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Archival description
BArch, RM 16 · Fonds · 1914
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the inventor: In 1898, a governor subordinated to the R e i c h s m a r i n e a m t was appointed for the protection work in China that was taken into possession in 1897. He was head of the entire military and civil administration as well as commander of the land forces stationed there. Description: The Kiautschou area, with its capital Tsingtau, was leased from China in 1898 for 99 years. A governor subordinated to the Reichsmarineamt was appointed for the protectorate taken into possession. He was head of the entire military and civil administration as well as commander of the land forces stationed there. The governor was always a naval officer, the military crew consisted of the III. sea battalion and the sailor artillery department Kiautschou. At the end of an ultimatum granted by Japan in August 1914, the Tsingtau fortress capitulated under its governor to the military superiority of its opponent. From 1914 to 1922 Japan occupied Kiautschou and then handed it over to China. In 1923 the German Reich waived its rights. Characterisation of content: Only fragments of files on the mobilization, siege and fall of the Tsingtau fortress have survived, mainly war diaries, reports and newspaper articles. State of development: Invenio Scope, Explanation: Existing stock without increase 2.7 m 66 AE Citation method: BArch, RM 16/...

BArch, RW 4 · Fonds · 1938-1945
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

Inventory description: With the decree on the reorganization of the OKW of February 7, 1938, the Wehrmachtführungsamt (WFA) was created - initially referred to as the Office Group Command Staff. The Wehrmachtführungsamt was renamed Wehrmachtführungsstab (WFSt) on 7 August 1940. According to Hitler's instructions, he had to work on the operations and measures necessary for the entire conduct of the war and to participate in laws affecting the Wehrmacht as a whole. Among other things, he drafted the instructions for warfare and the special and combat instructions or "Führerweisungen" issued on Hitler's behalf. From 1940, the chief WFSt was responsible for the warfare on the so-called OKW war theatres in Scandinavia including Northern Finland, Africa and Italy, from July 1941 also in the Balkans and from 15 March 1941 in the West. In this respect, he informed Hitler daily about the course of the operations there on the basis of the situation reports; the head of the OKW had assigned this task to the head of the WFSt at the beginning of the war. Initially, the position of the WFSt was still weak, but with the plans to occupy Denmark and Norway it had already broken through the supremacy and largely independent action of the three parts of the armed forces. Only the war against the USSR and the Eastern Front remained a "OKH theatre of war" until shortly before the end of the war in the area of responsibility of the General Staff of the Army. A field or front squadron of the WFSt became a permanent institution with the Western campaign in the area of the "Führer Headquarters", whereby Hitler's influence on the command increased. In the course of the war, this squadron divided its working areas geographically. Initially, the WFA or WFSt consisted of the departments of National Defence (L), Wehrmacht Communications (WNV) and, from April 1939, Wehrmacht Propaganda (WPr). Division L was the operational task force in WFA/WFSt; it was subdivided into the operation groups Army (L IH), Air Force (L IL), Navy (L IK), Organisation Group and Quartermaster Group. The Chief of Dept. L was also responsible for the leader of the war diary, an office officer and the registry. On January 1, 1942, the departmental name of the chief of the