1st administrative history/biography: Carl Bach was born on 08.03.1847 in Stollberg in the Erzgebirge mountains as the son of the saddler master and carriage builder Heinrich Julius Bach. After attending primary school and private school in Stollberg, he completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith. In the years 1863 and 1864 he worked in the steam engine construction of the company R. Hartmann in Chemnitz. During this time he learned English in addition to his work. Then he was first a pupil of the Gewerbschule, later of the Werkmeisterschule, where he graduated at Easter 1866 with the overall grade 1 and the silver medal, which was only awarded in one copy. This year he took part in planning work for the Chemnitz water pipeline under the direction of Prof. Kankelwitz. After the following studies at the Polytechnikum Dresden he followed Prof. Kankelwitz as assistant for the years 1868 to 1872 to Stuttgart. After this time Bach studied again, this time with Grashof at the TH Karlsruhe, where he earned his diploma in 1873. In the following five years he worked as an engineer in Wollwich, London and Vienna, finally becoming director of Lausitzer Maschinenfabrik AG in Bautzen. He was elected to the Zittau Chamber of Commerce in 1877 and married in the same year. On 01 October 1878, Bach was appointed full professor of mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Stuttgart, where he established the Materials Testing Institute in 1884 and the Engineering Laboratory eleven years later. From 1885 to 1888 he was rector of the TH Stuttgart. One year later, on 20 June 1889, Bach was awarded the silver commemorative medal by the King of Württemberg on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the government. In February 1892 he received the Knight's Cross and on 25 November 1895 the Honorary Cross of the Order of the Württemberg Crown, connected with the nobility of persons. He was also awarded the title of "Construction Director". Already in 1883 Carl Bach was appointed to the Federal Polytechnic in Zurich, in 1895 to the Technical University in Berlin and in 1902 unofficially to the Technical University in Vienna. However, he did not follow any of these calls. On 22 March 1911 he was awarded the Commander's Cross of the 2nd Class of the Albrecht Order by King Friedrich August of Saxony, in 1914 the title "Staatsrat", in February 1916 he was awarded the Wilhelmskreuz by the King of Württemberg, in February 1918 the Commander's Cross of the Order of the Württemberg Crown. Also this year Bach was the first technician in Württemberg to receive the title "Excellence". From 1912 to 1918 Carl von Bach was a member of the 1st Chamber of the Württemberg State Parliament for the TH Stuttgart. On his 70th birthday, 1917, he became an honorary citizen of his hometown Stollberg and on his 80th birthday an honorary citizen of Stuttgart. In 1920 the senate of the TH Stuttgart had him paint for the senate hall. Two years later Bach was emeritus. In 1926 Bach was painted again, this time for the conference hall of the VDI in Berlin. Carl von Bach died in Stuttgart on 10 October 1931. He holds honorary doctorates from the TH Berlin (1903), the University of Tübingen (1927), the TH Vienna (1927), and the TH Stuttgart (1927). In close cooperation and lively exchange of ideas with renowned entrepreneurs and inventors such as Robert Bosch, Paul Daimler, Rudolf Diesel, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin and many others, Bach succeeded in bridging the gap in mechanical engineering between practitioners such as Redtenbacher (Karlsruhe) and theorists such as Reuleaux (Berlin) by purposefully combining theory and practice through experimental research in mechanical engineering and civil engineering. In order to secure the scientific basis, Bach successfully established two research institutes, the Materials Testing Institute 1884, of which he was director until 1922, and the Engineering Laboratory 1895. On his initiative, the first chair for aeronautics and automotive engineering was established in Germany in 1925, together with the associated laboratory. Based on his work, Bach is regarded as the founder of static elasticity and strength theory. Both from his own experience and from his work in business circles and technical associations, Bach was aware that the rapid development of German industry required a fundamental reform of engineering education. He demanded a "workshop practice" of at least one year. Bach considered solid practical experience supplemented by thorough, comprehensive training in natural science and technical subjects, but also the teaching of humanities disciplines, the "humanisation of technical universities", to be absolutely essential for the engineer of the future. His educational policy intentions, which he realized in his more than 40 years of work at the Technical University of Stuttgart, he achieved above all through the Association of German Engineers. The appreciation of Bach as a teacher and scholar is expressed not only by his appointments to other universities, but also by the orders and honours of crowned heads and associations of a technical, scientific and socio-political nature, as well as the magnificent letter of thanks from the students of the TH Stuttgart. 