Inventory historyThe 2668 units of description recorded in this repertory are only a fragment of the original records of the Konsistorium - albeit a quite respectable one - as they were before the authority moved to Düsseldorf in 1934. With the help of the received handwritten or typewritten file directories, the losses or inventory shifts that have occurred can be reconstructed exactly. The chronology spans over forty years:I) As early as 1931, extensive files were collected within the Consistory. The basis for this decision, which was made in the Koblenz office building due to acute lack of space, was a list drawn up in 1929 by Konsistorialoberinspektor Mähler ("sale of files for stamping"). Summary information on the groups of files concerned can be found in Faszikel A II 1 a 9 (serial no. 28):- Travel expenses (A II 1 b 2 and 5) up to 1920- Office requirements (A II 1 b 3) up to 1920- Forms (A II 2 31) up to 1920- Publication of the Official Gazette (A II 2 35) up to 1920- Accounting of the Official Gazette (A II 2 37) up to 1915- Invoices incl. Documents about the church sub-funds up to 1910- Collections up to 1910- Collections yield records up to 1920- Collections concerning the church sub-funds up to 1910- Collections up to 1910- Collections up to 1920- Collections concerning the church sub-funds up to 1910- Collections up to 1910- Collections up to 1920- Collections concerning the church sub-funds up to 1910- Collections up to 1910- Collections up to 1920- Collections up to 1920- Collections up to 1920 Applications for pastors up to 1925- Business diaries up to 1900- Budget files up to 1905- Property files up to 1905- Beiakte up to 1905- Order awards for clergy (B V a 14) up to 1910- Support for clergy and parish widows (B V b 29 u. 86) until 1910- Leave granted to clergy (B V b 64) until 1910- Contributions to the parish widows' and pension fund (B V b 89f.) until 1910- Pension fund accounts (B V b 93f.) until 1910- Remarks on pensions and widows' and orphans' pensions for clergy (B V b 91 u.) 95) until 1910- Aid from the Grant Fund (B V b 104) until 1910- Instructions of the Age Allowances for Ministers (B V b 105) until 1910- Insurance Contributions to the Age Allowance Fund (B V b 106) until 1910- Employment of Vicars from the Vicarage Fund (B VII b 19) until 1905- The teaching vicariate of the candidates (B VII b 17) to 1910 - cash affairs of the vicariate fund (B VII b 20) to 1910II) In September 1934 -directly before the move to Düsseldorf- the following files were destroyed for reasons of space after a note by Mähler:- old diaries until 1914- old budget files until 1915- old files on pensions, widows' pensions etc. until 1920- old files about support for clergy and parish widows- old files about lending of marriage memorial coins- old files about the house collection delivery fund until 1910- old files about "miscellaneous"- old files about the publication of the church official gazette until 1920- old files about instruction of the teaching vicars until 1925- old collections on collection yields up to 1920- old files on church taxes up to 1905- old annual reports of the Superintendents up to 1932The files of the Konsistorium Köln, dissolved in 1825, were also handed over to the Staatsarchiv Düsseldorf in 1934 and survived the war. In today's Main State Archives, this collection with a total of 512 volumes (running time 1786-1838, predominantly 1815-1826) is assigned to Department 2 (Rheinisches Behördenarchiv). (4) A parallel transfer of 525 files of the period 1816-1827 took place to the State Archives Koblenz, where they formed the collection 551. Unfortunately it was completely burned during the air raids on Koblenz in 1944. The same fate suffered stock 443 (princely Wiedische government in Neuwied), in which some Konsistorialakte under the Nr. 143-161 were integrated. Only the finding aids of these two holdings are still available in the Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz. Further consistorial acts were assigned to the following holdings:Best. 309, 1 (French Consistorium General Mainz) No. 1-17Best. 381 (Landeskommission St. Wendel) No. 17-33Best. 382 (Government St. Wendel) No. 420-502Best. 387 (Landgräflich Hessische Regierung Homburg) No. 187-295The holdings 309, 1 and 387 are still in the LHA Koblenz, the remaining two are today on permanent loan in the Landesarchiv Saarbrücken.III) 1936-1937, after lengthy negotiations with the Staatsarchiv Koblenz, the consistorial files in the narrower sense that began in 1826ff. were returned to the Provinzialkirchenarchiv (Provincial Church Archive). It had been in Bonn since 1928, and since 1936 it had its own premises in Hofgarten 13. A 46-page compilation of these extensive holdings by Lic. Rodewald from 1938 is available. (5) These are predominantly the older files of the 19th century, but also, for example, the documents from the war period 1914-1918; in any case, these were files which were "only" of purely historical value and which were considered dispensable for the business.IV) On 14 November 1939, the Konsistorium issued a circular letter to the Superintendents on the possibility of handing over the examination papers of deceased priests to family members. The background was a request by the now Provincial Church archivist Lic. Rosenkranz, who thus sought to alleviate the acute lack of space in the Hofgarten. Initially, 31 pastors whose documents had already been selected by Rosenkranz are listed here. (6) The unsolicited examination papers were then to be destroyed in February 1940. The campaign was continued eight more times until February 1943, when it fell victim to the wartime restrictions on the Consistory's operations. (7) The only condition for the file request was the submission of 50 Pfennig return postage. A total of 908 pastors were listed. It is not possible to determine which documents were actually still requested back by the families and thus saved from later destruction.V) On 12.11.1943, the director of the Koblenz State Archives, Dr. Hirschfeld, in his capacity as air-raid commissary, called on the Konsistorium to outsource the files kept in Düsseldorf (8). This was rejected on the grounds that the (current) personnel files were already in an air-raid shelter recognised as bomb-proof; for the remaining files, structural security measures would now be taken immediately. These can be found documented in a cost estimate of 10.12.1943 by architect Otto Schönhagen, the head of the provincial church building authority: The registry office facing Freiligrathstraße is to be provided with protective walls for -some modest- 720 Reichsmark. It can be assumed that these conversions were carried out at the beginning of 1944. In any case, the files remaining at the Konsistorium itself came through the war without any noticeable losses.VI) On the other hand, the Hofgarten 13 building was completely destroyed during the air raid on Bonn on 18 October 1944. The fire had reached the cellar so quickly that both the older personnel files of the pastors and the Konsistorial inventory returned from Koblenz in 1937 were totally lost. In contrast to the old pertinence holdings, these holdings were not outsourced to the Provinzialkirchenarchiv and the Kirchenbücher. This is by far the greatest loss suffered by the original Consistorial tradition, especially in the 19th century. It is to be quantified on approx. 