecution authorities of the Nuremberg War Beaker Trials [4]. When preparing the files for trial purposes, numerous and extensive "personnel processes" were taken from the files of the Personal Staff in Nuremberg and the Führer personnel files of the SS Personnel Main Office were added. While these later returned to the Document Center in Berlin and - reduced by withdrawals, e.g. for the "Schumacher Collection", which was formed in the Document Center against all archival provenance principles on the basis of factual aspects and which was transferred to the Federal Archives in 1962 - remained in the custody of the Document Center until it was taken over by the Federal Archives in the summer of 1994 [5], the Personal Staff, which had also been reduced by further withdrawals for trial purposes, was transferred to the USA during the Berlin blockade in 1948/49. In the course of the general repatriation of confiscated German archival records from British and American custody in 1962, it was handed over by the National Archives in Washington to the Federal Archives in Koblenz in a mixture with other records from the command area of the Reichsführer-SS [6]. After the restoration of the state unity of Germany on 3 October 1990 and the unification of the former central state archives of the GDR with the Federal Archives, the archives of the Personal Staff together with the other state and party official holdings of the Federal Archives from the period before 1945 came under the responsibility of the newly established "German Reich" Department of the Federal Archives, which was initially located in Potsdam and has been part of the Federal Archives Office in Berlin-Lichterfelde since 1996. The tradition of the Personal Staff in the Federal Archives was supplemented by a "Himmler Collection" formed in the Document Center and also handed over to the Federal Archives in 1962 [7]. It contained Himmler's personal papers, which were kept in the Federal Archives, supplemented by a microfilm of diary entries from the years 1914-1924 [8] kept in the Hoover Institution, and which constitute Himmler's estate [9]. However, the majority of the collection consisted of documents from the Personal Staff and the SS-Adjutantur, which were added to the files of the Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS. These include notes and recordings of Himmler's appointments and telephone conversations. 10] Finally, the Federal Archives were able to reunite the files of the Personal Staff that had previously been placed in the "Schumacher Collection" in the Document Center with the main holdings in NS 19. This also applies to those parts of a comprehensive collection of copies of Personal Staff documents that were created in the Document Center before the transfer of the holdings to the USA and whose "original" originals can no longer be verified in the holdings or could not yet be verified. The identification of the copies with the corresponding originals proved to be very time-consuming above all because the internal structure of the collection of copies, consisting mostly of compiled individual pieces, differed fundamentally from the order found or newly created for the files. The remaining copies, i.e. copies that could not be identified on the basis of "originals", were finally assigned to the holdings as such, and their form of transmission as copies were recorded as comments. For the majority of these remaining copies, including the few larger connected processes [11], it can be assumed that the corresponding "originals" were lost before the repatriation from the USA, or were excluded from the repatriation for reasons which can no longer be understood today, or simply, like many other German contemporary historical sources, must be regarded as lost. In individual cases, on the other hand, a double tradition cannot be ruled out; the "originals" of the documents recorded as copies may still be in an unexpected place in the inventory, but to want to find them under any circumstances would have required an unjustifiable effort. In the course of the revision and increase of the total holdings in August 2007 by orders, orders and decrees of the individual departments in the Personal Staff of the Reichsführer-SS as well as of the command authorities of the Waffen-SS and individual units of the SS upper sections concerning documents, the existing collection could be further expanded in its range of holdings. Furthermore, activity reports and partly personal documentations of the higher SS and police leaders as well as announcements, decrees and orders concerning cultural and ideological matters of folklore and resettlement policy were included. _ [1] Cf. the general aspect Josef Henke, Das Schicksal deutscher zeitgeschichtlicher Quellen in Kriegs- und Nachkriegszeit (The Fate of German Contemporary History Sources in the War and Post-War Period). Confiscation - repatriation - whereabouts, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 30 (1982), pp. 557-617 [2] Cf. Topography of Terror (Note 51), pp. 178 ff. and Gerald Reitlinger, Die SS, Munich 1957, p. 55 [3] Findings of members of the then main archive (former Prussian Secret State Archive) in Berlin-Dahlem. 4] On the use of confiscated German files for the Nuremberg Trials see Henke (Note 54), pp. 570-577. 5] See Dieter Krüger, Das ehemalige "Berlin Document Center" im Spannungsfeld von Politik, Wissenschaft und öffentlichen Meinung, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 45 (1997), pp. 49-74. 6] Guides to German Records Microfilmed at Alexandria/Va.., Vol. 32, 33, see also Heinz Boberach, Die schriftliche Überlieferung der Behörden des Deutschen Reiches 1871-1945. Securing, repatriation, substitute documentation, in: Aus der Arbeit des Bundesarchivs (oben Anm. 1), p. 50-61, here: p. 57 [7] See NSDAP Main Archive, Guide to the Hoover Institution Microfilm Collection, compiled by Grete Heinz and Agnes F. Peterson, Hoover Institution Bibliographical Series XVII, Stanford 1964, p. 144-149 [8] See Werner T. Angress and Bradley F. Smith, Diaries of Heinrich Himmler's Early Years, in: The Journal of Modern History, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, 1959, p. 206-224 [9] Federal Archives holdings N 1126 [10] See the below in Sections B.1..3 and B.3 archival records. 11] [(NS 19/539) and in Ukraine 1942-1945 (NS 19/544). Registrar's Relationships The "Administration of records" department of the Personal Staff was responsible for the administration of records. A "document management order" regulated "file creation and storage" [1]. The filing plan provided for the written material to be divided into four categories: Personnel filing cabinet (red), Subject filing cabinet (blue), Special filing cabinet (green), Command filing cabinet (yellow). The identification of the processes took place within a stamp imprint: personal staff Reichsführer-SS, records administration, file. No. ..., by handwritten colour inscriptions of the name (personal file) or the file number. The assignment to the individual categories, in particular the distinction between "Personnel folder" and "Subject subject folder", was often inconsistent, that is, things were also stored according to the names of correspondence partners. Subject-matter filing could take place both to a narrower subject in the sense of a "process", but also to subject series up to the number of 25 numbered individual processes increase. In addition to open files, secret files with their own characteristics and structures were also kept. The war situation and in particular the decentralised keeping of records in the field command posts led to different forms of filing after a combination of Roman-Arabic numerals without any recognisable factual connection between the individual "events", partly also - originally not foreseen - correspondence files. Filing aids and storage aids that have not been preserved may have secured access to the not particularly sophisticated document storage system to some extent. NS 19/2881: Archive evaluation and processing of confiscations at the end of the war, file transports to file collection points, file withdrawals and file rearrangements for various purposes (e.g. for the Nuremberg Trials and for the biographical collections of the Document Center in Berlin), mixtures of provenances and new formations of files have not left the already weak classification system unimpaired. In addition, files that were confiscated, as it were, on the desks of the departments and authorities, and this includes a large part of the documents captured from SS departments, were mostly in a loose state and were particularly susceptible to disorder. The SS tradition that arrived in the USA was essentially classified into three categories: Files of command authorities and troops of the Waffen-SS on the one hand and files of SS upper sections with subordinate units and facilities on the other hand were put together in separate complexes with different signatures. In a third category, in provenance overlapping to the two mentioned categories and in a colorful mixture of provenance and pertinence (e.g., files of state authorities with SS matters), all the files were brought together that seemed suitable to present the SS as an organization with its manifold ramifications. In the Federal Records Center, a file depot in Alexandria, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., these files - like numerous other traditions of civilian provenance - were arranged according to a scheme developed on the basis of a captured "Unified File Plan for the OKW and the OKH. The SS files were assigned to the EAP (= Einheitsaktenplan)-collection groups 160-164 (160 = Development of the SS, 161 = Top Division of the SS, 162 = Territorial Division of the