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History of the Inventory Designer: Lieutenant General, Reichsminister Karl Eduard Wilhelm Groener Life data 22.11.1867 born in Ludwigsburg (Württemberg) 03.05.1939 died in Bornstedt near Potsdam Development 22.11.1884 as a flag squire in the 3rd Württemberg Infantry Regiment No. 121 joined Ludwigsburg 01.04.1890 Battalion adjutant 01.10.1993-July 1896 Commanded to Kriegsakademie 01.04.1897-01.04.1899 Commanded to Großen Generalstab 25.03.1899 Transferred to Großen Generalstab 12.09.1902 Company commander in infantry regiment no. 98 transferred 01.10.1904 to the Great General Staff transferred 01.07.-11.09.1907 to the General Command VII Army Corps commanded 18.04.1908 to the spring voyage of the deep-sea fleet commanded 10.09.1908 with effect from 01.10.1908 to the General Staff of the XIII Army Corps transferred 18.10.1910 as battalion commander in the 7th Württemberg Infantry Regiment No. 125 transferred 13.09.1911 with effect from 01.10.1911 to the Great General Staff commanded 01.10.1912 appointed head of department in the Great General Staff 03.08.1914 chief of the field railway 26.05.1916, leaving his position as chief of the field railways for use at the War Food Office, 01.11.1916 appointed chief of the War Office at the War Ministry and appointed representative of the Prussian War Minister 09.11.1916 appointed Deputy Plenipotentiary of Prussia in the Federal Council 16.08.1917 appointed Commander of the 33rd Infantry Division 20.12.1917 appointed Leader of the XXV Reserve Corps 25.02.1918 appointed Leader of the 1st Army Corps 28.03.1918 appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Army Group Eichhorn - from 08. 08. 1917 appointed Commander of the 33rd Infantry Division 20.12.1917 appointed Leader of the XXV Reserve Corps 25.02.1918 appointed Leader of the 1st Army Corps 28.03.1918 appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Army Group Eichhorn - from 08. 08. 1918 appointed Commander of the 33rd Infantry Division08.1918 Army Group Kiev appointed 15.07.1919 appointed Commander of the Kolberg Command Post 30.09.1919 Approval of his farewell request 25.07.1920-12.08.1923 Reich Minister of Transport 19.01.1928 Reich Minister of Defence 08.10.1931 Reich Minister of the Interior 30.05.1932 Resignation from both offices Promotions 08.08.1885 Ensign 09.09.1886 Lieutenant 18.09.1893 Lieutenant Colonel 25.03.1899 Captain 27.01.1906 Major 01.10.1912 Lieutenant Colonel 05.09.1914 Colonel 26.06.1915 Major General 01.11.1916 Lieutenant General 29.10.1918 I. General Quartermaster Orders and Decorations 01.09.1900 Royal Prussia. Red Eagle Order 4th Class 11.05.1905 Knight's Cross 1st Class of the Royal Württembg. Friedrichs-Order 11.09.1907 Prussia. Crown Order 3rd Class 28.02.1908 Royal Bayer. Order of Military Merit 4th class with crown 09.03.1908 Officer's Cross of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. French Joseoh Order 17.09.1909 Crown to the Royal Prussia. Red Eagle Order 4th Class and Knight's Cross of the Order of the Württembg Crown 13.09.1912 Knight's Cross 1st Class of the Royal Saxon. Albrechts Order with Crown 19.07.1913 Royal Prussia. Red Eagle Order 3rd Class 29.04.1914 Cross of Honor of the Order of the Württembg Crown 17.10.1914 K.u.K. Austrian-Hungarian. Iron Crown 2nd Class 16.11.1914 Iron Cross 2nd Class 05.12.1914 Officer's Cross of the Royal Bavarian. Military Order of Merit with Swords 07.12.1914 Officer Cross of the Royal Württembg. Military Order of Merit with Swords 17.12.1914 Iron Cross 1. Class 29.12.1914 k.u.K. Austrian-Hungarian. Military Cross of Merit 3rd Class with war decoration 14.05.1915 Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords 29.06.1915 Knight's Cross of the Royal and Royal Austro-Hungarian Empire. Leopold Order with War Decoration 11.09.1915 Order pour le mérite 15.12.1915 Commander's Cross 2nd Class of the Royal Saxon. Albrechts-Ordens mit Schwertern 21.01.1916 Großoffizierkreuz des Kgl. Bulgar. militär-Verdienstorden mit Schwertern 10.04.1916 Komturkreuz 1. Klasse des Großhzgl. Bad. Order of the Zähringer Lion with Swords 23.08.1916 Commander Cross of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Franz Joseph-Ordens 27.10.1916 Bremer Hanseatenkreuz 08.11.1916 Hamburg Hanseatenkreuz 05.01.1917 Commturkreuz des Kgl. Bayer. Militär-Max Joseph-Ordens 22.03.1917 Cross of Merit for War Aid 07.06.1917 K.u.K. Österr.