Dept. L changed to ¿Deputy Chief of the WFSt¿, a little later the group WFSt/Ic (enemy situation) was established. The following groups/departments belonged to the WNV department: Deployment and organisation/central department, wire communication, radio department, war telecommunications department, encryption department. From 1942, the "Generalbevollmächtigter für technische Nachrichtenmittel" was assigned to it. In WPr (at the time of 1942) Group I was responsible for propaganda leadership, organization and the propaganda troops, Group II for domestic propaganda and troop support, Group III for military censorship (with censorship groups army, navy and air force), Group IV for foreign propaganda, Group V for army propaganda and Group VI for air force propaganda. The groups V and VI existed only for a short time and were dissolved already in 1942/43, a film staff was added at this time. Preprovenience: Wehrmachtführungsamt (Initially Office Group Joint Staff) Content Characterization: In addition to the remains of diaries and reference files of the chief WFSt, the status reports of the staff and his war diary, some Wehrmacht reports and special reports, numerous documents of the deputy chief of the WFSt on organizational matters of Wehrmacht leadership (13 vol., 1938-1945), the personnel and material equipment of the Wehrmacht (25 vol., 1938-1945), the military equipment of the Wehrmacht (25 vol., 1938-1945), the military equipment of the Wehrmacht, the military equipment of the Wehrmacht, the military equipment of the Wehrmacht, the military equipment of the Wehrmacht, the military equipment of the Wehrmacht, the military equipment of the Wehrmacht, the military equipment of the Wehrmacht, the Wehrmacht, the Wehrmacht's military equipment, and the military equipment of the Wehrmacht, 1935-1945), the organisation of the field army (19 vols., 1940-1945) as well as warfare on the individual theatres of war (West: 26 vols., 1940-1945; North: 17 vols., 1941-1945; Africa: 6 vols.; South East: 15 vols, 1941-1944; East: 10 vols.; Italy: 9 vols.), the Reichsverteidigung and Heimatkriegsgebiet (18 vols., 1935-1945), the Versorgungsführung (20 vols., 1940-1945) and administration of the affiliated and incorporated territories (10 vols., 1939-1945) as well as occupied territories (40 vols., 1938-1945). The instructions for warfare and basic orders (70 vols., 1939-1945) and individual companies (29 vols., 1939-1945) form separate series. In addition, the files of the Wehrmacht Propaganda Department deserve special mention: Organization (12 vol., 1937-1945), Personnel Affairs (13 vol., 1939-1944) and Internal Service (16 vol., 1939-1943); Propaganda Leadership in General (37 vol., 1939-1943), 1937-1945) and deployment of propaganda troops (71 vols., 1939-1944, mainly in the navy and occupied territories, with activity reports); cooperation with civilian authorities and the press (13 vols., 1939-1945), 1938-1942); radio (7 vols., 1939-1944), picture and film propaganda (11 vols., 1939-1941); collection of news about the situation in the Wehrmacht and at home and abroad (11 and 29 vols., 1939-1942); defence against enemy propaganda (10 vols., 1939-1942); defence against enemy propaganda (10 vols., 1939-1942), 1939-1945); exercise of military censorship (89 vol., 1939-1944, mainly on individual cases of examination, approval or prohibition of books, journal and newspaper articles and the publication of pictures). There are also series (a total of 26 vols., 1939-1945) of Wehrmacht propaganda situation reports, "Nachrichten des OKW", "Mitteilungen für das Offizierskorps" and "Mitteilungen für die Truppe". From the area WNV only fragments of written material are available (20 vol., 1939-1945). State of development: Online-Findbuch Scope, Explanation: 920 AU Citation method: BArch, RW 4/...

