History of the Inventor: On 7 November 1918, the Armistice Commission (WAKO) was formed to conduct armistice negotiations with the Interalied Permanent Armistice Commission (Commission interalliée permanente d'armistice); initially under the direct authority of the Reich Chancellor, since February / March 1919 under the auspices of the Federal Foreign Office; dissolved on 30 November 1918.9.1920. Inventory description: Inventory history The inventory was transferred from the Federal Foreign Office to the Reichsarchiv in 1929 and recorded in the sequence of registry signatures. After the files had been removed during the Second World War, the German Central Archive Potsdam (later the Central State Archive Potsdam) took over the armistice commission after 1945. Concrete information on war-related outsourcing losses could not be provided due to a lack of finding aids. It can be seen from the signatures of the individual volumes of records transferred to the Reich Archives that the losses were considerable in some cases. The first processing took place in the Reichsarchiv from Jan. 1932 to Apr. 1933 and again until Aug. 1934. Archival evaluation and processing As the Auswärtiges Amt announced at the time, the files were subjected to a review before they were handed over to the Reichsarchiv, albeit only an external one. The numerous duplicates and transcript collections, which each department had created separately for itself, were sorted out. The library of the Federal Foreign Office took over the collection of printed matter. Parts of the files had to be filed in the Reichsarchiv, since the Wako registry mainly used Leitz files, many of which contained only a few documents. On the basis of the list of files, the Federal Foreign Office often combined 4-5 documents that belonged together objectively and were laid out separately into one file volume. Both on the file and on its back the subjects were listed, so that the decomposition of the processes in the Reichsarchiv could be carried out effortlessly. Files that contained documents were bound, files that contained only copies without marginalia were filed in folders. Documents of general content, such as minutes of the Reichsministerien meetings, have not been handed down in the Wako files. The Wako received its instructions from the Imperial Ministries, where the corresponding file material might also be found. It acted only in special matters, which were seen as a kind of cooperation with the Interalliated Permanent Armistice Commission (Commission interalliée permanente d'armistice, Cipa). According to the Federal Foreign Office's statements, only the countless applications for entry to Alsace-Lorraine and the occupied territory in the West were segregated from the processed files. The latter were handed over to the Entente powers in lists, dealt with by them according to lists and later answered by the Wako on forms. In its short history, the Ceasefire Commission had not been able to find a truly stable organizational form. As a result, no longer valid registration scheme could be found. Without a substantial revision of the content, the titles of the files were entered into the database, largely in nominal form. The content of too many of the notes on contents was cut back. Based on the traditional list of files and the organisational structure of the Wako, the present classification was created, which underwent some changes through the creation of series and volume sequences in the archives. Due to the mixing of several processes within a file, it was not always possible to assign them unambiguously to the classification scheme. The currently valid continuous signatures of the Armistice Commission were issued in the Federal Archives in the 1990s. The necessary work and changes for the database-supported implementation and the creation of an online version took place in 2006. Content characterisation: Central registry and general department; subject area II Press; subject area III Information and passport matters; subject area VI Military matters; subject area VIII Affairs of the western occupied territory (except Alsace-Lorraine) and the neutral zone; subject area IX Poland; subject area S III Food import; interdisciplinary files 1918-1920; registration aids; printed matters; hand files of the financial expert of the WAKO, Dr. Carl Melchior. State of development: Findbuch 1935, 1970; Online-Findbuch 2006 Citation method: BArch, R 904/...