400-600 volumes of fact files (Generalia and Spezialia) as well as on an even higher number of personnel files. In this repertory, the burnt predecessor volumes are listed under the heading "Remarks"; the frequently occurring spring numbers in the holdings signatures indicate the complete loss of a file. For a very detailed reconstruction of the holdings destroyed in Bonn, which would be possible, the Rodewald List would have to be compared with the existing handwritten file directories. Fortunately, to a certain extent there exists a replacement tradition in the form of files of the Upper Presidium of the Rhine Province in the LHA Koblenz. (9) Important material that has not otherwise been handed down in Düsseldorf is also contained in the Rhine Province Department of the holdings 7 (Evangelical High Council of Churches) in EZA Berlin. (10)VI) On 24 February 1972, the Regional Church Office decided to hand over the long overdue files of the former Consistory to the Regional Church Archive. (11) Previously, despite their duration, some of which dates back to 1826, they were considered to be registry properties and were also administered by the registry. Since also in 1971 in connection with the move into the new office building of the LKA in the Hans-Böckler-Straße a general registration cut took place, the specialties of the church districts and the church communities were pulled out of the Konsistorialakten and summarized to separate stocks (31 church districts as well as 41 local records). Unfortunately, the separation was not complete, so that still considerable file parts remained in the Konsistorial inventory. In the present repertory, it is always noted if the following volumes are in stocks 31 or 41. Conversely, in the typewritten finding aids for these two holdings, it is noted which pre-volumes can be found in the Konsistorial files. note on useThe following file plan of the Konsistorialkanzlei dates from the 19th century and was updated into the 1940s. The term "n.a." (no files available) for individual subgroups can indicate complete loss due to the effects of war. As a rule, however, the relevant files have been removed as outlined above and added to newly created series of holdings. This also applies to all personnel files. The 90 business diaries preserved for the period 1928-1948 are added to the list of units of description listed here. There have been no archival indexing aids for the stock so far. A typewritten alphabetical index of the existing files, created in 1931 by the registry of the time, was available, though without any information on the running time. Two further large-volume handwritten file indexes were first written in one hand around 1850 and then updated over a period of almost 100 years. (12) Many of the files listed there have now been lost. Nevertheless, the two files still retain an important significance, since they indicate the file transfers and re-signings within the Konsistorial registry and the reconstruction of the lost holdings is at all only possible with them.The first partial file recording by auxiliary staff began around 1990. The undersigned has compared the contents of these photographs. It was not possible to completely standardize their extremely different distortion intensities. The present repertory is therefore not "of one mould". The index in this printed version covers only the names of places and persons as well as a few selected terms. A complete keyword search is possible via the database of the Archive of the EKiR. The files of the Konsistorium cover almost all facets of church life in the Rhine Province. The tradition for the time of the Weimar Republic and the Nazi regime up to 1945 is almost completely preserved. On the other hand, the files from the First World War are largely lost, not to mention the often only rudimentary tradition for the 19th century. With the previous scientific use one cannot avoid the impression that the latent mistrust of wide church circles in the Rhineland towards this authority has been reflected since its foundation up to the research. In addition, there may be an understandable aversion towards individual members of the Consistory who are burdened in the church struggle. It is to be hoped that a relaxed - of course never uncritical - way of dealing with this so expressive material will enrich our knowledge of the Protestant church history of the Rhineland.Düsseldorf, 31 October 2001(Dr. Stefan Flesch)1. Cf. the following Max Bär: Die Behördenverfassung der Rheinprovinz seit 1815 (Publikationen der Gesellschaft für Rheinische Geschichtskunde 35), Bonn 1919 (ND Meisenheim 1965), S. 153-164; Werner Heun: Art. Konsistorium, in: TRE Vol. XIX, S. 483-488; on the general embedding of church law and church politics see Die Geschichte der Evangelischen Kirche der Union, edited by J.F.Gerhard Goeters and Joachim Rogge, Leipzig 1992-1999, passim2. For this bear, a.a.O., p. 162: "The governments were left only with the supervision of the church books, the care for the establishment and maintenance of the church courts, the ordering and execution of the police regulations necessary for the maintenance of the external ecclesiastical order, the supervision of the administration of property and the appointment or confirmation of the secular church servants to be appointed for the ecclesiastical administration of property and the supervision of them and, together with the consistory, the alteration of existing and the introduction of new succession fees and the alteration of existing and the formation of new parish districts."3. today's address: Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer 12. cf. History of the City of Koblenz vol. 2, Stuttgart 1993, p. 426f.4The holdings of the North Rhine-Westphalian State Archives. Brief overview, Düsseldorf 1994, p. 98. A 30-page compilation of the files submitted can be found in A II 1 a 9 Bd. I.5. B I a 29 Bd. IV6. Circular No. 11073 in B I a 29 Bd. IV, in alphabetical order: Heinrich Wilhelm Achelis; Hugo Achenbach ( 1908); Julius Achenbach ( 1893); August Bergfried ( 1922); Friedrich Wilhelm Rudolf Böhm ( 1867); Emil Döring ( 1925); Georg Doermer ( 1888); Heinrich Doermer ( 1839); August Ludwig Euler ( 1911); Karl Furck ( 1911); Gustav Adolf Haasen ( 1841); Julius Haastert; Philipp Jakob Heep ( 1899); Gustav Höfer; Paul Kind; Karl Margraf ( 1919); Daniel Gottlieb Müller ( 1892); Andreas Natrop ( 1923); Christian Friedrich Nelson ( 1891); August Penserot ( 1866); Reinhard Potz ( 1920); Eduard Schneegans (born 1810); Philipp Jakob Stierle ( 1887); Eduard Vieten ( 1869); Josef August Voigt ( 1869); Johann Gustav Volkmann ( 1842); Reinhard Vowinkel ( 1898); Friedrich Weinmann ( 1860); Friedrich Wenzel ( 1909); Gustav Wienands ( 1929)7th ibid.March 1940 (48 names), November 1940 (33 names), September 1941 (47 names), February 1942 (123 names), July 1942 (118 names), October 1942 (128 names), November 1942 (176 names), February 1943 (204 names)8. A II 1 a 9 Vol. I (current No. 28). Cf. Petra Weiß's contribution to the overall problem: Die Bergung von Kulturgütern auf der Festung Ehrenbreitstein, in: Jahrbuch für Westdeutsche Landesgeschichte 26 (2000), pp. 421-4529. Cf. Inventory of the Upper Presidium of the Rhine Province, Part 1 (Publications of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Archives Administration, vol. 71), Koblenz 1996, pp. 42-45 and 396-40910. Christa Stache: Das Evangelische Zentralarchiv in Berlin und seine Bestände, Berlin 1992, pp. 61-64 as well as handwritten repertory especially of the department Rheinland (copy available in the AEKR Düsseldorf). The inventory comprises approx. 25 linear metres.11. LKA files 23-2-3 vol. 3 (resolution); cf. also the letter of Archivrat Schmidt of 9.9.1971 in 22-28 vol. 212. All mentioned finding aids are kept in the repertory collection of the Landeskirchlichen Archivs.
I. The history of the von Linden family: The von Linden family originally comes from the diocese of Liège. The progenitor is a certain Adam van Linter, who is mentioned in documents 1604-1615 and who was the owner of the estate in Hoeppertingen (Belgian Limburg). His son Peter, who probably emigrated to Franconia because of the political and religious unrest in the home country of the Linter family, acquired a farm in Habitzheim (Odenwald) around 1650. In Kurmainz some members of the Catholic von Linden family were promoted to high offices: Franz von Linden (1712-1789) was a member of the Court Chamber Council and head cellar of the Camera Administration in the Vice-Chamber Office of Aschaffenburg, Johann Heinrich Freiherr von Linden (1719-1795) was a Privy Councillor and Director of the Court Chamber of the Electorate of Mainz. Franz Damian Freiherr von Linden (1745-1817), a grandson of Johann Heinrich Freiherr von Linden, was privy councillor and later director of the state government of the prince primate in Aschaffenburg. His second eldest son Franz Joseph Ignaz was Württemberg's Privy Legation Councillor and lord of Nordstetten, Isenburg and Taberwasen. Another grandson of Johann Heinrich Freiherr von Linden, the jurist Franz Freiherr von Linden (1760-1836), held the position of Reich Chamber Court Assessor from 1796 to 1806. After the dissolution of the Imperial Chamber Court, Franz Freiherr von Linden entered the service of the Kingdom of Württemberg. King Friedrich I of Württemberg appointed him president of the newly founded Catholic Church Council in 1807. In 1815 Franz Freiherr von Linden was appointed Württemberg Plenipotentiary at the Congress of Vienna, then Württemberg Ambassador to the Bundestag in Frankfurt. 