-Ungar. Iron Crown 1st Class with War Decoration 02.08.1917 Commander Cross of the Royal Württembg. Friedrichs-Order with Swords 16.08.1917 Royal Prussia. Red Eagle Order 2nd Class with Crown and Swords 31.08.1917 Cross of Honour 1st Class of the Princel. Hohenzollern House Order with Swords 15.06.1918 Star to the Royal Prussia. Red Eagle Order 2nd Class with Crown and Swords 27.06.1918 Grand Cross of the Royal Württembg. Friedrichs-Orden with Crown and Swords Description of the Collection: The collection includes, among others..: Memoirs 1867-1919; personal war diary, e.g. as chief of the field railways (1914-1916), chief of the war office (1916-1917); as First Quartermaster General (1918-1919); correspondence with Ebert and Hindenburg, among others; manuscripts mainly on the First World War, e.g. on the Schlieffen Plan and on field railways; material collections mainly of a war-historical and war-economical nature; political documents as Reich Minister of Transport (1920-1923), Reich Minister of the Armed Forces (1928-1932) and acting Reich Minister of the Interior (1931-1932). Further parts of the estate can be found in the Main State Archives in Stuttgart and in private hands. References to other stocks PH 3 Großer Generalstab RH 26-33 33. infantry division R 4101 Reichseisenbahnamt R 1501 Reich Ministry of the Interior R 5 Reich Ministry of Transport [online finding aids] Citation method: BArch, N 46/...

Inventory description: Following the imminent prohibition of the Great General Staff by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, various military personnel (including Hans v. Seeckt, Wilhelm Groener, Hermann Ritter Mertz v. Quirnheim and Hans v. Haeften) endeavoured to be able to continue the former war-historical department of the Great General Staff as a civilian institution for future military historiography and evaluation of world war experience. After approval by the Reich Cabinet, the war-historical section was therefore taken over by the Reichsarchiv, newly founded on October 1, 1919, due to the dissolution of the Großen Generalstab. The first president of the Reichsarchiv was Major General Hermann Ritter Mertz v. Quirnheim until 31 October 1931, and Colonel Hans v. Haeften became head of the war history department. In addition to its function as the archival centre for the history of the German Reich since 1867, the Reichsarchiv also served as a research centre for the development of a major World War II work and for the evaluation of the war experiences of the World War II from 1914 to 1918 for the Reichswehr and a future rearmament. In 1924 the war history department was renamed the Historical Department. Its main task was to elaborate and publish the official military World War II work, together with the supplementary volumes on war armaments and war economy as well as the field railway system. She was also responsible for the publication of the series "Schlachten des Weltkrieges" ("Battles of the World War"); she also supported the "Erinnerungsblätter deutscher Regimenter" ("Memory Sheets of German Regiments") and the "Forschungen und Darstellungen aus dem Reichsarchiv" ("Researches and Presentations from the Reichsarchiv"). On November 1, 1931, retired Major General von Haeften became President of the Reichsarchiv, and his successor as Director of the Historical Department was Lieutenant Colonel Wolfgang Foerster. After the National Socialist seizure of power and the transition to open rearmament, the Reichsarchiv was reorganised according to military criteria. The official military and war historiography and military archives became the task of the Wehrmacht. From April 1, 1934, the Historical Department was under the control of the Reichswehr Ministry; one year later, it was completely removed from the Reichsarchiv and renamed the "Forschungsanstalt für Kriegs- und Heeresgeschichte" (Research Institute for War and Army History). On 1 April 1937 it was given the name "Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres" (War Historical Research Institute of the Army), to which the library and printing works of the Reichsarchiv also passed. The military archives of the Reichsarchiv were taken over by the Heeresarchiv in Potsdam, which was newly founded on 1 April 1936. The former director of the research institute was promoted to president of the department. Foerster held this position until the end of the war. As a subordinate office of the Chief of the General Staff of the Army, the KGFA was now subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army. In the autumn of 1938, the General Staff re-established the office of Oberquartiermeister V under Lieutenant General Dr. Waldemar Erfurth, who was responsible for all war-historical and archival facilities of the army (7th War Science Department in the General Staff, Chief of the Army Archives, War History Research Institute). The KGFA was exclusively responsible for military historical research with the continuation and conclusion of the World War II work as well as the supplementary volumes. In addition, the research and presentation of the post-war fights of German troops and free corps as well as the fights