Preliminary remark: The present collection of material on biographies was received by the Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart in December 1975 as a gift from Freiherr Meinrad von Ow, Munich. It formed part of the written estate of General Franz Freiherr von Soden (1856 - 1945) and was collected by him in the years 1919 - 1945. The original reason for this may have been Sodens' plan to "compile a book of honour for the higher leaders". In 1921 or 1924, he succeeded in enriching his collection with material that had grown up in the years 1916/17 to about 20 officers killed in World War II under Lieutenant Colonel Osterberg (cf. No. 379 of the holdings), then Chief of the War Archive, von Soden's collection united documents on the biographies of military personnel, in particular of Württemberg officers, but also of men and women of general importance, as well as of persons who for various reasons found Soden interesting. This writing is of very different nature and quality. It mainly includes obituaries and newspaper articles, often written by Soden, concepts and manuscripts of Sodens on congratulations, eulogies and obituaries, as well as correspondences of Sodens with individual persons represented in the collection and the like. The note "very important" on one of the folders in which the collection was previously kept shows that it was of high value to von Soden. Today it is a welcome addition to the official files, which have not been fully preserved, especially for personnel matters. The collection, which comprised 6 folders when it was transferred to the archive, was created by superimposing the individual documents, newspaper clippings and the like from Soden and giving them a number. The documents received at different times for one and the same person were therefore usually not available. Since the collection lacked an internal order and since von Soden did not create an index either, it was neither usable in practice nor needed consideration of its previous state of order in the current reorganization, in which the material available for each person was combined and the inventory was based on an alphabetical classification. As a rule, the information in the title recordings was taken from the holdings themselves. Only the life data, partly also the first names and with officers the contingent affiliation were often supplemented with other aids (above all the archival holdings M 430/1 - M 430/5 general reference books and biographical encyclopaedias). However, it would only have been possible to achieve completeness in these additions, which are marked as such by square brackets only in justified exceptional cases, with a workload that would be out of proportion to the source value of the holdings. Unless otherwise stated, the officers are always members of the Württemberg army. The note "died" means both "died" and "fallen" or "died as a result of injury". The stock comprises 602 numbers (0, 85 linear metres). It was recorded at the beginning of 1977 by the archivist Herrmann under the supervision of Oberstaatsarchivrat Dr. Fischer, who was also responsible for the revision of the title recordings and the elaboration of the repertory. Stuttgart, August 1977(Fischer)
History of Tradition Each archive not only serves to preserve and index the business documents it has submitted, but was and is also a site of scientific evaluation and collection. Continuing the collection J 1, documents of the most varied provenance and authors of the 19th and 20th centuries are summarised here. The unprinted treatises and materials came from donations, from other holdings of the Hauptstaatsarchiv, including J 1 (Allgemeine Sammlung von undruckten Schriften zur Landesgeschichte) and E 61 (Württembergische Archivdirektion), as well as from taxes, including those of the Statistisches Landesamt and the Abteilung Landesbeschreibung. The submitted documents are left in their context and new ones are added to the inventory. Contents and Evaluation The J 2 collection contains numerous manuscripts, material collections on printed and unprinted treatises, smaller scientific estates and collections dealing with various aspects of history in Württemberg and Baden-Württemberg. Genealogical research on noble, middle-class and Israelite families is also included. Smaller scientific estates include Jakob Wille (1853-1929, historian, library director), Eugen Schneider (1854-1937, archive director), Gebhard Mehring (1864-1931, archivist), Christoph Friedrich Stälin (1805-1873,. Historian, librarian), Paul Stälin (1840-1909, historian, archive director), Friedrich Christian Franz (1751-1828, professor at the Karlsschule), Christoph Ludwig Lotter ((1774-1850, archivist), Albrecht List (1890-1914, historian), Karl Weller (1866-1943, State historian, professor), Erich König (1881-1940, professor of history), Georg Friedrich Ludwig Schönleber (1780-1847, archivist), Konrad Miller (1844-1933, geography historian), Viktor Ernst (1871-1933, historian), Adolf Rentschler (1870-1950. Pastor, genealogist), Gustav Bossert the Younger (1882-1948, church historian).