SS, 163 = Advertising, Service, Special Affairs of the General SS, 164 = Concentration Camps and Death's Head Units), within which they were divided into a subject group with one or two subgroups. This order was converted into an alpha numerical signature (e.g. EAP 161-c-28-10); the counting of the file units followed a horizontal line in the numbering 1-N (e.g. EAP 161-c-28-10/1). This complex of files, formed in this way, largely filmed by the Americans and finally transferred to the Federal Archives, was divided here according to provenance. Considerable parts of the archives today consist of the holdings NS 31 (SS-Hauptamt), NS 33 (SS-Führungshauptamt) and NS 34 (SS-Personalhauptamt). The holdings NS 7 (SS- and police jurisdiction), NS 3 (SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt), NS 4 (concentration camps), NS 21 (Ahnenerbe), NS 17 (Leibstandarte SS "Adolf Hitler"), NS 32 (SS-Helferinnenschule Oberehnheim) also received considerable growth from this restitution, NS 2 (Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt-SS) and NS 48 (Sonstige zentrale Einrichtungen der SS, including a few remaining documents from the Institute of Statistical Science and the SS School "Haus Wewelsburg") as well as - to varying degrees - numerous other archival holdings of both party and state provenances. Documents of regional SS offices and institutions, in particular of SS upper sections and SS sections, but also of SS standards, storm bans and storms reached the responsible state archives of the Länder. The found files of Waffen-SS units were handed over to the Military Archives Department of the Federal Archives in Freiburg i. Br. for the RS inventory group there. The orders, orders, decrees and communications of all central SS services, originally combined in the "Befehlsablage", later in the Federal Archives in an "SS-Befehlssammlung", were restructured in chronological series according to exhibitor provenance (Reichsführer-SS, SS-Hauptämter or other subordinate organisational units) and assigned to the corresponding provenance holdings. The consequence of this was that the NS 19 holdings only contain the special category of the so-called "SS orders" and those issued by the Reichsführer-SS without any additions, as well as the orders, decrees, and orders issued by the departments of the Personal Staff themselves. The remaining records of the Personal Staff, at that time also called the NS 19 holdings "new", proved, as a glance at the Microfilm-Guides can confirm, to be a tradition that consisted largely of formed records management files, but could not be left in the traditional order or file description. However, in a very time-consuming working procedure, which was fully justified by the quality of the holdings, which could not be overestimated with regard to the authentic documentation of the history of the SS and the National Socialist state, a rearrangement and re-drawing according to events or subject series - as far as these had been formed in a meaningful appendix - was carried out, as a rule without regard to the original file units. The primary goal was to create clearly defined and described procedures from larger complexes of written documents with little or no factual connection. The fact that this often led to archival archival units, whose size is very small, often only minimal, had to be accepted, as well as the resulting disappointment of the user to find only a few sheets of archival material behind an important title. As a rule, more comprehensive archive units appear with detailed "Contained" and "Herein" notes, so that their exhaustive description of content is also guaranteed. The indexing begun by Elisabeth Kinder at the end of the 1960s was based on the "Guidelines for the Title Recording of Modern Files" (Instruction for Archival Activity No. 29), which were valid at the time in the Federal Archives and entered into force on 15 January 1963. The recorded running times of the archive units, most of which were newly created in the archives, consistently follow the date that can be determined first and last in the records. Deviations are usually indicated. Only where it seemed important and above all expedient, especially in the case of individual documents, are monthly and daily data given. Terms of annexes falling within the time frame of the actual transaction, also of other documents which are obviously "outliers" in terms of time, are listed in brackets, time data indexed in square brackets. Cassations were handled with the utmost caution in the cataloguing of this collection of archival records of the Nazi regime - apart from duplicates and the collection of copies from the "Schumacher Collection". Even in those cases where the reasons for cassation in the archives did suggest a cassation, it was decided in principle to preserve the archival records. In this context, the problem of the destruction of files of important authorities and departments of the Nazi state, which sometimes touched on political dimensions as well, especially when these were directly linked to the ideology and extermination machinery of the Nazi state, such as those of the SS and especially of the Reichsführer-SS, should be remembered. 1] The classification of the holdings carried out after the completion of the title records could not, as for example in the case of a large number of ministerial file holdings, be based on prescribed file plans or other highly developed registration aids. Therefore, it was necessary to find an objective structure independent of the registry, which was primarily based on the above-described competence structure of the Personal Staff and, in a broader sense, also on the overall organizational responsibilities of the Reich leadership of the SS, as defined by the various main offices and other central offices. From the registry order outlined above, only the above-mentioned "command file" (in Section C.1) and the "personnel file" (Sections C.2 and C.7.6) can be identified in general terms. The fact that this rather factual-technical classification is accentuated by Himmler's special, sometimes peculiarly quirky personal fields of interest in a conspicuous way, sometimes even superimposed, so in the areas of health care, race and population policy, science, nutrition, plant breeding and inventions, gives the stock of his Personal Staff a special, from the traditions of the other SS-main offices deviating, just "personal" coloring. It is true that the individual areas of classification are to be understood primarily as related to the SS. So education and training means first of all education and training of the SS. Science stands above all for the "science" pursued by the SS and misunderstood, even perverted, in its ideological sense. And economy refers primarily to the SS economic enterprises. It is not difficult to recognize, however, that a mixture with "SS-free" dimensions of the concepts and areas could not always be avoided. The chapter on finances documents not only the financing of the SS but also some aspects of state financial policy. In addition to the administration and the completely ideologized health policy ideas of the SS, some files also concern state administration, as well as state health policy. Section C.19 (Reichsverteidigung...) also concerns the warfare of the Wehrmacht in addition to the widely documented establishment, organization and deployment of Himmler's Waffen SS. Ultimately, however, this mixture appears to be a reflection of the mixture of state and party official competences that was consistently practised in Himmler's power apparatus, i.e. here mostly "SS-like" competences, apart from the fact that a convincing archival separation would mostly have been possible only at the "sheet level" and thus too costly. Cross-references were applied relatively sparingly. On the other hand, titles that apply to several subject areas appear several times in case of doubt, i.e. in each of the appropriate sections. Since its return to the Federal Archives, the holdings have been usable from the outset and at all times due to the declaration of disclosure [2] requested by the Allies from the Federal Government before the return of German files. And it is undoubtedly one of the most frequently used archives of the Federal Archives since then. In the more than three decades it was used unchanged strongly for all purposes of use, essentially of course for historical research, but also for the numerous domestic and foreign lawsuits for Nazi violent crimes and Nazi war crimes up to the late seventies. This led not only to the unusually long duration of his indexing - the processing of the holdings could not be a reason for temporarily excluding the archives from use for reasons of both archival expertise and politics - but also to different citation methods in the numerous publications he was called upon to produce, corresponding to the respective state of indexing. In addition to the American EAP signatures used almost exclusively, especially in very early publications, the "old" NS-19 signatures assigned immediately after the repatriation, but still before the indexing, were also frequently used, and from the late 1960s these were increasingly combined with the "old" NS-19 signatures assigned in the L

BArch, R 1001 · Fonds · 1832-1943