1817-1831 he was president of the Schwarzwaldkreis (Black Forest District) and Franz Freiherr von Linden was the progenitor of the VII lines (the lines are counted according to the number of lines): Genealogical handbook of the nobility vol. 68 of the complete series. Freiherrliche Häuser Vol. VII, Limburg/Lahn 1978, p. 196-215; Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels Vol. 109 der Gesamtreihe, Freiherrliche Häuser Vol. XVIII, Limburg/Lahn 1995, p. 356-376; Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels: Der in Bayern immatrikulierte Adel Vol. XXIII, Neustadt/Aisch 2000, p. 351-365.) of the House of Linden: From his seven sons mentioned in the following these VII lines of the house come: From Edmund (1798-1865) the I. (count's) line (Burgberg), from Franz a Paula (1800-1888) the II. (count's) line (Burgberg). (Count's) line, from Carl (1801-1870) the III. line (Hausen) with the 1st branch (in the USA) and the 2nd branch (Hausen), from Joseph (1804-1895) the IV. line (Hausen) with the 1st branch (in the USA) and the 2nd branch (Hausen), from Joseph (1804-1895) the IV. line (Hausen) with the 1st branch (in the USA) and the 2nd branch (Hausen). line (Neunthausen), by Ernst (1806-1885) the V. line (Bühl), by Ludwig (1808-1889) the VI. line (Bühl). In 1844 Edmund Freiherr von Linden (1798-1865) and his cousin Heinrich Freiherr von Linden (1784-1866), the eldest son of the aforementioned Damian Franz Freiherr von Linden, were raised to the rank of papal counts. In 1846, the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt recognized Heinrich's raising of rank, and in the same year Edmund Graf von Linden received Württemberg's recognition of the raising of rank. In the year 1850 the papal earldom was also founded on Franz a Paula and II. Line extended. The elevation to the Württemberg rank of counts took place in 1852, with the exception of the III. line (Hausen), all of the VII lines in the Württemberg male tribe were extinguished. The III. line divides into a 1. branch, whose members live in the USA, and into the 2. branch (Hausen). TWO. Biographical outlines of Hugo and Joseph Freiherr von Linden: Hugo Freiherr von Linden (1854-1936):The 2nd branch (Hausen) of the III. line is also the origin of the ministerial director Hugo Freiherr von Linden. He was born on 1 February 1854 in Ludwigsburg as the son of Carl Freiherr von Linden (1801-1870) and his second wife Mathilde Freifrau von Linden née Countess Leutrum von Ertingen (1815-1892). Hugo Freiherr von Linden studied law at the universities of Tübingen, Strasbourg and Berlin after graduating from high school in 1872. In 1877 he passed the state examination. After working at various courts in Württemberg, he became Secret Legation Secretary in the Württemberg Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1883. In the same year he was appointed the King's chambermaid, which involved honorary services at social events of the court. In 1906 Hugo Freiherr von Linden was promoted to Ministerial Director and Head of the Political Department of the Ministry in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in 1900 Hugo Freiherr von Linden worked out the marriage contract between Duke Robert von Württemberg and Archduchess Maria Immaculata Raineria from Austria (cf. Hugo Freiherr von Linden married Elisabeth Schenk Freiin von Stauffenberg (1864-1939) in 1893, the daughter of the Vice President of the German Reichstag, Franz August Schenk von Stauffenberg. He is the progenitor of the 2nd branch (Hausen) of the III. line (Hausen).Joseph Freiherr von Linden (1804-1895):Joseph Freiherr von Linden comes from the IV. line (Hausen). Line (Nine houses). He was born on 7 June 1804 in Wetzlar as the son of the already mentioned Reichskammergerichtsassessor Franz Freiherr von Linden (1760-1836) and his second wife Maria Anna von Linden née Freiin von Bentzel zu Sternau (1769-1805). Joseph Freiherr von Linden spent his childhood and youth in Württemberg, u. a. in Kirchheim, where he became lifelong friends with the son of Ludwig Herzog von Württemberg (1756-1817) and Henriette Herzogin von Württemberg née Prinzessin von Nassau-Weilburg (1780-1857), Alexander Herzog von Württemberg (1804-1885). After studying law in Tübingen, Joseph Freiherr von Linden and his older brother Carl stayed in France from 1825 to 1827 in order to improve his knowledge of the French language and literature (cf. order numbers 3 and 4), after which he worked as a judge in various Württemberg cities. 1839-1848 Joseph Freiherr von Linden represented the knighthood of the Danube district in the Second Chamber. From 1842-1850 he was - like his father before him - President of the Catholic Church Council. 1848 was the revolutionary year in which Linden was appointed Minister of the Interior of Württemberg, but had to be dismissed on the same day due to the protests of the population. 1 July 1850 King Wilhelm I appointed Linden Minister of the Interior again and handed him over the office of Minister of the Interior of Württemberg in the years 1850 to 1851 and 1854 to 1855. During this time von Linden stood up for the restoration of the old constitution, which earned him the accusation in liberal circles that he was reactionary. Linden's achievements in the economic field should not be underestimated: He promoted the founding of the Stuttgart stock exchange, created a new trade code and encouraged the founding of the Weinsberg wine growing school. In the field of church politics, von Linden contributed significantly to the balance between the Kingdom of Württemberg and the Catholic Church. After the death of King Wilhelm I, his son and successor King Karl dismissed von Linden as minister on 20 September 1864. In the following years, Joseph Freiherr von Linden worked as a diplomat for Württemberg. In 1865 he became Württemberg envoy in Frankfurt and at the Hessian courts, 1868 envoy at the customs parliament in Berlin, and in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War he was appointed prefect of the Marne département occupied by the Germans (cf. order numbers 32 and 34, order numbers 15 and 16). 1830 Joseph Freiherr von Linden married Emma Freiin von Koenig-Warthausen (1810-1893). The marriage produced four children: Richard (1831-1887), who was cavalry captain of the Württemberg military (see order numbers 34 and 41, order numbers 15 and 49), Franziska (1833-1919), who married Dr. Fridolin Schinzinger (1827-1865) in 1859 (order numbers 25, 35 and 36, order numbers 11, 13 and 14), Elise (1836-1914) and Josephine (1838-1881), both of whom remained single.Of the other outstanding members of the von Linden family, for whom there is only little material in this collection (order number 42, order number 8), Karl Graf von Linden (1838-1910), the founder of the Völkerkundemuseum (Lindenmuseum) in Stuttgart, named after him, and Marie Gräfin von Linden (1869-1936), who was the first woman to study at the University of Tübingen and who was later appointed Professor of Parasitology at the University of Bonn, should be mentioned briefly. III. history, content and structure of the collection: The present holdings combine documents from the estate of Joseph Freiherr von Linden, which were handed over to the Hauptstaatsarchiv in 1962 by Mr. Regierungsoberinspektor Reginald Mutter (cf. the title in the old repertory for holdings Q 1/7), a great-great grandson of Joseph Freiherr von Linden. One year later, the Main State Archives purchased these archival records, which were initially incorporated into the former holdings J 50 (Smaller Estates). Robert Uhland produced a typewritten finding aid in 1963. When the Q holdings were created in 1972, the holdings designated as the estate of Linden were removed from the J 50 holdings and assigned to the newly created Q 1 series (political estates), where they received the signature Q 1/7. The small estate consisted only of a tuft, which contained several documents, which were listed in the above-mentioned find book. In the 90's the stock Q 1/7 got increases by taxes from private side: In 1990, Mrs. E. Niethammer, Kirchheim/Teck, handed over documents from the estate of the Protestant pastor family Dierlamm to the Main State Archives as a gift, which were initially incorporated into the holdings Q 1/7 as Büschel 2. These are the documents now listed under heading 2 of this inventory (order numbers 37 to 41). These include business cards and letters from Joseph Freiherr and Emma Freifrau von Linden to Pfarrer Dierlamm (serial number 37, order number 45), tickets from Sara Schinzinger to Pfarrer Dierlamm (serial number 40, order number 47) and several sermons on corpses for members of the House of Linden (serial number 41, order number 49). Among them are documents from the estate of his grandfather Hugo Freiherr von Linden (serial numbers 7-23) and pictures, especially of members of the House of Württemberg (section 3.2, serial numbers 43-48). In addition, Franz-Karl Freiherr von Linden has handed over to the Main State Archives an extensive collection of material compiled by him on the family history of Linden, including photocopies of literature and copies or photocopies of archival records of the von Linden family. Finally, Franz-Karl Freiherr von Linden transferred newspaper articles written by him about the formation of the island Surtsey off the coast of Iceland to the Main State Archives in 1993, which were initially classified as tufts 5 in the Q 1/7 inventory. The diaries 1870-1935 of his grandfather Hugo Freiherr von Linden, which were handed over by Franz-Karl Freiherr von Linden in 1992 as a deposit under retention of title to the Main State Archives, were returned to the owner in 1995. (Cf. Tgb.