2nd inventory description: Carl von Bach (1847-1931) was one of the most important German technical scientists of his time. In the field of mechanical engineering and material testing he did pioneering work, which is the basis for today's problems and solutions. The estate of Carl von Bach comprises a total of about 40 running metres. Archive material. However, this material does not only contain the scientific legacy of Bach, but much more: in addition to the scientific works - almost all manuscripts of his major works are available in various editions - an extensive part of his private legacy is also preserved. In addition, the University Archives also contain the estate of his son Julius Bach. He was bequeathed in his will the entire legacy of his father's writings, which he finally bequeathed to the then Technical University of Karl-Marx-Stadt alongside his own. Particularly valuable in the estate of Carl von Bach, if one can even pick out a subgroup, is the traditional business correspondence. On approx. 50,000 sheets, both the correspondence received and the correspondence sent out over the period from 1876 to 1931 are almost completely handed down. Because of Bach's focus on work and research, the theory of strength and elasticity, of which he was a co-founder, he came into contact with various representatives from science and industry. Moreover, Bach was a very socially committed person, which is also reflected in this correspondence. However, the preservation of the tradition is endangered. In particular, the copial books with the outgoing correspondence will only be released for use in exceptional cases. The degree of preservation of the writing material is particularly problematic here. As a rule, the deceased did not use commercially available ink, but mixed it himself in varying compositions, some of which faded very strongly. In addition, the transparent paper of the books is only of little stability. For this reason, the business correspondence in the Bach estate was completely filmed and digitized. Selected documents are recorded on colour film and are available as negatives and positives. The Subdivision of the Estate Carl von Bach's estate is divided into six sections in its provisionally final stage of indexing: I. Biographical material This group includes personal documents, testimonies of his educational and professional career, documents about his military service, honours, vocations, anniversaries and autobiographical records. II. private correspondence This is arranged chronologically according to the members of the family and within them. Of these, the correspondence with his son Julius is the most extensive and certainly also the most interesting, since it contains the discussions of various technical problems that were conducted between the two scientists. III. business correspondence This cannot claim to be complete, but the extent of the overdelivery is impressive. Particularly remarkable is the tradition of the outgoing mail, which is recorded in a total of 35 copial books on approx. 35000 sheets. They cover the period from 1876 to 1903 and from 1909 to his death in 1931. Within these copies the letters are arranged chronologically and for almost each of these books there is a register of names of the addressees, which has been made by the deceased. However, the Kopialbücher also contain copies of incoming letters and various concepts, orders, etc., which Bach probably regarded as particularly important. Also the mail archived in this group is quite remarkable with 18 000 sheets. In total, there are about 2500 correspondents in the group of business correspondence. With regard to the two sections on private and business correspondence, it should be noted that correspondence can also be found outside these sections, in the fact files. IV. Business papers Here you will find the manuscripts of his countless publications, statements and expert opinions on the fields of science covered by Bach, as well as extensive material collections on these questions. His work on material testing, the durability of steam boilers and riveted joints, etc. can be particularly well understood here. Bach himself created firm portfolios in which he collected all possible processes into one subject and then labeled them accordingly. This state of order and distortion was largely adopted during the earlier processing of the estate, without verifying the