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: 1907 Formation of the R e i c h s k o l o n i a l a m t from the Colonial Department of the A u s w ä r t i g e s A m t ; 1919 Transformation into a R e i c h s k o l o n i a l ministry and assumption of the liquidation business for the former German colonial territories; after its dissolution in 1920, assumption of the tasks by the R e i c h s m a r i n a m i n g for reconstruction (Colonial Central Administration) until its dissolution in 1924; thereafter, processing of colonial affairs again by the A u s w ä r t i g e s A m t . Inventory description: Inventory history The files of the central colonial administration of the German Reich have been subject to organisational changes from the subject area or department at kaiserli‧chen Auswärtiges Amt to the Imperial Reichsamt and Ministry of the Wei‧marer Republic and back to the department or department at the Auswärtiges Amt. Many volumes of files or subject series were easily continued organically beyond the verschie‧denen changes; for the period after 1920 this often means that they slowly ebbed away. Real breaks in the Aktenfüh‧rung can usually not be determined. The registry of Reichskolonialmi‧niste‧riums therefore formed a closed one in 1919 and after the extensive loss of colonial political tasks in the eyes of many even closed Kör‧per. The files were distributed according to the former secret registries of the Reichsko‧lonialamts as follows: Secret registry KA I East Africa Secret registry KA II Southwest Africa Secret registry KA III South Sea Secret registry KA IV Cameroon and Togo Secret registry KA V Legal cases Secret registry KA VI Scientific and medical cases Secret registry KA VII General secret registry KA VIII Agriculture Secret registry KA I-VII Foreign Countries and Possessions Secret Registry KB I Budget and Accounting Secret Registry KB II Technical Matters Secret Registry KB III Railway Matters Already in the Cabinet Meeting on 1. In 1919, the Reich Minister of the Interior, Matthias Erzberger, had spoken about the files of the then still existing Kolonialministeri‧ums and had suggested that "the archives of the Reichs‧kolonialamts and the Reich Marine Office should be merged with the corresponding facilities of the Großer Generalstab and an independent Reich archive should be created in a city yet to be determined, which would be directly subordinated to the Reich Ministry [cabinet]". Ministerialdirigent Meyer-Gerhard had contradicted this in his memorandum of 30 Sept. 1919 and demanded that both the files and the extensive library of the R e i c h s k o l o n i a l ministry be handed over to the A u s w ä r t i g e s A m t , where he also wanted to see the permanently preserved Orga‧nisati‧onseinheiten of the Colonial Ministry located. Only the files that were no longer needed were to be destroyed or handed over to the Reich Archives. In fact, the files were initially handed over to the R e i c h s m i n g e r a m i n g for reconstruction and were inspected in 1924 when the Colonial Department was transferred to the Foreign Office. An inventory shows which files were transferred directly to the Reichsarchiv, transferred to the Auswärtiges Amt, or immediately became ver‧nichtet . While only very few files were immediately destroyed and by far the largest part of the files were immediately handed over to the archive, bean‧spruchte the Federal Foreign Office, in addition to some documents of fundamental Be‧deutung, even from long chronological volume sequences, mostly only those volumes which were important for the ak‧tuellen business and left the older volumes in each case to the archive. However, a large part of the Ak‧ten taken over from the Federal Foreign Office was also handed over to the Reichsarchiv during the course of the continuous reduction process to which the kolonialpoliti‧sche subdivision or the "Colonial Department" was exposed. Remnants of these documents were handed over to the Federal Archives by the Auswärti‧gen Office in February 2000. In 1945 the Reichsarchiv was probably home to a largely complete record of the central colonial administration of the German Reich. The orga‧nische character of the tradition forbid a breakdown of the documents, so that the entire tradition was stored in one inventory at the R e i c h s k o l o n i a l a m t zusammenge‧faßt . The R e i c h s k o l o n i a l a m t's destruction of the R e i c h s c h s a f t on 14 April 1945 severely affected the R e i c h s k o l o n i a l a m t's Ak‧ten . Approximately 30 of the holdings were burnt, including the registries KB I (budget and Rech‧nungswesen), II (technical matters) and III (railway matters). Also the files of the Schutztruppen and the files of the administrations that have reached the Reichsarchiv ein‧zelner Schutzgebiete have completely fallen victim to the flames. Archivische Bewertung und Bearbeitung In the Central State Archives of the GDR in Potsdam, the original registry order was discarded as Klassifika‧tion for the holdings during the processing of the Be‧stands 10.01 R e i c h s k o l o n i a l a m t . The mixed order, which combined registration, systematic and territorial criteria of order, was replaced by a structure, which arranged the files according to territorial aspects as far as possible. In the course of the revision of the finding aids for the present finding aid, which were compiled in the Central State Archives, the original order of the holdings was restored with the help of the registry aids that had been transferred to Bundesar‧chiv in 2000. The contexts of the original Regi‧straturordnung, according to An‧sicht, provide the author with a better and more systematic overview of the overall tradition than the systematic aspects of ver‧schleiernde "regionalisation" of the holdings. The former "Koblenz" inventory R 101 Reichskolonialamt consisted mainly of copies which the colonial writer Georg Thielmann-Groeg made, mainly in Reichsar‧chiv, from the files of the Reichskolonialamt. The indexing of this collection die‧sem Findbuch, which goes down to the individual file piece, is attached in an appendix because it compiles important documents on German colonial history in compressed form - with a focus on GermanSüd‧west‧afrika. For reasons of conservation, the oversized investment cards were taken from the volumes in inventory R 1001 and replaced by reference sheets. The maps were recorded on color macrofiches and organized in a mapNeben‧bestand under the designation R 1001 Kart. Content characterisation: Colonies and colonial policy, general; military and navy; colonial law, police matters; slaves and slave trade; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, settlement, support, civil status; economy, trade, customs, taxes; agriculture and forestry; post and transport; missions and schools; health care. Non-German colonies and Liberia: British colonies; French colonies; Portuguese and Spanish colonies; Italian, Dutch, North American colonies. D e u t s c h - O s t a f r i k a and D e u t s c h - S ü d w e s t a f r i k a: Colonisation, general management and administration, political development; military and police, inspection and information tours; colonial law, criminal cases, inheritance and real estate; slavery and slave trade; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, settlement, support, civil status; economy, trade, customs, taxes; agriculture, forestry, fishing; postal services and transport; missions and schools; health care. Cameroon: German-West African Trading Company, South and North-West Cameroon Society; colonisation, central and regional administration; political development; military and police, inspection and information tours; colonial law; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, settlement, support, civil status; economy, trade, customs, taxes, banks, agriculture and forestry, fisheries; postal and transport services; health care; missions and schools. Togo: central and regional administration, political development; military and police, inspection and information missions; colonial law; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, settlement, support, civil status; economy, trade, customs, taxes, banks; agriculture, forestry, fisheries; postal services and transport; missions, schools, health care. Congo: General; Berlin Conference. New Guinea: New Guinea company; colonization, central and regional administration, political development; military and police; colonial law; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, settlement, support, civil status; economy, trade, taxes, customs, banks; agriculture, forestry, fishing; post and transport; health care, schools. Caroline, Mariana and Palau Islands: colonisation, general, management and administration, political development; colonial law; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, settlement, support, civil status; economy, trade, customs, taxes; post and transport; missions, schools, health care. Samoa: colonisation, central and regional administration, political development; military; colonial law, police matters; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, resettlement, civil status; economy, trade, customs, taxes, banks; agriculture and forestry; post, transport, shipping; missions, schools, health care. Marshall Islands: colonization, general management and administration, political development; research, surveying, settlement, employment; trade, customs, taxes, post, transport; missions, school, health care. Solomon Islands: Kiautschou/China R 1001 Annex: photocopies of documents on the acquisition of German colonial territories; photocopies of documents on Deutsch-Südwestafrika; copies of files of the Reichskolonialamt on Deutsch-Südwestafrika; diary of the Hottentot leader Hendrik Witbooi in Deutsch-Südwestafrika; horse breeding in North Cameroon. Erinnerungen von Kurt Freiherr von Crailsheim; "Kriegsnachrichten" newspaper from Deutsch-Südwestafrika, vol. 1915 no. 3; reproductions of portraits of various persons in Deutsch-Südwestafrika; curriculum vitae of Reichskommissar Dr. jur. Heinrich Goering. State of development: Publication Findbuch (2002); Online Findbuch (2003) Citation method: BArch, R 1001/...