-Nr. 4143/1993 and Tgb.-Nr. 2918/1995) In the course of the indexing the stock received further growth from the stock J 53 (family papers of Württemberg civil servants). The excerpts from family registers concerning Julius Graf von Linden and Loring Graf von Linden (serial numbers 5 and 6, order numbers 50 and 19) and documents on the sale of the manor Nordstetten to the forester of Fischer-Weikersthal (serial number 1, order number 17) kept under the signature J 53/10 were also classified in the present inventory. As already mentioned several times above, today's holdings Q 1/7 include not only the estate of the Württemberg Minister of State Joseph Freiherr von Linden but also several other estates of members of the House of Linden and collections or documents on the family history of Linden. For this reason, the previous inventory name "Nachlass Joseph Freiherr von Linden" was extended to "Familienunterlagen von Linden". In view of the small size of the holdings and the incompleteness of the holdings, it is not possible to speak of a family archive, however, since materials on various members and lines of the von Linden family are completely or almost completely lacking: no original archival records on the members of the von Linden family who were in the service of the Electorate of Mainz, the Prince Primate and the Grand Duke of Hesse are to be expected (v. a. Johann Heinrich von Linden, Damian Franz Freiherr von Linden, Heinrich Graf von Linden). there are also only a few archival records of the lines dating back to the sons of Franz Freiherr von Linden: From the I. (Counts) and II. (count's) lines, there are no original documents, with the exception of extracts from the family registers of Julius and Loring Graf von Linden (order numbers 5 and 6, order numbers 19 and 50). Also missing are documents of the V. line (Bühl), the VI. (Swiss) line and the VII. line. Smaller estates are only available from the III. line (Hausen) and the IV. line (Hausen). line (Neunthausen), but the documents from the estates of Ministerial Director Hugo Freiherr von Linden and Minister of State Joseph Linden are only fractions of the original estates. It can be assumed that the family still owns some of the material mentioned above and of other members of the von Linden family, but unfortunately parts of the archival records of the von Linden family were also destroyed in the fire at the Burgberg and Hausen palaces during the Second World War.In addition to the personal documents on individual members of the family, the present collection also lacks documents on economic and property management, documents and invoices, which are to be expected in a nobility archive. The structure of the collection is based on the division of the widely ramified von Linden noble family into the various lines, as it is listed in the Genealogical Handbook of the Nobility. Within the individual lines, the bequests and holdings of the family members were arranged according to date of birth, so that the older family members were listed before the younger ones. The bequests of Franz Joseph Ignaz Freiherr von Linden (section 1.1) and Franz Freiherr von Linden (section 1.2) are at the beginning of the holdings. The latter estate includes a legal opinion on the effect of the Reich's decision of 27 April 1803 on the judicial proceedings of the chamber of justice, two letters from Franz von Linden to Minister of Justice Maucler on the progress made in the training of the sons Carl and Joseph von Linden, and the correspondence between Carl and Joseph von Linden during their stay in France with their parents, some of which was written in French.The estate of the Ministerial Director Hugo Freiherr von Linden comprises several printed programmes and invitations to cultural and official events, mainly in Stuttgart (section 1.5.1), and letters from members of the Princely House Wied to Hugo Freiherr von Linden as well as a memorandum from Wilhelm I. Prince of Albania Prince to Wied (section 1.5.2). Section 1.6 forms the estate of the Württemberg Minister of State Joseph Freiherr von Linden. It is the second largest estate in the stock Q 1/7. The estate is divided into the categories: Family and personal affairs (1.6.1) with documents on weddings, wedding jubilees and a travel description, correspondence (1.6.2) with letters from members of the House of Württemberg (above all Alexander Duke of Württemberg) to Joseph Freiherr von Linden and isolated letters from family members, activity as prefect of the Marne Department (1.6.).3) and printed matter about Joseph Freiherr von Linden (1.6.4): the wife of Joseph Freiherr von Linden, Emma Freifrau von Linden, and the daughter of the Minister of State, Franziska Freiin von Linden, only have very small estates (headings 1.7 and 1.8); the materials from the estate of the Protestant parish family Dierlamm were left as an independent complex (heading 2). The content of the section has already been discussed above, and under section 3 you will find collections, mainly on the family history of Linden: The first section is section 3.1 with the already mentioned extensive collection of material on the family history of Linden, which Franz-Karl Freiherr von Linden compiled and handed over to the house as photocopies. Section 3.2 contains photos of members of the House of Württemberg, of Joseph Freiherr von Linden and of other personalities in Württemberg history; sections 3.3 and 3.4 contain newspaper articles by Franz-Karl Freiherr von Linden and a lock of hair by Joseph Freiherr von Linden.Further archives on Joseph Freiherr von Linden are kept by the Hauptstaatsarchiv in fonds J 1 (collection of historical manuscripts) no. 256 b: Joseph Freiherr von Linden: "Aus meiner politische Karrierebahn" 1830-1862, part 2 of the memoirs dictated by Linden to his granddaughter Sara Schinzinger around 1890. The copy kept in J 1 is a copy for which Professor Schinzinger from Hohenheim, a grandson of the Minister of State von Linden, lent the original to the archive in 1925. Günther-Otto Maus in Baesweiler, a direct descendant of Joseph Freiherr von Linden, was filmed in 1977 and is now kept in the Main State Archives under the signature F 554 in fonds J 383 (microfilms and manuscripts in foreign archives, libraries). In January 2015, Günther-Otto Maus purchased the original diary from Günther-Otto Maus and it is now part of the collection under the signature Q 1/7 Bü 51. An index of the archive of the Barons of Linden in Neunthausen, which was compiled in 1892/1893, is part of the collection J 424 (Inventories of Non-State Archives: Caretakers' Photographs).In addition, reference is briefly made to the E stocks (ministerial stocks), in which extensive material on the work of State Minister Joseph Freiherr von Linden and Ministerial Director Hugo Freiherr von Linden is kept, and Q 1/7 can be used for various research purposes: First of all, of course, the history of the von Linden family, the history of nobility, mentality, social and cultural history, and finally the history of the German occupation of France during the war of 1870/1871. The Q 1/7 holdings were catalogued in 2001 by the archive inspectors Alexander Morlok, Matthias Schönthaler and Jens Ulrich under the supervision of the undersigned. The final editing, input and classification of the title recordings, the introduction as well as the compilation of the overall index were the responsibility of the undersigned. 0.5 linear metres of the stock was held. Literature about the von Linden family and individual family members:: Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels: Adelslexikon Vol. VII. 1989. p. 394f.Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels: Vol. 68. Freiherrliche Häuser Vol. VII (1978) p. 196-215 and Vol. XVIII (1995) p. 356-376.Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels: Der in Bayern immatrikulierten Vol. XXIII. 2000. 351-365.Junginger, Gabriele: Countess Maria von Linden. Memories of the first Tübingen student. 1991.Koenig-Warthausen, Wilhelm Freiherr von: Josef Freiherr von Linden. Württemberg Minister of the Interior 1804-1895 In: Lebensbilder aus Schwaben und Franken IX S. 218-276.Linden, Franz-Karl Freiherr von: Grandfather's diaries. [Article about Hugo Freiherr von Linden (1854-1936)]. In: Schönes Schwaben 1993 Issue 1 S. 78-83 Menges, Franz: Joseph Freiherr von Linden. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) Vol. 14 S. 589-590Moegle-Hofacker, Franz:; On the Development of Parliamentarism in Württemberg. The "Parliamentarism of the Crown" under King Wilhelm I. 1981.Schneider, Eugen: Joseph Freiherr von Linden. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB) Vol. 51 S. 719-721 Stöckhardt, E.: Joseph Freiherr von Linden. Royal Württemberg Minister of State (retired) Member of the Württemberg Chamber of Lords of State for Life. In: Deutsche Adels-Chronik Heft 15 S. 187-190 und Heft 16 S. 215, 216 und 226, 227th Württembergischer Verein für Handelsgeographie, Museum für Länder- und Völkerkunde, Lindenmuseum Stuttgart (publisher): Celebration of the 50th anniversary of the association. Celebration of the 100th birthday of Count Karl von Linden. 1939.