content in detail. This situation was resolved in 2007. The order by subject has been maintained, but the folders have been repackaged and the file titles have been supplemented with extensive "Contains" notes to facilitate access to this material. In addition, papers from the estate of Julius Bach were added to this section, but these clearly have their origin in Carl Bach. V. Material Collections Various types of material have been summarized here. This concerns e.g. his membership cards, orders, promotional gifts, material samples or also different photos. Sections 4 and 5 have not been rearranged, but have been taken over from the original legator. VI. Non-provenance material Here is the material about the legator that was later added to the estate, such as obituaries or copies of and about Bach from other archives. In the revision of the estate, further material on Carl Bach was added. Of particular note here are the numerous photos of the Carl Bach family, which were made available in digital form for the collection. The inventory signature is the number 302, followed by an indication in Roman numerals and the individually numbered file units (in Arabic numerals). The Roman numerals indicate the six different groups. Example: 302 / III / 0123 Carl von Bach estate estate / business correspondence / foreign correspondence America: Argentina, Chile, Canada, USA Inventory processing The Carl von Bach estate has not yet been finally catalogued. At the beginning of the processing in the 80s a file was created, which was the basis for the input into the database at the end of the 90s. The data was transferred unchanged. A new classification was developed for the estate, according to which the entered units of registration are arranged. New file titles have been created in the Biographical Material, Private and Business Correspondence sections. In 2007, sections IV to VI were finally developed in greater depth. Although most of the titles of the files in the business papers and material collections were originally taken over by the testator, they were supplemented with extensive remarks. The present finding aid book thus represents the most recent state of processing for the time being. Digitisation The correspondence in the estate has been completely filmed and digitised from the film. Due to the state of preservation, the originals are no longer released for use. A high quality silver halide film has been used to secure the existence of the company. As a rule, this part of the estate is used via the electronic data on the PC. The designation of the CD-ROM corresponds to that of the file unit. During scanning, the individual sheets were numbered consecutively. The first part of the file name, however, reflects the file unit. However, the file numbers do not match the page number. 3. state of indexing/scope: indexed; find book, database, digitised material; scope: 40.75 running metres.
1 On the biography of Prince Ernst II of Hohenlohe-Langenburg: Hereditary Prince Ernst Wilhelm Friedrich Karl Maximilian of Hohenlohe-Langenburg - hereinafter called "Ernst II" in distinction to his grandfather Ernst - was born on 13 September 1863 in Langenburg as the son of Princess Leopoldine, born Princess of Baden, and Prince Hermann of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. He spent his school time in Karlsruhe, his mother's home town, at the Grand Ducal Gymnasium, which he left after graduating from high school in 1881. He then studied law as part of a contemporary university tour which took him to Paris, Bonn, Tübingen and Leipzig between 1881 and 1884. In 1885 Ernst II took his first legal exam at the Higher Regional Court in Naumburg a. d. Saale and during his military officer training at the 2nd Garde-Dragonerregiment in Berlin-Lichterfelde in the years 1886-1889 he also used the available time for extensive social activities at the courts of Emperor Wilhelm I and his son Friedrich. After completing his training, Ernst II advanced in the military hierarchy to lieutenant-colonel á la suite of the army (1914). The hereditary prince then aspired to a career in the Foreign Office, for which he first used one of his frequent stays in London in 1889 as a kind of private 'apprenticeship' at the German embassy. Queen Victoria was a great-aunt of Ernst II, so that he could always move at the highest social level. In 1890-1891 he passed his diplomatic exam and then took up a position as 3rd secretary in the embassy in St. Petersburg. Already in 1892 Ernst II achieved his transfer to London with the help of his father, who had enough influence as governor of Alsace-Lorraine, where he served as 3rd embassy secretary until 1894. In this year the hereditary prince Prince Hermann followed to Strasbourg to work as legation secretary of the ministry for the Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine. In 