Imperial Colonial Office
BArch, RL 40 · Fonds · 1921-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: With the "Ordinance for the Reich Weather Service" of 6 April 1934, the responsibility for the weather service, which until then had mainly been the responsibility of the Länder, was transferred to the Reich Minister of Aviation. The weather service comprised the flight, economic, sea, high altitude and climate weather service. The research and teaching tasks performed by the universities remained unaffected by this. The Reichsamt für Flugsicherung was given the designation Reichsamt für Wetterdienst (RfW) by ordinance of 28 November 1934. He was responsible for the operational, technical and scientific management of the Reich Weather Service. The RfW was subordinate to Division LB 3 (Reichswetterdienst) of the General Air Office in the Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM). With the beginning of the war, the "Chef Wetterdienst" (Chief Weather Service) was created at the Luftwaffe General Staff. Most of the tasks of the LB 3 department in the Reich Aviation Ministry were transferred to the Chief Weather Service, among others: - Organisation, operational and technical management of the weather service, - management of weather intelligence in cooperation with the chief of the intelligence unit, - deployment of personnel according to operational needs, - cooperation with weather services of other parts of the Wehrmacht and other states. Division LB 3 of the General Air Office retained the following tasks: - personnel administration including training, - development and supply of weather service equipment, - operating regulations. The Reichsamt für Wetterdienst with its observatories and research centres and the Deutsche Seewarte remained subordinated to the LB 3 department. The Institute for Long-term Weather Forecasts has been assigned to the Chief Weather Service. In order to enable the Chief Weather Service to manage the weather service responsibly despite the division of responsibilities, he received the authority to issue directives to the General Air Office, Department LB 3. As part of the general cost-cutting measures, in 1944 the operational management and training were also transferred to the Chief Weather Service, and in January 1945 the personnel administration. Only the Reichsamt für Wetterdienst and the Deutsche Seewarte remained with the LB 3 department. In urgent cases, however, the Chief Weather Service was entitled, with the approval of Division LB 3, to give immediate instructions to these services. The weather school of the Reich Weather Service was founded in 1935. It was housed in the building complex of the Reichsamt für Wetterdienst. Your duties were: - training of meteorological staff, - refresher courses for meteorologists, - training courses for technical staff, - training courses for supplementary meteorologists, obtained from physicists and geographers of universities and schools. As a secondary purpose, a uniform mode of operation of all weather stations with regard to meteorological-synoptic term formation as well as entry and processing of weather charts should be achieved. In November 1944 the Reichswetterdienstschule was also subordinated to the chief weather service. Tasks of the departments of the Reichsamt für Wetterdienst Presidential Department: It dealt with all personnel and financial matters. Department I: She was responsible for the operational and scientific management of the climate service. The climate network was divided into five climate districts: Königsberg, Berlin, Münster, Dresden and Munich as well as air conditioning branch offices in Breslau and Stuttgart. All the observation material was collected, tested and processed at the services of the climate districts. This resulted in the monthly "Weather Report Services", monthly reports on precipitation and precipitation maps. The department also carried out research tasks on observation methodology, among other things. Division I was subordinate: - Meteorological observatories in Potsdam, Aachen and Wahnsdorf; - Agricultural meteorological research centres in Geisenheim, Gießen, Müncheberg and Trier; - Bioclimatic research centres in Bad Elster, Braunlage, Friedrichroda and Wyk/Föhr; - Mountain observatories on the Brocken, Feldberg, Fichtelberg, Kahler Asten, Kalmit as well as the Schneekoppe and Zugspitze; - 20 health resort climate circle sites. Department II: The tasks included the processing and evaluation of aerological and synoptic observational material from radiosonde, aircraft and captive balloon ascents as well as pilot soundings to supplement the Hollerith archive; the processing of flight climatologies and other reports for local weather characteristics; development of methods for the recording of spatial fields such as air masses, pressure, temperature, wind and water vapour. Division II was in charge: - Aeronautical Observatory in Lindenberg; - Aerological Observatory in Friedrichshafen; - From 1940: Cloud Research Centre Prague (emerged from the cloud physics department of the Aerological Observatory Friedrichshafen). Division III: It was responsible for the central control of the entire development of meteorological measuring instruments and new instrumental research methods, the procurement of the entire instrument requirements of the aeronautical meteorological service, the testing and calibration of the delivered equipment and its supply to the individual requirement points. In addition, the department was responsible for testing equipment and methods as well as training and retraining personnel in these equipment and methods. For development and testing as well as training and retraining she was directly assigned a radiosonde test platoon (mot.) and a Würzburgstellung with balloon troop. For the acceptance, testing and calibration of equipment, it had at its disposal, in addition to its own calibration group, the radiosonde test centre of the Reichsamt für Wetterdienst and the Aeroprüfstelle e.V. (Aeroprüfstelle). The meteorological state institutes in the occupied territories were incorporated into the Reichsamt für Wetterdienst as new branch offices, e.g. the Klimainstitut Minsk. Until 1945, the following branch offices were dissolved: - the Meteorological Observatories Aachen and Wahnsdorf, - the Aerological Observatory Friedrichshafen, - the Agricultural Meteorological Research Centres Geisenheim, Müncheberg and Trier, - the Bioclimatic Research Centres, - the majority of the spa climate district offices. The mountain observatories were reduced to purely synoptic reporting points and subordinated to the ground organisation of the military weather service in the individual air meadows. Inventory description: The existing archival material originates from two file returns from the USA. The first submission was made in 1968 to the Document Centre of the Military History Research Office, from where it subsequently reached the Federal Archives Military Archives. The return of files in 2004 was directly transferred to the Federal Archives Military Archives. The files previously held in the official printed matter (inventory: RLD 28) were transferred to the inventory. Characterisation of content: The holdings contain only splinter-like documents about the service in the Reichsamt für Wetterdienst and the subordinated observatories and research centres. The preserved documents on the construction and operation of precipitation measuring stations and meteorological stations in the area of the Air Force Command III/IV as well as in Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg should be emphasised. In addition, studies and elaborations on climatological and meteorological topics are available. Citation style: BArch, RL 40/...

Reichsforstamt (inventory)
BArch, R 3701 · Fonds · 1911-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: By law of 3 July 1934 (RGBl. I p. 534) the Reichsforstamt was founded as the supreme Reich authority with Göring as "Reichsforstmeister" - in hunting matters as "Reichsjägermeister". With effect from March 1, 1935 (RGBl. I p. 305), the Prussian State Forestry Office was merged with the Reich Forestry Office in terms of both subject matter and space. The tasks of the Reich Forestry Office included the administration and supervision of governmental and non-governmental forests (from 1940), fortified universities (until 1938), forestry and timber management policy, nature, bird and plant conservation, hunting legislation, hunting administration and hunting police. Inventory description: Inventory history During the Alliieretn air raid on Berlin on 22/23 Nov. 1943, during which the Reichsforstamts building on Leipziger Platz was partially destroyed, a large part of the inventory was lost. The remains of the documents, which were formerly stored as holdings 37.01 in the Central State Archives in Potsdam, were transferred to the ZStA by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of the GDR in 1953 and by the German State Library in 1966. The few files that were stored in the Federal Archives in Koblenz as R 44 originate almost exclusively from the Grundbesitz department. Both partial stocks were combined in 1990 to form stock R 3701. Content: Most of the original files were destroyed during the war in 1943. For example, documents on legal matters, nature and bird conservation and forest ownership administration are completely lacking. Also the remaining fields of work are occupied in each case only with few files. The main focus of the tradition lies in the years 1941-1945. There is a significant tradition on the following subjects: Forstliche Hochschulen, Eberswalde and Hann. Münden 1935-1939, personnel matters in the broadest sense, including: civil servant law and Reichsdienststrafordnung 1941-1945, pension 1941-1945, welfare and foundations, orders and decorations 1944, proof of identity and personnel statistics 1941-1944, civil servants and employees 1941-1945, Forstschutzkorps 1941-1945. General forestry, including: legislation 1935-1942, forestry statistics 1941, foreign forestry 1942-1945, forestry relations with foreign countries 1941-1944, Forstattachés 1941-1944, Reichsinstitut für ausländische und koloniale Forstwirtschaft 1941-1945, Internationale Forstzentrale 1941-1945, research questions. Budget matters, administrative penal proceedings 1940-1944, foreign exchange legislation 1942-1945 General information on timber management and hunting: Hunting legislation 1941-1942, hunting lease and permit 1941-1945, hunting restrictions 1941-1944, game and hunting damage 1941-1945, hunting protection 1941-1945, hunting licences 1940, 1943-1944, management of game stocks 1938-1945, game diseases 1941-1944, Shooting, game management 1940-1942, hunting literature and images 1941-1945, supervision of the German hunting community 1942-1944 management of game stocks 1936-1941, state hunting grounds 1941-1942 property in individual German regions 1932-1945. Personalakten o.D. (621) Ordnungsstrafsachen, Einzelfälle 1939-1944. State of development: Findbuch für alt 37.01 (1954) Findbuch für alt R 44 (1987) Kartei der Ordnungsstrafsachen Citation method: BArch, R 3701/...