Description of holdings: Abt. 40 Gemeindearchiv Herrnsheim (before 1945) Scope: 307 archive cartons 2 lfm Amtsbücher (= 2538 units = 49 lfm) Duration: 1445 - 1945 The preface to the present holdings Abt. 40 - Gemeindearchiv Herrnsheim (bis 1945) - des Stadtarchivs Worms is intended to give a brief insight into the development of the registry and archive material on the one hand at the time of its safekeeping in the Bürgermeistei Herrnsheim, and on the other hand since its takeover by the city of Worms. Subsequently, the indexing work is explained, with reference to special features and supplementary holdings. A short outline of the local history is sent in advance in the wording of the inventory overview of the Stadtar-chiv Worms, literature references to deepen the information on the local history can be found as an appendix to this foreword. I. About the local history about four km northwest of Worms; first mentioned in documents in 771; after the chamberlains of Worms (gen. von Dalberg, knightly family) had further enlarged their property in the village im-mer and extended their rights, they received it in 1375 as a fief (de facto rule in the village, market and court); Philipp Kämmerer von Worms made the village his residence: around 1460 construction of a castle on the site of today's castle, at the same time fortification of the village; 1470-92 reconstruction of a chapel of the parish church St. Peter (with numerous altars, patronage: monastery St. Peter's Abbey); 1470-92 conversion of a chapel of the parish church St. Peter (with numerous altars, patronage: monastery St. Peter's Abbey St. Peter's Abbey St. Peter's Abbey St. Peter's Abbey St. Peter's Abbey St. Peter's Abbey). Cyriakus/Neuhausen) to the family grave (thus situation of a small residence, which is well readable from a structural point of view until today); 1581 introduction of the reformation by Kurpfalz, 1635 extensive cremation of the place, Dalbergische local rule up to the end of the old empire; around 1900 approx. 2100 inhabitants; 1798-1814 French rule, from 1816 Grand Duchy and/or Volksstaat Hessen; 1816 Kanton Pfeddersheim, 1835 Kreis Worms, 1848 Regierungsbezirk Mainz, 1850 Regierungsbezirk Worms, 1852 - 1942 Kreis Worms; incorporation into Worms on 1.4.1942. II. municipal registry and archive In 1826, in accordance with the government decree of 25.7.1826, a register of the collections of laws, ordinances and instructions available in the Herrnsheim archive was compiled. The archive was refurbished in 1830/31 in connection with the construction of the new community centre. New furniture was commissioned and manufactured, including a filing cabinet for the archive and another for the mayor's office. Also the receipt of the Wwe. Ph. Ch. Schöneck from Worms of 20.4.1831 about 12 guilders and 19 cruisers for the repair of 28 steep cartons for the Bürgermeisterei-Archiv in Herrnsheim gives an insight into the file storage in Herrnsheim. On 30 October 1830, a circular was sent to all the provincial mayor's offices concerning the management of the files, concerning the "Order of the Provincial Municipal Archives". It is demanded that the official documents be sorted according to the aforementioned headings, that the files be sorted chronologically according to objects until 1830, then stored in cardboard boxes or cupboards in closed premises. The latter requirements were met - as explained above - in the new furnishing of the community centre. According to the circular, all receipts should be attached and the collection completed by 1 February of each year. On 27 March 1838 Mr. Völcker was commissioned by the district council to revise the municipal registry in Herrnsheim. In accordance with the registration plan for the mayors, he should inspect and arrange the documents on site and only receive his fees if he has completed this work in accordance with the regulations. Obviously this was not the case, because on July 26, 1838 the county council of Staedel assigned Mr. Peth from Bermersheim with the order of the municipal registry in Herrnsheim. A further inventory, which now also includes the files, was created for the community of Herrnsheim - presumably between 1905 and 1910 for valuation for insurance purposes. In the care of the mayor were an archive cabinet, two large file cabinets, a small file cabinet and an old file box. In addition to official and legal gazettes, various ordinances, handbooks and technical literature, 56 fascicles, the value of which could not be determined, are listed for the registry plan groups I - XXVI. In the following, numerous fascicles are listed both with details regarding assignment to the registry plan, duration and evaluation. Particularly noteworthy are e.g. the fair protocol book of 1716, guardianship bills and wills etc. 1699-1821, official and court protocols 1778-1798, fire register 1817, 1835 and 1848 as well as a new one. Also a local building plan (3 sheets), which is no longer available after current distortion, is proven in this inventory, estimated at 200 Marks. It should also be noted that there were several murals in the town hall, the Duke Dalberg, Emperor Wilhelm I, Emperor Wilhelm II and the Empress as well as members of the hess. Grand Duke's family, there were also other pictures, one, the volcanic eruptions showed another, the battlefield around Metz. The files mentioned in this inventory, which the registrar kept, seem to be available except for the volume listed here Birth, marriage and death registers 1780-1798. The next overview of the municipal archive Herrnsheim is provided in 1937 by Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Becker with his compilation of the inventories of the municipal archives of the district Worms. Here Prof. Henkelmann from Bensheim checked the existence of the community Herrnsheim and according to the file groups of the hess. The registry plan of 1908 is summarized. It should be noted that the oldest pieces mentioned here, e.g. the Morgenbuch (1626-1666; Dept. 40 No. 370), the Verordnungsbuch des Franz Heinrich Käm-merer von Worms Frhr. v. Dalberg (from 1742; Dept. 40 No. 1), the instrument of those at Neuhau-sen, about the provision of two Geharnischter at Herrnsheim (1445, no. 5), baker's order of 1736 (copy, dept. 40 no. 371) as well as further pieces already listed above in the inventory at the beginning of the 20th century, e.g. the fair protocol book, official and court records. In October 1914, the decree book of Franz Heinrich Kämmerer v. Dalberg as well as the instrument of those of Neuhausen were made available for use by the Grand Ducal Hessian House and State Archive in Darmstadt on behalf of the former Referendar Müller. Note: It is noticeable that the municipal council minutes are not available as a complete series, the earliest protocol book even only in 1836 begins. It is to be assumed and in comparison to other church archives as unusual to notice that this volume was at all the first protocol volume for Herrnsheim. It was acquired on 3 May 1836 alongside various other registers. According to the inventory (see above) three volumes were available at the beginning of the 20th century (1836/40, 1856/75 and 1875 ff), the pieces were valued at 90 marks. At least for the absence of a ribbon an explanation could be found in the files. The former mayor Brandt refused the publication of the protocol book in 1856. In 1986, the city archives once again attempted