1896 Ernst II married his cousin of the 3rd degree Alexandra (1878-1942), a princess from the British royal family, whose father Duke Alfred of Edinburgh had taken over the Thuringian Duchy of Saxony-Coburg and Gotha three years earlier. Together with his wife and the offspring who soon followed - Gottfried, Marie Melita, Alexandra, Irma and Alfred, who died shortly after his birth - Gottfried, Marie Melita, Alexandra and Irma moved his centre of life to Langenburg and finally left the diplomatic corps in 1897. He had begun to establish himself in his role as heir when, after the unexpected death of Alexandra's brother Alfred (1899), the open question of succession in Saxony-Coburg and Gotha required a settlement. Ernst II was assigned as regent and guardian for the new, still youthful Duke Carl Eduard, a task he took over in 1900 after the death of his father-in-law, so that he now stood for 5 years at the head of a German principality. After the end of the regency, during which he had acquired the goodwill of his Thuringian subjects through a liberal attitude, Emperor Wilhelm II, his 3rd cousin, gave him the prospect of a position as State Secretary and appointed him in 1905 provisional head of the Colonial Department in the A u s w ä r t i g e s A m t , which was to be upgraded to his own R e i c h s k o l o n i a l a m t . But because of internal quarrels and the resistance in the Reichstag against the financing of the new authority, the hereditary prince had to take his hat off again in 1906. The following year Ernst II returned to the political stage as a member of the Reichstag for the constituency of Gotha, in which he had run as a representative of the bourgeois parties against the SPD. As a guest student of the parliamentary group of the German Reich Party, he sometimes appeared with speeches in the plenum, but everyday parliamentary work remained largely alien to him. As a result of a special political constellation in the Reichstag, Ernst II nevertheless managed to be elected vice-president of parliament in 1909 as a compromise candidate for the right-wing conservative camp. But he was not able to carry out this task for long either, because he did not want to come to terms with the conventions of parliamentary debates. As early as 1910 he used the anti-Protestant "Borromeo encyclical" of Pope Pius X to resign from his office in protest, albeit at the price of no longer being able to play a political role at the national level in the future. In 1913 Prince Hermann zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg died and his son took over the noble inheritance, which also included the county of Gleichen in Thuringia. Ernst II successfully compensated for the loss of leading political offices through his increased commitment to social forces, which rather worked in the background: first and foremost the Protestant Church, the Order of St John and the Red Cross. Within these institutions he held important and influential positions at local and state level, through which - in conjunction with his memberships in numerous associations and federations - he was able to cultivate a broad network of correspondents from noble, political, scientific, ecclesiastical and cultural circles.As commentator of the Württembergisch-Badenschen Genossenschaft des Johanniterordens and honorary president of the Württembergischer Landesverbandes vom Roten Kreuz it was obvious for Ernst II not to strive for a position with the fighting troops, but in the organization of voluntary nursing at the outbreak of the First World War. After a short period as a delegate for each stage in Berlin and on the western front, he was appointed at the end of 1914 as the general delegate for voluntary nursing care for the eastern theater of war, so that he spent the longest period of the war in the eastern headquarters - among others in the vicinity of Field Marshal von Hindenburg. In 1918 he was finally promoted to the highest representative of his organization, the Imperial Commissioner and Military Inspector, and in this function he led, among other things, the German delegation to prisoner of war exchange negotiations with the USA in Bern. Here he benefited from his diplomatic experience, which the emperor had already drawn on in 1915, when he sent the prince to Constantinople and the Balkans as a special ambassador. After the end of the war, Ernst II resigned his high office in nursing and devoted himself again to his church and association activities. He paid special attention to the Protestant Commission for Württemberg, for which he acted as chairman of the Gerabronn district and the Langenburg local group as well as delegate in the regional committee. While the unification of the Protestant regional churches in the German Reich had already been of great concern to him as a Thuringian regent, in