BArch, R 1001 · Fonds · 1832-1943
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventory Designer: 1907 Formation of the R e i c h s k o l o n i a l a m t from the Colonial Department of the A u s w ä r t i g e s A m t ; 1919 Transformation into a R e i c h s k o l o n i a l ministry and assumption of the liquidation business for the former German colonial territories; after its dissolution in 1920, assumption of the tasks by the R e i c h s m a r i n a m i n g for reconstruction (Colonial Central Administration) until its dissolution in 1924; thereafter, processing of colonial affairs again by the A u s w ä r t i g e s A m t . Inventory description: Inventory history The files of the central colonial administration of the German Reich have been subject to organisational changes from the subject area or department at kaiserli‧chen Auswärtiges Amt to the Imperial Reichsamt and Ministry of the Wei‧marer Republic and back to the department or department at the Auswärtiges Amt. Many volumes of files or subject series were easily continued organically beyond the verschie‧denen changes; for the period after 1920 this often means that they slowly ebbed away. Real breaks in the Aktenfüh‧rung can usually not be determined. The registry of Reichskolonialmi‧niste‧riums therefore formed a closed one in 1919 and after the extensive loss of colonial political tasks in the eyes of many even closed Kör‧per. The files were distributed according to the former secret registries of the Reichsko‧lonialamts as follows: Secret registry KA I East Africa Secret registry KA II Southwest Africa Secret registry KA III South Sea Secret registry KA IV Cameroon and Togo Secret registry KA V Legal cases Secret registry KA VI Scientific and medical cases Secret registry KA VII General secret registry KA VIII Agriculture Secret registry KA I-VII Foreign Countries and Possessions Secret Registry KB I Budget and Accounting Secret Registry KB II Technical Matters Secret Registry KB III Railway Matters Already in the Cabinet Meeting on 1. In 1919, the Reich Minister of the Interior, Matthias Erzberger, had spoken about the files of the then still existing Kolonialministeri‧ums and had suggested that "the archives of the Reichs‧kolonialamts and the Reich Marine Office should be merged with the corresponding facilities of the Großer Generalstab and an independent Reich archive should be created in a city yet to be determined, which would be directly subordinated to the Reich Ministry [cabinet]". Ministerialdirigent Meyer-Gerhard had contradicted this in his memorandum of 30 Sept. 1919 and demanded that both the files and the extensive library of the R e i c h s k o l o n i a l ministry be handed over to the A u s w ä r t i g e s A m t , where he also wanted to see the permanently preserved Orga‧nisati‧onseinheiten of the Colonial Ministry located. Only the files that were no longer needed were to be destroyed or handed over to the Reich Archives. In fact, the files were initially handed over to the R e i c h s m i n g e r a m i n g for reconstruction and were inspected in 1924 when the Colonial Department was transferred to the Foreign Office. An inventory shows which files were transferred directly to the Reichsarchiv, transferred to the Auswärtiges Amt, or immediately became ver‧nichtet . While only very few files were immediately destroyed and by far the largest part of the files were immediately handed over to the archive, bean‧spruchte the Federal Foreign Office, in addition to some documents of fundamental Be‧deutung, even from long chronological volume sequences, mostly only those volumes which were important for the ak‧tuellen business and left the older volumes in each case to the archive. However, a large part of the Ak‧ten taken over from the Federal Foreign Office was also handed over to the Reichsarchiv during the course of the continuous reduction process to which the kolonialpoliti‧sche subdivision or the "Colonial Department" was exposed. Remnants of these documents were handed over to the Federal Archives by the Auswärti‧gen Office in February 2000. In 1945 the Reichsarchiv was probably home to a largely complete record of the central colonial administration of the German Reich. The orga‧nische character of the tradition forbid a breakdown of the documents, so that the entire tradition was stored in one inventory at the R e i c h s k o l o n i a l a m t zusammenge‧faßt . The R e i c h s k o l o n i a l a m t's destruction of the R e i c h s c h s a f t on 14 April 1945 severely affected the R e i c h s k o l o n i a l a m t's Ak‧ten . Approximately 30 of the holdings were burnt, including the registries KB I (budget and Rech‧nungswesen), II (technical matters) and III (railway matters). Also the files of the Schutztruppen and the files of the administrations that have reached the Reichsarchiv ein‧zelner Schutzgebiete have completely fallen victim to the flames. Archivische Bewertung und Bearbeitung In the Central State Archives of the GDR in Potsdam, the original registry order was discarded as Klassifika‧tion for the holdings during the processing of the Be‧stands 10.01 R e i c h s k o l o