to investigate the failure of the municipal council records between 1840 and 1919, but the then head of the town Josef Wolf had to fit as well. There is also a gap in the series of municipal accounts with the corresponding volumes of deeds between 1924 and 1940. For the years after 1940, the accounts as well as the accounts and the corresponding documents of the Geschwister-Zimmer-Siftung for the period between 1921 and 1941/42 are missing. The loss of some files or the one or the other transaction can be explained by the fact that it happened that these were lost during the loan e.g. to the district office in Worms. For this reason, Herrnsheim refused to hand over correspondence with Freiherr Heyl'schen Güterverwaltung concerning the question of space for the fire station of the fire brigade to the Hessian Building Department in Worms. On his cover letter it was noted: did not happen, otherwise the files (like so many before already) would not be findable any more one day. In order to prevent the loss or destruction of files by air raids, Martin Fell and his wife were requested by the local administration on 21.9.1942 to secure important documents every evening and to salvage the files in the event of damage to the town hall caused by air raids. On 29.4.1943, in the course of the incorporation of Herrnsheim, the files were first transferred to the cellar of the Cornelianum in Worms. On the basis of the different file aprons the different used Regist-raturplans can be recognized, first 1836, then 1908 and finally after 1942 (with the inscription 'Stadtverwal-tung Worms'). Some file covers were preserved as samples in abbot 40 no. 2532 - no. 2534). For the fascicles belonging to the classification group XXI.09. Dalbergische Grundstücksangelegenheiten, the file aprons have inscriptions similar to those shown for files in Dept. 159. III. listing The written material taken over in the course of the incorporation 1943 was registered in the 70iger years after the Bär'schen principle, whereby as a rule the titles of the office books and minutes as well as those after the hess. file plans from 1836 or 1908 on the file aprons were taken over traditional inscriptions. This first registration work originally comprised 371 units, whereby the last registered units (from no. 331) were supplemented at later dates and comprised a running time until 1966. On 24 June 1971, the then District Court Director Dr. Heinz Pfannebecker handed over 12 documents to the City Archives, which obviously originated from the provenance of the Herrnsheim Mayor's Office. Most recently, in 2002, title recordings of sources from the still unlisted partial stock were made in connection with Volker Brecher's work on the war economy in Worms. Here, files were taken into account that were thematically related to prisoners of war, foreigners, etc. for the period between 1938 and 1950. In the inventory of Dept. 40, which had already been recorded, a few files exclusively with the term after 1945 were taken into account in the first registration. These were segregated and returned with the still unlisted part of the stock, which also included files after 1945, in order to be processed later in connection with Dept. 6 Municipality of Worms (after 1945). Since individual files may have already been used under their old signature, a list of these pieces can be found in the appendix of this finding aid book, which is currently stored in 29 archive boxes (plus some loose pieces) in the magazine of the Raschi-Haus (Regal 25) together with the total of six linear metres of written material after 1945. With the new indexing of the inventory Abt. 40 - Gemeindearchiv Herrnsheim - was started in December 2005, the indexing work was completed in July 2006. In addition to the written material already listed, unlisted material was also taken into account. The indexing work was carried out according to the Bär principle, whereby a new numbering inevitably resulted with the dissolution of earlier larger indexing units, i.e. new signatures were assigned for these documents. Therefore a concordance between old and new signatures was created and attached to this find book. The entire inventory was entered into the AUGIAS archiving program and simultaneously indexed (company, location, person and subject index). The basis for the classification was the hess. The file plan of 1908 was chosen and modified and supplemented according to local needs. For reasons of data protection, approx. 140 files were provided with blocking notices for use. The relatively high number results from the fact that a large number of civil documents are available for which the Civil Status Act provides guidelines for use or non-use. Thin folders from the period around 1930/40 were collected, which contained Generalia - often only in the size of 2-3 sheets - and had no direct reference to matters in Herrnsheim; in addition, two bundles of calibration maps were sorted out, which have no informative value whatsoever. In total, the scope of the cassation covers three archive boxes. The municipal archive Herrnsheim is kept to the extent of 2538 units of description (numerically up to 2534) in 308 archive boxes (49 linear metres, of which 2 linear metres are official books). The duration ranges from 1445 to the 1970s, with a focus on the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Despite incorporation in 1942, the cut for the index was set at 1945 so that two border data did not have to be taken into account within only three years, i.e. 1942 as the year of incorporation on the one hand, 1945 as the border year for the files handed down by the city administration before 1945 (Dept. 5) and after 1945 (Dept. 6) on the other. Therefore, the files were left in Dept. 40, in which at least one document from 1945 was still contained - irrespective of whether the temporal focus of the file tended to concern the period after 1945. IV. State of preservation The state of preservation of the files and official records of the present municipal archives can be described as good by and large. Unfortunately a larger number of pieces affected with mould is to be registered in particular under the calculations and documents, as well as the handbooks and diaries over incomes and expenditures: 45 with light mould infestation, with mould and water damages 7 pieces and 14 volumes are sport and have mould milk damages. Besides, a part of the document books to the calculations as well as a large number of the handbooks and diaries (approx. 140 pieces, i.e. approx. 5.5 es total stock) show beside mould and spores also water damages. Ten official books (invoice receipts and property tax section directories) are bound in such a way that parchment, which as a rule is inscribed with liturgical texts, forms the spine of the book in second use. Also thread-stitched files, as known from Prussian administration, can be found in Dept. 40. These are the official records (Protocollum Judicale, Dept. 40 No. 295 - 298). V. Tips for the use of the inventory The signatures of the individual sources are indicated with : City Archive Worms Dept. 40 No..... The often underestimated significance of the following sources should be pointed out here. In the volumes of documents relating to the invoices, in addition to newspapers (e.g. Dept. 40 No. 2409), there are also work chords (Dept. 40 No. 2469), invoices of various companies (Dept. 40 No. 2502), e.g. on work performed and material used for it (Dept. 40 No. 2504). The correspondence registers (e.g. Dept. 40 No. 651, No. 652) were also kept in full text in some years, so that the complete correspondence between the higher authority or private persons on the one hand and the mayor's office on the other hand can be traced in connection with the corresponding fact files. The significance of the inventory of estates as a source genre for genealogical, social and economic research should be pointed out in particular. The inventories are in the present stock under the classification group X.02.e. Inheritances and guardianship matters registered. There are also files on asset sharing and wills. For ease of use, the units of description have been sorted roughly alphabetically by surname, with all occurring surnames "underlined" at the same time. With regard to the index of persons, it should be noted that in very few exceptional cases the correct alphabetical order was broken. If the usual spelling of a common name was extremely changed, the allocation was made within the normal one, e.g. 