the 1920s and 30s he continued to campaign for the Protestant cause at church congresses and church assemblies in Württemberg and at Reich level. In 1926 the Langenburg prince was also appointed senior citizen of the Hohenlohe House, and in the same year he was elected governor of the Balley Brandenburg, i.e. the second man of the Order of St John in the Empire. During National Socialism, Ernst II, as in republican times, stayed away from political offices, especially as he was of an advanced age. From 1936 he invested a large part of his energy in the endeavour to have the Langenburg ancestral estate recognised as an inheritance court and also took care of the publication of his correspondence with the widow composer Cosima Wagner. 11 December 1950 Prince Ernst II died very old in Langenburg, where he was also buried. 2. inventory history, inventory structure and distortion: Before distortion, the estate was in a relatively heterogeneous state, which was due to an inconsistent way of transmission and multiple processing approaches. During the fire at Langenburg Castle in 1963 and the associated temporary relocation of documents within the building complex, the original order probably suffered its first damage, which was intensified in the subsequent period in the course of the transfer of Langenburg archives to Neuenstein. Probably the estate was torn apart and transferred to the central archive in several parts that could no longer be reconstructed in detail. At the latest during the administrative work carried out there in the 1960s under Karl Schumm, the written remains of Ernst II were mixed with other files from Langenburg. Further parts of the estate may also have arrived in Neuenstein in the following decade. Building on the gradually implemented provenance delimitation of the Langenburg archival records, a rough pre-drawing of the estate could be tackled in the early 1980s, but this was not completed. A last addition from the family archives was made to the now formed holdings in 1992 by the delivery of Ernst-related files, most of which had originated in the Langenburg authorities, in particular the domain chancellery.Ernst II regulated his correspondence with the help of registrar-like notes, which he usually affixed directly to the incoming documents. It contained information on the date, recipients and content of the replies and other written reactions. He also noted instructions to his administration and often complete drafts of letters on the incoming mail. In addition, the testator himself already arranged and sorted his documents further by forming units oriented to factual topics and correspondence partners and providing them with notes in the sense of a file title along with its running time. In general, he attached the notes to envelopes of different sizes, most of them used, which served as packaging or were enclosed with the files. Over the decades, Ernst seems to have repeatedly tackled such disciplinary measures, which had a long tradition in the family, without, however, being able to recognize a stringently maintained pattern. Only the rough distinction between factual and correspondence files formed a perceptible red thread, which was also observed in the current distortion. However, it must be taken into account that even in the fascicles formed according to subject criteria, parts of correspondence are often found, only compiled on a specific topic. Although this leads to overlaps with the correspondence series, the fact files were largely left as such and only slightly thinned out with regard to the correspondence partners, since they are mostly units that are comprehensible in terms of content and partly rich in content. While the 'file titles' created by Ernst II normally largely corresponded with the content of the fascicles, it must be noted for the following indexing approaches, also and especially for the preliminary indexing in the 1980s, that the names, dates and subjects noted on archive covers often deviated from the actual content and could hardly be used for the current indexing. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the mixing with files of foreign provenance - including the estates of Ernst's father Hermann and his wife Alexandra as well as the domain chancellery and court administration - could never be completely eliminated and therefore numerous individual files had to be sorted out in the course of the current processing. However, this separation of provenances was not implemented consistently in every respect, but in particular files from the Langenburg and Coburg-Gotha administration, which refer directly to Ernst II, were left in existence; the official records usually differ from the actual estate in the outward appearance in the form of differently coloured folders with file titles, running times and file numbers. Furthermore 