in the colonies should be started. With the outbreak of the Second World War, however, Foerster's planned completion of work on the World War II plant at the end of 1942 was considerably delayed. At the end of September 1942, the KGFA was placed under the authority of Walter Scherff, the newly appointed "Representative of the Führer for Military Historiography" and head of the War History Department in the High Command of the Wehrmacht, Colonel (later Major General) Walter Scherff, on 17 May 1942. During the British air raid on Potsdam on 14 April 1945, extensive documents and archives were destroyed by fire, a large part of which had already been destroyed in an air raid on 14 February 1945. De facto the work of the War Historical Research Institute of the Army also ended with this. Structure of the KGFA (Source: RH 61/72): 1st President: Head of the Central Office (Z), at the same time responsible for personnel (ZP), budget (ZH) and mobilization matters (g. Kdos.); Head of Administration (ZV), for Central Office (ZB) with registry, post office, chancellery and printing office 2nd Division A: Director Group I : World War Plant Group II: War Armaments and War Economy 3rd Division A: Director Group I: World War Plant Group II: War Armament and War Economy 3rd Division A: War Department Department B: Director Group III: Colonial War Group IV: Military Railways Group VII: Research on 1918 Group VIII: Franktireur War Group IX: History of Heavy Artillery Group 4: Independent Groups Group V: Post-War Battles Group VI: Maps Group X: War and Army History up to the Beginning of the World War Group XI: Research Association for Post-War History Group XII: Individuals Library Other General Tasks: Warschuldfragen, Verwaltungsgeschichte Belgiens, Wehrwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, Reichsinstitut für Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands Vorgänger der Kriegsgeschichtlichen Forschungsanstalt (KGFA) was the war history department of the Great General Staff of the Prussian Army, which was dissolved at the beginning of the war in 1914 and newly formed in the Reich Archives in 1919. Characterisation of the contents: The military archives of the German Reich suffered extraordinarily large losses during the Second World War, above all due to the destruction of the files remaining in the army archives during the Allied air raid on Potsdam on 14 April 1945. This also affected the documents of the Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt. Employees of the civilian Reich Archives and the Army Archives in Potsdam who had worked on behalf of the Soviet occupying forces until February 1946 were, however, able to recover large parts of the files of the Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt from the damaged building. They were transferred to the Central Archive of the Soviet Occupation Zone (later the Central State Archive of the GDR), which was newly founded in July 1946, where they were grouped under the "Reichsarchiv" holdings. The holdings were rearranged by the Central State Archives of the GDR in Potsdam and recorded by hand on index cards. For the most part, the traditional file titles were adopted, but in many cases supplemented by "Contained" notes. After it had been processed, the documents of the research institute were separated from the remaining documents of the Reichs- und Heeresarchiv and in the mid-1980s handed over to the military archive of the National People's Army (NVA) in Potsdam. The files were stored there under the inventory designation W 10. After the state end of the GDR, the documents were transferred to the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in Freiburg in 1994 and were added to the existing holdings in Freiburg. The KGFA documents contained in RH 61 arose primarily in connection with the work on the World War II plant. It includes business files, correspondence files, research papers, studies, field reports, manuscript drafts, fair copies, flag proofs, copies of files of military and political authorities and agencies, of war diaries and personal records of officers, as well as notes of editors and newspaper clippings. In addition, detached parts of original documents, in a few cases even entire files, from the Reich Archives or Army Archives are in the process of being handed down. The documents offer an important replacement for the considerable war-related gaps in the records of the Prussian-German army before 1919. The present provisional index (copy of the index cards) of the KGFA holdings consists of the two parts of the records in Freiburg (RH 61) and formerly in Potsdam (formerly W 10). It is intended to merge the two separate stocks. State of development: Online-Findbuch Scope, Explanation: 2500 Citation method: BArch, RH 61/...