'Pardong' instead of 'Bardong', here the classification took place under 'B'. If family names were used with equal weight in different spellings and their proximity was recognizable within the alphabet, no standardization or assignment was made, e.g. Ertelmeyer/Erdelmeyer. The company index was created so that smaller businesses in the municipality, which normally only run under the personal name (e.g. J. Hübner, Buchdruckerei), could also be recorded. It would be very difficult to find small companies within the index. Now the list can be flown over within the company index - also in case of classification (depending on how the transaction is usually called) partly under the first name, partly under the last name or under the business object. The prefix "Fa." was omitted because it was not used regularly [possibly also at different times] even by one and the same company. That's why it's uncertain to what extent he's really part of the name. Apo counters and restaurants mentioned by name were also included in this index. General designations such as locksmith's shop and glazier's shop have been added to the index. VI. supplementary archive holdings Dept. 13 No. 1777 'Gewerbebetriebe zu Herrnsheim' (1860-1888) Dept. 30 Hess. Kreisamt Worms (e.g. files in the area of trade supervision, admission to the Hessian state association) Abt. 49 Gemeindearchiv Pfeddersheim (Herrnsheim as a municipality belonging to the canton of Pfeddersheim) Abt. 159 Herrnsheimer Dalbergarchiv Hess. State Archive Darmstadt: Family Archive of Dalberg (Dept. O 1 A-B) VII Literature BARDONG, Otto, Harlesheim - Herlisheim - Herrnsheim. Contributions to local and parish history, in: Herrns-heim 771-1971, edited by Otto Bardong, Worms 1971, pp. 43-104. BÖNNEN, Gerold (edited on behalf of the city of Worms), Geschichte der Stadt Worms, Stuttgart 2005. WOLF, Jürgen Rainer/SPENGLER, Hugo (Bearb.), Family Archive v. Dalberg (Dept. O 1 A-B) 1424-1846 (= Repertories of the Hessian State Archive Darmstadt 22/1), Darmstadt 1985. Herrnsheim. Portrait of a community, edited on the occasion of the 1225th anniversary in 1996 by the local community of Worms-Herrnsheim.
BestandsgeschichteThe 2668 indexing units recorded in this repertory form only a fragment of the original registry of the Consistory, albeit a very considerable one, as it was before the authority moved to Düsseldorf in 1934. With the help of the surviving handwritten and typewritten file indexes, the losses and relocations that occurred can be reconstructed exactly. The chronology spans more than forty years:I) As early as 1931, extensive file holdings were catalysed within the consistory. The basis for this decision, which was made due to an acute shortage of space in the Koblenz office building, was a list drawn up in 1929 by Consistorial Chief Inspector Mähler ('Sale of files for destruction'). Fascicle A II 1 a 9 (no. 28) provides summarised information on the file groups concerned:- Travel expenses (A II 1 b 2 and 5) until 1920- Office requirements (A II 1 b 3) until 1920- Forms (A II 2 31) until 1920- Publication of the official gazette (A II 2 35) until 1920- Accounting for the official gazette (A II 2 37) until 1915- Invoices incl. receipts for the church gazette (A II 1 b 2 and 5) until 1920- Invoices for the church gazette (A II 2 37) until 1915. Invoices incl. receipts for the church's ancillary funds until 1910- Collections until 1910- Collection receipts until 1920- Collections relating to applications for parish positions until 1925 Applications for parish positions up to 1925- Business diaries up to 1900- Budget files up to 1905- Property files up to 1905- Supplementary files up to 1905- Religious orders for clergy (B V a 14) up to 1910- Support for clergy and parish widows (B V b 29 u. 86) until 1910- Grants of leave for clergymen (B V b 64) until 1910- Contributions to the parish widows' and pension fund (B V b 89f.) until 1910- Pension fund accounts (B V b 93f.) until 1910- Remarks on pensions and widows' and orphans' allowances for clergymen (B V b 91 and 95) until 1910- Allowances from the subsidy fund (B V b 104) until 1910- Instructions on retirement allowances for clergymen (B V b 105) until 1910- Insurance contributions to the retirement allowance fund (B V b 106) until 1910- Employment of vicars from the vicariate fund (B VII b 19) until 1905- Teaching vicariate of the candidates (B VII b 17) until 1910- Cash matters of the vicariate fund (B VII b 20) until 1910II) In September 1934 - immediately before the move to Düsseldorf - the following files were destroyed for reasons of space according to a note by Mähler: - old diaries up to 1914- old budget files up to 1915- old files on pensions, widow's benefits etc. up to 1920- old files on support payments up to 1920 until 1920- old files on support for clergy and parish widows- old files on the awarding of commemorative marriage coins- old files on the house collection delivery fund until 1910- old files on 'Miscellaneous'- old files on the publication of the church gazette until 1920- old files on the assignment of teaching vicars up to 1925- old collections on collection proceeds up to 1920- old files on church taxes up to 1905- old annual reports of the superintendents up to 1932The files of the Cologne Consistory, which was dissolved in 1825, were also transferred to the Düsseldorf State Archives in 1934 and survived the war. In today's Main State Archives, this collection with a total of 512 volumes (duration 1786-1838, mainly 1815-1826) is assigned to Department 2 (Rheinisches Behördenarchiv). (4) A parallel transfer of 525 files from the period 1816-1827 was made to the Koblenz State Archives, where they formed fonds 551. Unfortunately, this was completely burnt during the air raids on Koblenz in 1944. The same fate befell fonds 443 (Fürstlich Wiedische Regierung in Neuwied), into which some consistorial files were integrated under nos. 143-161. Only the finding aids of these two fonds are still available in the Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz. Further consistorial files were assigned to the following fonds:Fonds 309, 1 (French General Consistory Mainz) No. 1-17Fonds 381 (St. Wendel State Commission) No. 17-33Fonds 382 (St. Wendel Government) No. 420-502Fonds 387 (Landgravial Hessian Government Homburg) No. 187-295The fonds 309, 1 and 387 are still in the LHA Koblenz, the other two are now on permanent loan to the Landesarchiv Saarbrücken.III) In 1936-1937, after lengthy negotiations with the Staatsarchiv Koblenz, the consistorial files in the narrower sense, which began in 1826ff. and had initially also been handed over, were returned to the Provinzialkirchenarchiv. The latter had been located in Bonn since 1928 and had had its own premises at Hofgarten 13 since 1936. There is a 46-page compilation of these extensive holdings by Lic. Rodewald from 1938. (5) These are predominantly the older files from the 19th century, but also, for example, the documents from the 1914-1918 war period; in any case, these were files that were still considered to be of purely historical value and were deemed to be dispensable for business operations.IV) On 14 November 1939, the consistory issued a circular to the superintendents about the possibility of handing over the examination papers of deceased pastors to family members. The background to this was a request from the now provincial church archivist Lic. Rosenkranz, who sought to alleviate the acute shortage of space in the Hofgarten. It initially lists 31 pastors whose documents had already been sought out by Rosenkranz. (6) The examination papers that had not been requested were then to be destroyed in February 1940. The action was continued eight more times until February 1943, when it fell victim to the war-related restrictions in the consistory's operations. (7) The only condition for requesting files was to send in 50 pfennigs return postage. A total of 908 pastors were listed. It is not possible to ascertain which documents were actually requested back by the families and thus saved from later destruction.V) On 12 November 1943, the Koblenz State Archive Director Dr Hirschfeld, in his capacity as air raid warden, asked the Consistory to remove the files stored in Düsseldorf (8). This was rejected on the grounds that the (current) personnel files were already located in an air-raid shelter recognised as bomb-proof; structural safety measures would now be carried out immediately for the remaining files. These are documented in a cost estimate from architect Otto Schönhagen, the head of the provincial church building office, dated 10 December 1943: The registry facing Freiligrathstraße is to be fitted with protective walls for a modest 720 Reichsmarks. It can be assumed that these alterations were realised at the beginning of 1944. In