2 fascicles on the death of Ernst II and at the end of his reign in Saxony-Coburg and Gotha come from the estates of Ernst's children Gottfried and Alexandra. A special case is Ernst's correspondence with Cosima Wagner, which is kept entirely in Neuenstein, so that not only the letters received from the deceased, but also the letters to the composer's wife (Ernst, his mother Leopoldine and his cousin Max von Baden), stored in bound folders, were recorded as part of the princely estate (see 4.).Thus, the newly registered estate represents an inventory enriched with personal material. In addition, it is to be expected that there will still be isolated files from the estates of relatives whose origin could no longer be clearly clarified (e.g. loose individual pages or fascicles which refer to festive events without naming an addressee or previous owner), apart from the principle of retaining the original separation of factual and correspondence files, massive interventions had to be made in the formation and titling of the fascicles. In many cases, due to later order work, mixing within the fascicles and unclear new file formations had occurred, otherwise about a quarter of the holdings proved to be largely unordered. Even the rather ad hoc sorting carried out by Ernst II himself did not follow any kind of 'file plan', so that content overlaps and repetitions were the order of the day. Therefore, in the course of the current distortion, fascicles were repeatedly reshaped or newly formed under consideration of either thematic or corresponding criteria. The extraction of individual documents for assignment to other fascicles was generally documented by enclosed notes. Individual photographs and photo series with illustrations of Ernst II. were separated and formed into a separate 'photo collection' (see 5.), and in order to provide a better orientation for the user, the find book of most of Ernst II.'s relatives shows the degree of kinship to the deceased in square brackets in the appropriate places.The collection La 142, Nachlass Fürst Ernst II., was arranged and recorded from June to December 2004 by archivist Thomas Kreutzer within the framework of a project sponsored by the Kulturstiftung Baden-Württemberg. It covers 19.4 running meters. Files and volumes in 927 units with a running time of (1845-) 1868-1951 (1959).Neuenstein, in April 2005Thomas Kreutzer 3. Note for use:: During the distortion, cross-references were made in the files that refer to the former bundle number - not to today's order number. To find the corresponding fascicles, the concordance has to be used.Concordance earlier - today's tuft number: 4. Literature:: Heinz Gollwitzer, The Lords of Stand. Die politische und gesellschaftliche Stellung der Mediatisierten 1815-1918. Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Sozialgeschichte, Göttingen 1964, bes. S. 244-253.Maria Keipert/Peter Grupp (Ed.), Biographisches Handbuch des deutschen Auswärtigen Dienstes 1871-1945, Vol. 2, Paderborn et al. 2005, S. 344f.Thomas Kreutzer, Protestantische Adligkeit nach dem Kollbruch - Die kirchliche, karitative und politische Verbandstätigkeit von Ernst II. Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg between 1918 and 1945, in: Nobility and National Socialism in the German Southwest. Edited by Haus der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg in conjunction with the State Capital Stuttgart (Stuttgart Symposium, Series 11), Leinfelden-Echterdingen 2007, pp. 42-82 Thomas Nicklas, Ernst II. Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. Standesherr, Regent, Diplomat im Kaiserreich (1863-1950), in: Gerhard Taddey (ed.), Lebensbilder aus Baden-Württemberg, Vol. 21, Stuttgart 2005, pp. 362-383.Frank Raberg (ed.), Biographisches Handbuch der württembergischen Landtagsabgeordneten 1815-1933 (Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für geschichtliche Landeskunde in Baden-Württemberg), Stuttgart 2001, pp. 381f.Karina Urbach, Diplomat, Höfling, Verbandsfunktionär. Süddeutsche Standesherren 1880-1945, in: Günther Schulz/ Markus A. Denzel (ed.), German nobility in the 19th and 20th centuries, St. Katharinen 2004, pp. 354-375 Karina Urbach, Zwischen Aktion und Reaktion. The Southern German Class Lords and the First World War, in: Eckart Conze/ Monika Wienfort (ed.), Adel und Moderne. Germany in European Comparison in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Cologne 2004, pp. 323-351.Freie Deutsche Presse Coburg, 30.12.1950 (obituary).Hohenloher Zeitung, [after 11.12.]1950 (obituary).further materials:La 95 Domänenkanzlei LangenburgLa 102 Fürstliche HofverwaltungLa 143 Nachlass Fürstin Alexandra zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg
Contains: Correspondence of Ernst II with Imperial Chancellor Prince Bernhard von Bülow and King Edward VII of Great Britain [uncle 3rd degree].