BArch, R 8034-II · Fonds · 1893-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: Formed in 1921 through the merger of the Federation of German Farmers with the Deutscher Landbund as an agricultural policy organization and lobby of agricultural associations, the Reichslandbund was of significance for national socialist influence in farming circles; in 1933 it was incorporated into the Reichsnährstand (Hauptabteilung I). Description of the holdings: History of the holdings The establishment of the Reichslandbund press archive, which was one of the largest and oldest German press archives, began as early as 1893, after the founding of the Bund der Landwirte (Federation of Farmers) in 1893. When the Bund der Landwirte (Federation of Farmers) merged with the Deutscher Landbund to form the Reichslandbund in 1921 and the Reichslandbund was transferred to the Reichsnährstand in 1933, the press archive was continued. The files, together with the material files of the Reichslandbund, were transferred to the Central State Archives of the GDR. Content characterisation: The press archive contains collections of press clippings on the following topics: Domestic politics, economy and culture, including: political and other events 1905-1945, I. and II. World War II, consequences of war, occupied territories 1912-1945, relationship Reich - Länder 1894-1945, Reichstag and Reichstag elections 1893-1942, National Assembly, workers' and citizens' councils 1918-1931, Reichsrat, Reichswirtschaftsrat 1897-1944, Kaiser and Reich President 1894-1941, Reich Chancellor, Imperial government 1894-1944, parties, associations, federations 1871, 1893-1945, army, fleet, air force 1896-1945, justice and police 1894-1944, population structure, classes and stratification of individual population groups 1894-1945, Prussia 1895-1944, other German countries A-Z 1898-1944; Economy and trade, in the process: Economy and Economic Policy 1899-1944, Organisation of the Economy 1897-1944, Industries and Individual Products 1893-1945, Trade and Crafts 1893-1944, Agriculture and Forestry, Food and Fisheries, General 1893-1945, Confederation of Farmers and Reichslandbund 1893-1945, Reichsnährstand 1933-1945, other agricultural organizations 1893-1944, agricultural production 1893-1945, agricultural workers, social affairs of agriculture 1893-1945, finances and loans 1893-1945, agricultural training 1905-1945, exhibitions 1908-1945, peasant and rural culture and art 1904, 1933-1945, peasant inheritance 1894-1945, forestry and fishing 1895-1945, trade, trade contract policy, customs tariff, Prices 1894-1945, chambers of commerce and associations 1893-1944, retail trade, restaurants, consumption 1904-1944, finance, taxes, customs, banking, stock exchange and credit 1894-1945, insurance 1893-1944, railways and road traffic 1894-1944, Inland and maritime shipping 1894-1943, post 1898-1944, social policy and welfare 1895-1945, health 1899-1945, housing 1904-1944, schools and universities 1896-1944, churches and sects 1898-1945, science, art, culture, sport 1901-1945; Foreign policy. Politics, economy and culture abroad: German foreign policy and foreign policy of other countries, international alliances and treaties 1896-1944, colonial policy 1897-1944, army and fleet 1900-1944, trade unions, social democracy, social policy 1904-1944, international economic and trade relations, economy, food and agriculture of foreign countries 1893-1944, international transport 1894-1944, culture and education, press 1905-1945, documents on individual countries in Europe, Asia and America 1993-1945 state of development: Findbücher (1978) Citation method: BArch, R 8034-II/...

BArch, NS 22 · Fonds · 1928-1944
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: In 1928 it emerged from the Organizing Committee of the Party first mentioned in 1926; in 1928-1932 under the leadership of Gregor Straßer, who sought to link the technical-organizational with the political leadership of the NSDAP, and in 1932-1945 by Robert Ley; Since 1933 responsible for the handling of all organizational questions of the party, the selection and training of the leadership corps of the NSDAP; organizationally and politically subordinated were the main offices for public welfare, public health, for war victims, for civil servants, for educators, for local politics and for technology as well as the NSD student federation and the Nazi women's association. Inventory description: Inventory history The records of the Reichsorganisationsleitung apparently survived the wartime to a large extent unscathed. The fate of the files since the occupation of Germany by the Allies corresponds to the general history of German contemporary historical sources in the post-war period. After its confiscation by American troops in Munich, the major part of the holdings was transferred to the American Document Center in Berlin (BDC), while the files of the Main Office for Organizational Management of the Reich Party Rallies as well as the documents of the Adolf Hitler School/Ordensburg Sonthofen listed in the Appendix to the holdings reached the United States. The partial holdings of the Berlin Document Center were received by the Federal Archives together with a larger return of written material in September 1962, while some of the documents brought to the USA were already returned in 1959 from Alexandria/Va. with the so-called "NS mixed holdings", and some were not returned until 1967 by the Library of Congress via the National Archive in Washington. With reunification in 1990, further files of the Reichsorganisationsleiter der NSDAP were transferred from the Central State Archive of the GDR (ZStA) and the NS Archive of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) to the Federal Archive. Archival evaluation and processing The files handed over to the Federal Archives in September 1962 were accompanied by a list of files to be submitted by the Berlin Document Center (BDC), which served as a provisional archive directory until the holdings were finally catalogued. In it, the files were listed only very summarily; in addition to keyword-like factual matters, only the file-maintaining position or the correspondence partner were frequently named instead of a file title. So it is understandable that soon after taking over the inventory, efforts were made to create a list of files that met archival requirements. However, these efforts did not initially progress beyond limited individual actions, each of which comprised only individual groups of files. It was not until 1987-1990 that the final order and listing of the entire stock could be carried out and completed. As there was no file plan and most of the inventory as delivered by Document Center did not have a usable organizational structure, it had to be reorganized from the ground up. The classification of the holdings was initially based on the three main phases of the organisational development of the department described above, which had a lasting influence on the management of the files. Below this chronological structure, the organizational units in charge of the files of the department formed the next classification criterion. Within the sub-areas formed in this way, an order of files was strived for according to as "logical a gradient" as possible. In many cases, this was achieved relatively easily by simply ranking the numerous series of correspondences available with the individual main offices of the Reich Organizational Leadership, with the offices of the Reich Leadership, the divisions and affiliated associations of the NSDAP, the Gauleitungen, as well as with Reich and state authorities, municipal offices, organizations under private law, and individuals. The correspondence series and fact files of the main offices of the Reich Organizationsleitung were preceded by the orders, decrees, circulars, etc. issued by them. The order of the documents within the file