n i a l a m t . The mixed order, which combined registration, systematic and territorial criteria of order, was replaced by a structure, which arranged the files according to territorial aspects as far as possible. In the course of the revision of the finding aids for the present finding aid, which were compiled in the Central State Archives, the original order of the holdings was restored with the help of the registry aids that had been transferred to Bundesar‧chiv in 2000. The contexts of the original Regi‧straturordnung, according to An‧sicht, provide the author with a better and more systematic overview of the overall tradition than the systematic aspects of ver‧schleiernde "regionalisation" of the holdings. The former "Koblenz" inventory R 101 Reichskolonialamt consisted mainly of copies which the colonial writer Georg Thielmann-Groeg made, mainly in Reichsar‧chiv, from the files of the Reichskolonialamt. The indexing of this collection die‧sem Findbuch, which goes down to the individual file piece, is attached in an appendix because it compiles important documents on German colonial history in compressed form - with a focus on GermanSüd‧west‧afrika. For reasons of conservation, the oversized investment cards were taken from the volumes in inventory R 1001 and replaced by reference sheets. The maps were recorded on color macrofiches and organized in a mapNeben‧bestand under the designation R 1001 Kart. Content characterisation: Colonies and colonial policy, general; military and navy; colonial law, police matters; slaves and slave trade; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, settlement, support, civil status; economy, trade, customs, taxes; agriculture and forestry; post and transport; missions and schools; health care. Non-German colonies and Liberia: British colonies; French colonies; Portuguese and Spanish colonies; Italian, Dutch, North American colonies. D e u t s c h - O s t a f r i k a and D e u t s c h - S ü d w e s t a f r i k a: Colonisation, general management and administration, political development; military and police, inspection and information tours; colonial law, criminal cases, inheritance and real estate; slavery and slave trade; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, settlement, support, civil status; economy, trade, customs, taxes; agriculture, forestry, fishing; postal services and transport; missions and schools; health care. Cameroon: German-West African Trading Company, South and North-West Cameroon Society; colonisation, central and regional administration; political development; military and police, inspection and information tours; colonial law; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, settlement, support, civil status; economy, trade, customs, taxes, banks, agriculture and forestry, fisheries; postal and transport services; health care; missions and schools. Togo: central and regional administration, political development; military and police, inspection and information missions; colonial law; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, settlement, support, civil status; economy, trade, customs, taxes, banks; agriculture, forestry, fisheries; postal services and transport; missions, schools, health care. Congo: General; Berlin Conference. New Guinea: New Guinea company; colonization, central and regional administration, political development; military and police; colonial law; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, settlement, support, civil status; economy, trade, taxes, customs, banks; agriculture, forestry, fishing; post and transport; health care, schools. Caroline, Mariana and Palau Islands: colonisation, general, management and administration, political development; colonial law; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, settlement, support, civil status; economy, trade, customs, taxes; post and transport; missions, schools, health care. Samoa: colonisation, central and regional administration, political development; military; colonial law, police matters; research, surveying, demarcation; immigration, resettlement, civil status; economy, trade, customs, taxes, banks; agriculture and forestry; post, transport, shipping; missions, schools, health care. Marshall Islands: colonization, general management and administration, political development; research, surveying, settlement, employment; trade, customs, taxes, post, transport; missions, school, health care. Solomon Islands: Kiautschou/China R 1001 Annex: photocopies of documents on the acquisition of German colonial territories; photocopies of documents on Deutsch-Südwestafrika; copies of files of the Reichskolonialamt on Deutsch-Südwestafrika; diary of the Hottentot leader Hendrik Witbooi in Deutsch-Südwestafrika; horse breeding in North Cameroon. Erinnerungen von Kurt Freiherr von Crailsheim; "Kriegsnachrichten" newspaper from Deutsch-Südwestafrika, vol. 1915 no. 3; reproductions of portraits of various persons in Deutsch-Südwestafrika; curriculum vitae of Reichskommissar Dr. jur. Heinrich Goering. State of development: Publication Findbuch (2002); Online Findbuch (2003) Citation method: BArch, R 1001/...