any case, the files remaining at the consistory itself survived the war without any recognisable losses.VI) On the other hand, the building at Hofgarten 13 was completely destroyed in the air raid on Bonn on 18 October 1944. The fire had reached the cellar so quickly that both the older personnel files of the pastors and the consistorial files brought back from Koblenz in 1937 were completely lost. In contrast to the old pertinent holdings of the provincial church archives and the church records, these holdings were not removed from storage. This is by far the greatest loss that the original consistorial records have suffered, especially in the 19th century. It can be quantified as around 400-600 volumes of subject files (generalia and specialia) and an even higher number of personal files. In this repertory, the previous volumes that were burnt are listed under the heading 'Remarks'; the frequently occurring skip numbers in the inventory signatures indicate the complete loss of a file. A detailed reconstruction of the holdings destroyed in Bonn - which is entirely possible - would require a comparison of Rodewald's list with the available handwritten indexes of files. Fortunately, to a certain extent there is a replacement in the form of the files of the Oberpräsidium der Rheinprovinz in the LHA Koblenz. (9) Important material that is otherwise not available in Düsseldorf is also contained in the Rhine Province section of fonds 7 (Evangelischer Oberkirchenrat) in the EZA Berlin. (10)VI) On 24 February 1972, the regional church office decided to transfer the files of the former consistory to the regional church archives, which was long overdue. (11) Until then, they had been regarded as registry property - despite the fact that some of them dated back to 1826 - and were also administered by the registry. As a general pruning of the registry also took place in 1971 in connection with the move to the new LKA office building in Hans-Böckler-Straße, the special files of the church districts and parishes were subsequently removed from the consistorial files and combined into separate holdings (31 church districts and 41 local files). Unfortunately, the separation was not complete, so that a considerable number of files still remained in the consistorial holdings. In this repertory it is always noted when the subsequent volumes are in fonds 31 or 41. Conversely, in the typewritten finding aids for these two fonds, it is noted which previous volumes can be found in the consistorial files.Usage informationThe following printed file plan of the Consistorial Chancellery dates back to the 19th century and was updated until the 1940s. The indication 'n.a.' (no files available) for individual subgroups may indicate complete loss due to the effects of war. As a rule, however, the files in question have been removed as outlined above and added to newly formed fonds. This also applies to all personnel files. In addition to the indexing units listed here, there are also the 90 surviving business diaries for the period 1928-1948, for which no archival cataloguing aids have existed to date. A typewritten alphabetical subject index of the existing files, compiled in 1931 by the registrar's office at the time, was available, albeit without any duration information. Two further large handwritten indexes of files were initially written in one hand around 1850 and then updated over a period of almost 100 years. (12) Many of the files listed there have since been lost. Nevertheless, the two indexes continue to be of great significance, as they indicate the file transfers and resignations within the consistorial registry and only with them is it possible to reconstruct the lost holdings. The undersigned has compared the contents of these records. It was not possible to completely standardise their extremely different levels of indexing intensity. The present repertory is therefore not 'from a single mould'. The index of this printed version only includes the names of places and persons as well as a few selected subject headings. A complete keyword search is possible via the database of the EKiR archive. the files of the consistory cover almost all facets of church life in the Rhine Province. The records for the period of the Weimar Republic and the Nazi regime up to 1945 are almost completely preserved. In contrast, the files from the First World War, for example, are largely lost, not to mention the often rudimentary records from the 19th century. From the scholarly use to date, one cannot help but get the impression that the latent mistrust of wide ecclesiastical circles in the Rhineland towards this authority has been reflected in research since its foundation. In addition, there may have been an understandable aversion towards individual consistory employees who were involved in the church struggle. In many recent works, at any rate, reference is still made to contemporary historical collections and quite relevant bequests without taking the original official records into consideration, and it is to be hoped that a relaxed - and of course never uncritical - approach to this highly informative material will enrich our knowledge of the Protestant church history of the Rhineland. Düsseldorf, 31 October 2001(Dr. Stefan Flesch)1 Cf. on the following Max Bär: Die Behördenverfassung der Rheinprovinz seit 1815 (Publikationen der Gesellschaft für Rheinische Geschichtskunde 35), Bonn 1919 (ND Meisenheim 1965), pp. 153-164; Werner Heun: Art. Konsistorium, in: TRE vol. XIX, pp. 483-488; on the general ecclesiastical law and ecclesiastical politics, see Die Geschichte der Evangelischen Kirche der Union, ed. by J.F.Gerhard Goeters and Joachim Rogge, Leipzig 1992-1999, passim2. On this Bär, op. cit. p. 162: 'The governments were left only with the supervision of the church registers, the care for the establishment and maintenance of the churchyards, the ordering and enforcement of the police regulations necessary for the maintenance of external church order, the supervision of the administration of assets and the appointment or confirmation of the secular church servants to be employed for the administration of church assets and the supervision of them and, together with the consistory, the modification of existing and introduction of new stolgebührentaxes and the modification of existing and formation of new parish districts. '3 Today's address: Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer 12 Cf. history of the city of Koblenz vol. 2, Stuttgart 1993, p. 426f.4 The holdings of the North Rhine-Westphalian Main State Archives. Brief overview, Düsseldorf 1994, p. 98. A 30-page compilation of the files handed over can be found in A II 1 a 9 vol. I.5. B I a 29 vol. IV6. Circular no. 11073 in B I a 29 vol. IV, in alphabetical order: Heinrich Wilhelm Achelis; Hugo Achenbach (+1908); Julius Achenbach (+1893); August Bergfried (+1922); Friedrich Wilhelm Rudolf Böhm (+1867); Emil Döring (+1925); Georg Doermer (+1888); Heinrich Doermer (+1839); August Ludwig Euler (+1911); Karl Furck (+1911); Gustav Adolf Haasen (+1841); Julius Haastert; Philipp Jakob Heep (+1899); Gustav Höfer; Paul Kind; Karl Margraf (+1919); Daniel Gottlieb Müller (+1892); Andreas Natrop (+1923); Christian Friedrich Nelson (+1891); August Penserot (+1866); Reinhard Potz (+1920); Eduard Schneegans (b. 1810); Philipp Jakob Stierle (+1887); Eduard Vieten (+1869); Josef August Voigt (+1869); Johann Gustav Volkmann (+1842); Reinhard Vowinkel (+1898); Friedrich Weinmann (+1860); Friedrich Wenzel (+1909); Gustav Wienands (+1929)7 Ibid. March 1940 (48 names), November 1940 (33 names), September 1941 (47 names), February 1942 (123 names), July 1942 (118 names), October 1942 (128 names), November 1942 (176 names), February 1943 (204 names)8 A II 1 a 9 vol. I (vol. no. 28). Cf. on the overall problem the article by Petra Weiß: Die Bergung von Kulturgütern auf der Festung Ehrenbreitstein, in: Jahrbuch für Westdeutsche Landesgeschichte 26 (2000), pp. 421-4529. Cf. Inventar des Bestandes Oberpräsidium der Rheinprovinz, Teil 1 (Veröffentlichungen der Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz Bd. 71), Koblenz 1996, pp. 42-45 and 396-40910. Christa Stache: Das Evangelische Zentralarchiv in Berlin und seine Bestände, Berlin 1992, pp. 61-64 as well as a handwritten repertory especially of the Rhineland department (copy available in the AEKR Düsseldorf). The fonds comprise approx. 25 linear metres.11 LKA-Sachakten 23-2-3 Bd. 3 (Beschluss); cf. also the letter from Archivrat Schmidt dated 9 September 1971 in 22-28 Bd. 212. All the finding aids mentioned are kept in the repertory collection of the Landeskirchliches Archiv.