volumes was generally maintained. For conservation reasons, however, the documents, most of which were stored in standing folders, were temporarily transferred to Juris folders. For technical reasons, it often became necessary to divide the contents of the folders into two or more volumes. In addition, obvious errors in the keeping of files were corrected, which occasionally resulted in the separation or merging of volumes or transactions. Only the collections of orders, decrees, circulars, notices, etc. found in numerous standing files as multiple documents and formed according to different aspects of order were fundamentally rearranged. They were structured according to the main publishing offices of the Reichsorganisationsleitung and - without further splitting according to the (anyway not always ascertainable) character of the individual announcements - arranged into purely chronological series. In the Federal Archives in Berlin, the index data were imported into the database by means of a retro-digitisation procedure and processed as an additional search source for the requirements of the production of an online find book. The file accesses from the collections of the NS archive of the MfS and the personal collections of the former Berlin Document Center (BDC) were integrated into the existing classification scheme with the help of the database. The extensive collection of press clippings compiled by the Reichsorganisationsleitung was added to the files. Characterization of the contents: Registry until the reorganization of the Reich Organizational Leadership 1927-July 1932 (56): Organization Department I (Reich Organizational Leadership I) 1927-1933 (49); Organization Department II (Reich Organizational Leadership II) 1931-1932 (7): Economic Policy Department 1931-1932 (3), Engineering Department 1931 (1), Agricultural Technology Department 1929-1931 (3). Registry of the reorganization of the Reich Organizationsleitung until the resignation of Gregor Straßers July-Dec.1932 (27): Hauptstabsleiter 1930-1932 (6), Hauptabteilung I (Reichsinspektion I) 1932-1933 (8), Hauptabteilung II (Reichsinspektion II) 1932 (3), Hauptabteilung III 1932-1933 (9), Hauptabteilung V 1932 (1). Registry 1932-1945 (810): Reichsorganisationsleiter (until Nov.1934: Chief of Staff of the Supreme Head of the P.O.) 1932-1944 (8); Chief of Staff / Hauptstabsamt / Hauptdienstleiter / Hauptgeschäftsführung, Dienststellenverwaltung 1932-1943 (35); Aufgabenverwaltung 1931-1943 (176), Zentralamt 1941-1943 (2), Verwaltungsamt 1941-1943 (2), Hauptorganisationsamt (until Nov.1934)Organizational Office of the Supreme Head of the P.O.) 1933-1944 (203); Office of Education / Head of Education 1934-1943 (34), Office of Organizational Documents 1934-1943 (17), Office of Statistics / Statistical Office 1935-1936 (1); Main Office of Organizational Management of the R e i c h s t a g s t a g e r t a g e s t a g e n 1934-1941 (30); Main Personnel Office (until Nov. 1934)Personnel Office of the Supreme Head of the P.O.) 1933-1945 (30); Hauptschulungsamt / Reichsschulungsamt / Reichsschulungsleiter (until Nov.1934: Reichsschulungsleiter of the Supreme Head of the P.O.) 1933-1943 (151); Mobilisation and Defense Officer 1941-1943 (1); Special Department of Community Houses 1940-1942 (34). Collection of press clippings 1933-1942 (317): State and Society in the German Reich 1933-1942 (57), NSDAP with divisions and affiliated associations 1933-1942 (20), "Deutsche Weltgeltung", collection of material on Germanism abroad 1937-1941 (39), work on popular growth among German ethnic groups abroad 1939-1941 (32), German culture abroad (achievements of Germans abroad and Germans active abroad) alphabetically (20), German and foreign personalities 1937-1942 (20), State and society abroad 1933-1942 (95), Second World War (prehistory, outbreak, early years) 1939-1941 (34). Appendix: Adolf Hitler School/Ordensburg Sonthofen 1937-1944 (19). State of development: Publication Findbuch (1992) Citation method: BArch, NS 22/...

BArch, R 101 · Fonds · 1867-1938
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventor: 1867 on the basis of the 1849 electoral law as Constituent Assembly of Versa convened for the North German Confederation, at the same time Customs Parliament of the German Customs Association; after the entry into force of the Reich Constitution of 16 April 1871 Parliament of the German Reich; 1919-1920 Constituent German National Assembly; new regulation of rights and powers by the Weimar Constitution of 11 August 1919; last Reichstag election on 29 March 1936; last Reichstag meeting on 26 April 1942. Characterization of the contents: Main points of the tradition Reichstag of the North German Federation Zollparlament Reichstag of the German Reich: Imperial legislation and administration; labour law; banking and stock exchange; land law, settlement and housing; Federal Council; finance; social economy; cooperatives; health and veterinary affairs; trade regulations; trade and commerce in foodstuffs; military affairs; homeland affairs; interpellations; justice; churches and schools; colonial affairs; commission (committee) files; consulates; wars; agriculture and forestry; navy and shipping; measuring, coinage and weight; Orders and decorations; petitions; police; postal and telegraph services; press; imperial authorities and officials; Reich budget; shipping and sea fishing; statistics; taxation; associations; constitution; traffic; insurance; contracts, relations to foreign countries; public welfare; electoral matters; customs matters; Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine; Reichstag matters; particular legislation in Prussia; collection of the legislative materials of the German Reichstag. State of development: Findbuch 1956 Citation method: BArch, R 101/...

Reichstag
BArch, NS 8 · Fonds · 1918-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: Alfred Rosenberg, who had been one of Adolf Hitler's close collaborators since the beginnings of the National Socialist movement, united - especially since 1929/30 - a wealth of political offices and functions in his hand. In order to be able to carry out all the tasks assigned to him, Rosenberg, since his appointment as head of the Foreign Policy Office of the NSDAP (APA) in April 1933, made use of a private secretariat headed by Thilo von Trotha (b. 12.04.1909, d. 24.02.1938), who was also responsible for the North Division of the APA. In April 1934, by order of the Reich Treasurer, von Trothas, initially only volunteered for Rosenberg, was converted into a full-time regular employment relationship with Rosenberg as Reichsleiter of the NSDAP. As private secretary, he was responsible for processing all correspondence that Rosenberg had to conduct personally as head of the APA, but also as Reichsführer of the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur (KfdK) and as main editor of the "Völkischer Beobachters" (VB). In January 1934, Rosenberg was appointed the Führer's representative for monitoring the entire spiritual and ideological training and education of the NSDAP. Probably because of this new expansion of his duties, on 26 April 1934 Rosenberg ordered the conversion of his private secretariat into a "Rosenberg Chancellery". It continued to be under the direction of Thilo von Trothas, but was now assigned a clearly defined scope of duties: From now on, the Rosenberg Chancellery was responsible for all correspondence conducted by Rosenberg himself within the scope of duties of the APA, the KfdK and other ideological offices as well as for the "NS-Monatshefte", the appointment calendar and the visit regulations of the Reichsleiter. The firm had its own "archive" whose task it was to collect information material and newspaper clippings about Rosenberg. The DBFU was one of the administrators. On 15 August 1937, Rosenberg appointed SA-Sturmbannführer Dr. Werner Koeppen (born 26.09.1910) as his