Imperial Colonial Office
Reichsmarineamt (inventory)
BArch, RM 3 · Fonds · 1889-1919
Part of Federal Archives (Archivtektonik)

History of the Inventor: The Reichsmarineamt (Reichsmarineamt) was created as the successor authority to the Imperial Admiralty with effect from April 1, 1889, in the form of a cabinet order (in addition to the Navy Cabinet and the Navy High Command). As the supreme Reich authority, the Reichsmarineamt was responsible for the organisation, administration, technology, armament and fortification of the navy. At the same time, it exercised Reich competence vis-à-vis the merchant navy and in the fields of maritime transport, nautical science and fisheries protection. The RMA was in charge of the Imperial Shipyards, the Shipbuilding Inspection Commission, the Naval Depot Inspectorate, Coastal District Offices, Station Headquarters, Naval Military Sacrets, the Naval Observatory, the Naval Commissioner of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal and the Kiautschou Government. The RMA was divided into the following organizational units: Central Department, General Navy Department, Shipyard Department/Submarine Office, Construction Department, Administrative Department, Weapons Department, Nautical Department, Kiautschou Protectorate Central Department, Medical Department, Justice Department, News Office. On 15 July 1919 the powers of the Reichsmarineamt were transferred to the Admiralty by decree of the Reich President. Characterisation of content: With the exception of the Arms Department, the Medical Department, the Legal Department and the Central Bureau of the Navy, all other organisational units in this inventory have files. Of particular importance from the Central Department are the State Secretary's files on the development of the Navy and the preparatory work for the Fleet Acts. An important part of the former hand files is also in the estate of State Secretary Tirpitz. The files handed down from the central department contain documents on protocol questions, launching, awarding of orders and central organisational matters as well as Reichstag material and a complete series of the "Allerhöchsten Kabinettsordres" for the navy from 1889 to 1918. The activities of the General Maritime Department on matters of organisation and service operation of ships and naval parts, personnel and replacement matters, questions of training in weapons service, uniforms, organisation of education, administration of justice, supply matters, military questions of ship construction and maritime law are well documented. The files of the Construction Department provide a source of considerable importance for the history of the navy and technology. This includes construction files for all heavy and medium-sized combat ships completed by 1914, as well as approx. 10,000 construction plans and other technical drawings for ships and boats. In addition, scientific research results on strength issues, material development, drag tests and general building regulations have also been handed down. The files of the budget department fully document the development of the naval budget, in particular the financing of the fleet building programmes. Here you will also find budget and administrative files on the establishment of the German protectorate Kiautschou as well as on pension and retirement matters of officers, teams and civil servants. Also well preserved are the files of the administrative department, which mainly document catering, clothing and accommodation matters of the navy. Of particular note are the files on numerous foundations for which the Reichsmarineamt was in charge. In connection with the responsibility for food and clothing, extensive series of files on the care of the German population during the war were produced. The traditional files of the news agency contain documents on the economic situation in Germany, the development of shipping, maritime traffic and fleet interests, censorship measures, the collection and distribution of war news and foreign propaganda. An extensive collection of newspaper clippings is also included. Also worth mentioning are the correspondence series on association matters, especially the German Fleet Association. The Nautical Department has files on sea mark and coastal signal matters, cutlery excerpts, travel reports and expeditions. From the shipyard department responsible for the equipment and maintenance of ships, shipyards and vehicles, only a small remainder of files on submarine matters, occasionally also torpedo matters, has been preserved. The departments and departments of the shipyard department responsible for the processing of the submarine system were made independent in 1917 to the submarine office. The documents produced during the short period of its existence reflect the measures taken to promote submarine construction, in particular the material provision during the final phase of the First World War. Worth mentioning here is still material about the planned technical evaluation of war diaries of the submarines. Scope, explanation: Holdings without growth593 lfm24181 AE, approx. 10000 ship drawings/plans (RM 3/12,000-22,600) Citation method: BArch, RM 3/...

German Imperial Naval Office