aide. After the death of Trothas in February 1938, Koeppen took over the management of the office and retained it - with temporary interruptions due to military service - until 1945. In August 1941 he was appointed by Rosenberg as his personal adviser and worked for a time as a liaison officer in the Führer's headquarters. During his absence Amandus Langer, whom Rosenberg had appointed as his adjutant in 1941, represented him in the management of the office. Life data of Alfred Rosenberg born 12.01.1893 in Reval Study of architecture in Reval, then in Moscow since 1918 in Germany, 1923 as German naturalized 1919 NSDAP member 1921 with Dietrich Eckart Editor of the "Völkischer Beobachters" February 1923 Main editor of the "Völkischer Beobachters", since 1938 also editor 09.11.1923 Participation in the march to the Feldherrnhalle; during Hitler's captivity with the leadership of the "movement" commissioned 1929 Founder of the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur 1930 Member of the Reichstag and representative of the NSDAP at the Auswärtigen Ausschuss des Reichstages since 1930 Publisher of the "NS-Monatshefte" 01.04.01.1933 Head of the NSDAP Foreign Policy Office, appointed Reichsleiter of the NSDAP 24.01.1934 Representative of the leader for the supervision of the entire intellectual and ideological training and education of the NSDAP 29.01.1940 commissioned with the preparation of the "High School" of the NSDAP 05.07./17.09.1940 Head of the task force Reichsleiter Rosenberg for the occupied Eastern territories 20.04.1941 Commissioner for the Central Processing of Issues in Eastern Europe 17.07.1941 Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories 16.10.1946 executed in Nuremberg (IMT ruling) Abbreviations APA Foreign Office of the NSDAP DAF German Labour Front DBFU The Führer's representative for the supervision of the entire intellectual and ideological training and education of the NSDAP ERR Operations Staff Reichsleiter Rosenberg HJ Hitlerjugend IMT International Military Tribunal KfdK Combat Alliance for German Culture NS National Socialist NSDAP National Socialist German Workers Party NSKG NS-Kulturgemeinde OKW Oberkommando der Wehrmacht PPK Party Official Examination Commission for the Protection of NS Writing RMbO Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories SA Storm Departments SD Security Service SPD Social Democratic Party of Germany VB Völkischer Beobachter Inventory Description: During the war, Rosenberg and almost all his offices remained in Berlin. Despite some losses during the heavy bombing raids in November 1943, most of the files of the Rosenberg office seem to have been preserved. The traditional Rosenberg documents (from the state and party areas) were brought to Nuremberg after the end of the war in order to be evaluated for the Allied trials against the war criminals. In the beginning, the documents that could be used as supporting documents were taken from the files, later they were left in them and were content with photocopies. The originals used are likely to be in Washington today, along with other trial documents. The documents collected in Nuremberg were evaluated by various foreign institutions for the creation of their own collections after the processes had been completed. The Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC) in Paris is particularly worthy of mention here. Today, the "Collection Rosenberg" contains a collection of approximately 1,100 documents (mostly from the provenance office of Rosenberg, but also from other Rosenberg offices). Receipts for the individual documents taken from the CDJC are still in the files that have been transferred to the Federal Archives. Further records of Rosenberg's departments can be found at the Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdokumentatie (NIOD), Amsterdam, and at the Yivo-Institute for Jewish Research in New York. Books and journals from Rosenberg's departments are listed in the Hoover Institute and Library and in the Library of Congress. Documents from Rosenberg offices also reached archives of the former Soviet Union. An extensive collection (above all of the provenance ERR) is today kept in the Tsentral`nyi derzhavnyi arhiv vyshchykh orhaniv vlady ta upravlinnia Ukraïny (TsDAVO Ukraïny) in Kiev, further files (above all of the provenance foreign policy office) in the Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv (RGVA) in Moscow. Most of the Rosenberg files collected in Nuremberg were brought to Alexandria/Va. and partly filmed there. In March 1963, this file complex, known as Record Group 1008/Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete, was transferred from the USA to the Federal Archives in the course of the file repatriation, where it was divided into provenances in autumn 1963. The files from this return of files to the provenance of "Kanzlei Rosenberg" form the main part of the present collection. Some volumes were added which had been transferred to the Nuremberg State Archives and to the Federal Archives in 1955, as well as several volumes from various American file returns. Further additions were made by one volume each from the Central State Archive of the GDR (62 Ka 2/1) and from the so-called "NS Archive of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR" (ZA VI 6322). Archival processing The majority of the documents had been deposited in the Federal Archives in their original registry context. Individual documents, processes detached from their context as well as volumes in disorder had to be rearranged. The order and distortion corresponded to the original registry context. A complete reorganisation of the stock from a factual point of view would have facilitated its use, but did not appear to be justified from the point of view of labour economics. Only double copies were collected in the manuscript series. The preliminary finding aid for the stock was produced by Mrs. Köhne in 1966. Quotation NS 8/.............................................................. Characterisation of the contents: The collection of manuscripts and newspaper clippings provides a fairly comprehensive picture of Rosenberg's personality from about 1930 to 1945. Due to the fact that the Chancellery was responsible for almost all of Rosenberg's departments, the collection also contains essential supplementary material on the activities of the departments subordinated to Rosenberg; only the department of the Reich Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories, whose affairs Rosenberg had dealt with primarily by its ministerial office, is to be excluded. The filing of the documents took place largely in chronological series, at most separately into the areas VB, KfdK and APA, later also according to correspondence partners. A clear separation of the series from each other in terms of content and time is not discernible. State of development: Findbuch (1966/2005), Online-Findbuch (2004). Citation style: BArch, NS 8/...

Siemens, Werner
BArch, N 420 · Fonds · 1890-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: born 7 March 1873; died 21 July 1964; 14.4.1890 Admission; 7.4.1891 Naval Cadet; 22.5.1893 Junior Lieutenant z.s.; 13.4.1896 Lieutenant (or Lieutenant Colonel) on request; 15.3.1902 Lieutenant Captain; 9.11.1907 Captain of the Corvette; 12.3.1912 Captain of the Frigate; 13.4.1914 Captain on request; 22.6.1919 (ret.); 22.2.1920 char. Rear admiral Editing note: Findbuch inventory description: Private logbooks (naval cadet training ship "Niobe", artillery training ship "Mars", tank/torpedo test ship "Friedrich Carl", tank ship "König Wilhelm", tank gun boat "Brummer", corvette "Arcona", cruiser "Cormoran", liner ship "Großer Kurfürst"; Essays in the naval school; study submarine weapon; essay "The Uprising on Ponape 1910/11"; private notes on politics in the homeland (1919-1939) and on war events (1939-1945) citation method: Barch, N 420/...

BArch, NS 32-II · Fonds · (1933-1937), 1942-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: The idea of setting up a female SS news corps (WNK-SS) goes back to Heinrich Himmler's personal initiative at the beginning of 1942. On 17 February the latter had commissioned his office "Chief of Telecommunications" with the formulation of a constellation order as well as with the elaboration of guidelines for the tasks, organization and training of the Female Intelligence Corps of the SS to be created. The primary purpose of this measure was to be able to deploy male SS intelligence personnel to the front, and certainly also to make the SS intelligence more efficient and independent of Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe intelligence workers. It was planned to establish a "School WNK-SS" for the "training of radio operators, teletypists and telephones for the intelligence service at the offices in the entire area of the Reichsführer-SS and bosses of the German police". The town of Oberehnheim in Alsace, about 30 km south of Strasbourg, was chosen as the training location. It had sufficient accommodation with Oberkirch Castle, the "Ehn-Schlösschen", Villa Schwörer and Leonhardsau Castle. First commander of the SS-Nachrichtenschule Oberehnheim, later "Reichsschule-SS", became the SS-Oberführer von Dufais, who after his appointment on 29 June 1942 was responsible for the further technical and personnel equipment of the school. The latter consisted mainly of the advertising and training of teaching staff. The necessary preparatory work, which also included the organisation of the recruitment of junior staff, was completed by the end of the year, so that training could begin at the beginning of 1943. The advertising and recruitment of SS helpers was initially carried out exclusively by the SS upper sections on the basis of a decree issued by the Reichsführer-SS on 14 August 1942 (NS 32 II/3). During the war, SS helpers were called upon on the basis of the Emergency Service Ordinance of 15 October 1938 (RGBl I p. 1441) to establish an employment relationship corresponding to an employment contract. The prerequisite for recruitment was that the applicant met the "requirements placed on the spouses of SS members". The definitive termination was also preceded by a medical and intelligence test, a medical examination and an SD review. After being called up to the SS-Helferinnenschule, the SS-Maiden (official appointment of SS-Helferinnen during their training) underwent an eight-week basic training course, which, in addition to further examination and selection, served in particular ideological training. He was followed by a special training course in one of the five training groups (wire, radio, staff and administration service, housekeeping, subordinate school), which lasted between six and 24 weeks. After completing their training and passing their examinations, the helpers received their orders to go to an SS office in the Reich or in the occupied and affiliated territories. The original plan was to use it in closed military units (comradeships, trains, readies). However, this form of organisation never came to fruition, as the need for helpers at all times far exceeded the number of news maids trained in Oberehnheim. In practice, the SS-Helferinnenschule received daily reports of needs from the SS supplement offices (mostly sent in advance by telegram). In return, the supplementary offices were then notified of the marching in of a number of helpers who were mostly behind the number requested. In August 1942, after the advertising results of the SS sections had always remained unsatisfactory, the SS Supplementary Offices were also responsible for the recruitment of junior staff and the recruitment procedure. In addition, the BDM has intensified its involvement in the recruitment of junior staff. Nevertheless, the capacity of approximately 250 course participants reached at the beginning of the training could never be significantly exceeded. The total number of news workers trained at the SS-Helferinnenschule therefore amounts to about 3000. Structural changes occurred in November 1944, when the approaching Western Front made it necessary to withdraw from Oberehnheim. The staff and the basic training courses were moved to Geislingen an der Steige, the remaining training groups to Heidenheim. Just one month later (mid-December 1944), the wire training group moved into their quarters in the Erfurt Police Assistant School, which had previously been under the command of the Ordnungspolizei and was now subordinated to the SS headquarters. The local leader was SS-Hauptsturmführer Appelbaum, while the SS Helferinnenschulen, now distributed among Heidenheim, Geislingen, and Erfurt, were headed by Obersturmbannführer Mutschler, who had replaced Dufais in June 1944. Inventory description: Inventory description The files of the Provenance SS-Helferinnenschule originate from the collection "Reichsführer-SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei" (RG 1010), which contained documents that were transferred from American custody to the Federal Archives in the course of file returns. The files of the SS Helferinnenschule (formerly stock RS 5), which were handed down in the Federal Archives Military Archives, were merged with them. The NS 32 II collection was established in 1973 in Koblenz and made accessible in the form of a find book. Since 1973, the personal documents belonging to the inventory have been located in the Central Proof Office (ZNS) in Aachen, where they were evaluated for the purpose of issuing service time statements by means of automatic data processing on personal names. After the dissolution of the CNS at the end of 2005, the files were returned to the inventory. It should be noted that the files include several volumes of the provenance "Chief of Telecommunications at the Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police", the classification of which seemed to make sense due to their clear content. These are numbers 1-6, 9, 22, 26, 27, 45, 47 and 110. Archival evaluation and processing The revision made only minor changes to the records. There were no cassations. Content characterization: Establishment, organisation and development of the SS-Helferinnenschule 1942-1945 (22), Lei‧tung, management and supervisory staff, medical care 1933-1945 (12), real estate, inventory and procurement 1942-1945 (14), internal service, training, work and duty schedules 1942-1945 (21), Advertising and recruitment of SS-Helfe‧rinnen 1942-1945 (11), requirements and deployment of female SS helpers 1943-1945 (18), Personalangelegen‧heiten 1942-1945 (24) Despite its relatively small size, this collection documents very well the history of the SS-Helferinnenschule and its relations to the state and the NSDAP. He thus makes a significant contribution to the topic of "Women in the SS State". State of development: Online-Findbuch (2006) Citation method: BArch, NS 32-II/...

BArch, R 20 · Fonds · 1931-1945, 1962
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

Inventory description: Inventory history Files from the settlement office of the Police Regiment 14 in Stuttgart, in particular those of the regiment staff and the First Battalion, reached the Federal Archives via the Württemberg Main State Archives in March 1953. This includes files from the time before the regiment was established, but also from the time after the dissolution of the regiment. In the course of administrative work, about a quarter of the stock, mainly administrative files of the Reserve Police Battalion 51, was collected. In 1962, a large part of the personal documents was lent to the Federal Administration Office in Cologne for current processing purposes, but later returned to the inventory. The files of the police schools originate mainly from returns of archival material transferred by the National Archives of the United States of America to the Federal Archives as a result of the war. Archive evaluation and processing From the former NS archive of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR, 12 files - especially those of the SS Police Regiment 20 - were incorporated (R 20/227-238). The present finding aid book was created during an internship in August and September 2006. Content characterization: Police Regiment 14, 1941-1945 (75), SS Police Regiment 19, 1941-1944 (58), II. Battalion/Police Regiment 5, 1942-1944 (3), Police Battalion 63, 1940-1941 (2), Police Battalion 121, 1941-1942 (2), Police Battalion 322, 1941-1942 (5), SS Police Division 1939-1941 (3), other units of the Ordnungspolizei 1939-1945, 1962 (50), Polizei-Offiziersschule Fürstenfeldbruck 1938-1945 (4), police schools and institutes in Berlin 1935-1945 (3), Police school for high mountain training Innsbruck 1939-1945 (4), other police schools, training battalions and units 1931-1945 (16), chief of the gang combat units 1941-1945 (7) The stock R 20 comprises the splintered tradition of individual troops and schools of the order police as well as the chief of the gang combat units. With regard to the police forces, there are mainly files of the police regiment 14 (especially the regiment staff and the 1st Battalion), the police regiment 19 (here especially files of the 3rd and 6th Company) and the police battalion 322 (copies of files) in the inventory. In addition, numerous fragmented records of individual police units can be found. The police schools include documents from the police officer school of the Fürstenfeldbruck police force and the Innsbruck police school for high mountain training. In addition, a few documents of the chief of the gang fighting federations have been handed down. Particularly worth mentioning is the diary of the SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski for the period from 25 June 1941 to 22 January 1945, in which he recorded his personal war experiences, especially in his function as chief of the gang combat units. In the inventory, the basic tasks of the police forces in the occupied territories are vividly expressed. The task of fighting partisans was of great importance. The reports reflect the ruthless use against partisans and their sympathizers. In addition, searches of the homes of Jews and Jewish ghettos, resettlement actions and other measures against Jews, including "cleansing actions" and mass executions, are documented. The files of the police schools show how training courses, especially for officers or officer candidates, were organised and carried out. You will find curricula, training schedules and weekly duty schedules, examination assignments and assessments as well as experience and final reports on the courses held. In addition, teaching materials and fact sheets have been handed down which give an impression of the content and practical design of weapons and combat training as well as training in police tactics. State of development: Online-Findbuch (2006) Citation method: BArch, R 20/...

BArch, R 8056 · Fonds · (1914-1916) 1935 - 1938
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: Founded in 1880 as the "Deutscher Schulverein" (German School Association) based in Berlin; renamed Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland (VDA) in 1908; the aim was to maintain the cultural and social Le‧bens of foreign and ethnic Germans, in particular by establishing and maintaining kindergartens, schools and libraries; in 1933 the association was given the name Volksbund für das Deutschtum im Ausland. Portfolio description: Founded in 1880 as "Deutscher Schulverein" (German School Association) based in Berlin, renamed Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland (VDA) in 1908. The aim was to foster the cultural and social life of Germans living abroad and ethnic Germans, in particular by establishing and maintaining kindergartens, schools and libraries. In 1933 the association received the designation Volksbund for the German nation abroad. State of development: Online-Findbuch Citation method: BArch, R 8056/...