History of the Inventory Designer: Founded in 1933, since 1934 as a public corporation of the Reich subject to the supervision of Reichsju‧stizministers and Reich Minister of the Interior, responsible for the promotion and Ver‧wirklichung of the "National Socialist Program in the Entire Field of Law" Long Text: Founding and Legal Foundations The Academy for German Law was constituted on 26 March 1933. The constituent meeting was attended by the Reich Secretary of the Federation of National Socialist German Lawyers Dr. Heuber, Professors Dr. Wilhelm Kisch and Dr. von Zwiedineck-Südenhorst, the General Director of the Munich Reinsurance Company Kißkalt, two representatives of the business community and the future Director Dr. Karl Lasch. On 22 September 1933 a Bavarian law was passed (Bayerisches Gesetz- und Verordnungsblatt No. 37, p. 277), the only article of which granted the Academy the status of a public corporation. The articles of association were attached as an annex, according to which the provisional seat was to be Munich and which outlined the tasks of the new corporation as follows: By "applying proven scientific methods" it should "promote the reform of German legal life (...) and implement the National Socialist programme in the entire field of law and economics (...) in close and permanent liaison with the bodies responsible for legislation". In detail, her sphere of activity included cooperation in drafting laws, in the reform of legal and political science education, in scientific publications and the financial support of practical scientific work for the research of special fields of law and economics, the organisation of scientific conferences and teaching courses as well as the cultivation of relations with similar institutions abroad. The office of the Führer of the Academy was to be held in personal union by the head of the Reichsrechtsamt of the NSDAP; he was responsible for the external representation of the ADR, its internal management, all personnel decisions and the decision on amendments to the statutes as well as the dissolution in agreement with the Führer of the NSDAP. As auxiliary organs a deputy, a leader staff and a treasurer as well as the department heads of the specialized departments to be created were intended. The Bavarian State Ministry of Justice should be responsible for supervision. The members of the Academy, whose number should not exceed two hundred, were to be appointed for four years; ordinary, extraordinary, sponsoring and corresponding members were distinguished. At the first German Lawyers' Day in Leipzig, the establishment of the Academy for German Law was solemnly proclaimed on 2 October 1933. This already showed that Frank was striving to turn the Academy into an institution of the Reich, which would give him the opportunity to influence the Gleichschaltung der Justitz in the Länder even after he had completed his work as Reich Commissioner for the Unification of the Justitz. On 18 June 1934, the draft of a law on the Academy for German Law was sent to the head of the Reich Chancellery for submission to the cabinet (BA, R 43 II/1509). The Reich Minister of Justice agreed after it had been clarified that the Academy should receive its own funds and not burden the Reich, the Länder or the communities. At the request of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, the draft was amended to provide for joint supervision of the Academy by the Reich Ministry of Justice and the Reich Ministry of the Interior. After adoption in the cabinet meeting of 3 July 1934, the law was passed on 11 July 1934 (RGBl. I. S. 605), with which the Academy for German Law became the public corporation of the Reich; a new statute was attached. With this law, the Academy's tasks changed only to the extent that the responsibility for the reorganization of German legal life in the field of business ceased to exist. The headquarters remained in Munich. The Führer of the Academy became an honorary president, whose appointment was made by the Reich Chancellor. The binding of the office to the management of the Reichsrechtsamt of the NSDAP ceased. As an organ of the Academy, in addition to the President, a Presidium also provided support and advice. The maximum number of members was set at 300. Committees were set up to carry out the practical work of the Academy. The law of 11 July 1934 was not amended until 1945. In November 1934 a change was planned, which provided for a salary for the president according to the regulations for Reich officials. However, the draft was removed from the agenda of the cabinet meeting of 4 December 1934 (BA, R 22/198, R 43 II/1509) on Hitler's instructions. On the other hand, two amendments were made to the statutes, first on 16 October 1935 (RGBl. I. p. 1250). It provided that, in the event of the dissolution of the Academy, its assets would fall to the Reich, due to the taking up of a high mortgage, which the Academy had taken up to expand its Berlin house. More serious in its significance was the second amendment of 9 June 1943 (Reichs- und Staatsanzeiger of 9 June 1943). It was initiated by the new President, Reich Minister of Justice Dr. Otto Thierack. He prohibited the acceptance of private donations for the Academy and abolished the office of treasurer. The new constitution submitted to the Reich Ministry of Justice by the director of the Academy Gaeb on 10 December 1942 was to take this into account and at the same time streamline the provisions (BA, R 22/199). After consultations in the participating Reich ministries, the new constitution was finally formulated in a meeting on 8 June 1943 between representatives of the Reich Ministry of Justice, the Reich Ministry of the Interior and the Academy, signed on 9 July 1943 and published on the same day. In addition to the abolition of the office of treasurer and the institution of supporting members, the main changes were the inclusion of provisions on the President's auxiliary organs and the scientific structure of the Academy, which had previously been included in the structure regulations and the administrative regulations, as well as in a clear arrangement. The aforementioned Aufbauordnung had been issued on 15 December 1936 as an order of the President concerning the reorganization of the scientific work of the Akademie für Deutsches Recht (Zeitschrift der Akademie für Deutsches Recht 1937, p. 23). It defined the structure of the scientific apparatus of the Academy. The first of these, the Honorary Senate, was of little importance, while the other two, the Department of Legal Policy for Legal Policy and the Department of Legal Research for Scientific Research, were of decisive importance. It also dealt with the future centre of the Academy, the "House of German Law", for which the foundation stone had been laid a few months earlier and which was to house the research and educational facilities of the Academy. On April 1, 1937, the President had supplemented and extended the Academy's administrative regulations (Zeitschrift der ADR, p. 405f.) by enacting them, which outlined in more detail the tasks of the individual organs, namely the treasurer and the director, who were responsible for the financial and general administration of the Academy, the director of scientific and legal policy work, the committee chairmen, and the class secretaries entrusted with the direction of the classes. Eight administrative units were also listed, one each for the Legal and Legal Research, Personnel and Legal Office, Organisation, Libraries, Periodicals and Press, International Transport and Cash and Accounting departments. After the amendment of the statutes of 9 June 1943, on 10 June 1943 there was also an amendment to the administrative regulations (Zeitschrift der ADR 1943, p. 37f.), in which the provisions on the treasurer's office were completely omitted and the explanations on the administration were greatly shortened. The extensive information on the administrative departments has been replaced by brief information on the division of units, which has existed for a long time. Organisation and staffing The President of the Academy possessed extensive powers - apart from his ties to the supervisory ministries. His appointment by Hitler and the honorary position, which presupposed a further office securing its holder financially, could give him weight vis-à-vis the authorities and party offices. Its founder, Dr. Hans Frank, was appointed the first President on August 1, 1934. In his memoirs "In the Face of the Gallows" he confesses that the Academy was to be an important means of shaping law for him, especially since the Reichsrechtsamt, of which he had been head since 1929 and which secured him a place in the highest party hierarchy, lost more and more of its importance in the period after the assumption of power, and the NS-Rechtswahrerbund, of which he had held the leadership since 1928, offered only little scope for influencing legislation. Frank's ideas were acknowledged when, after his assignment as Reich Commissioner for the Gleichschaltung der Justiz in den Ländern had ended, he was dismissed by Hitler on 19 March. In the letter of appointment, the Akademie für Deutsches Recht was described as an institution which enabled him "to participate in the implementation of the National Socialist ideology in all areas of law without restriction to the judiciary in the narrower sense", i.e. an expansion of the scope of duties beyond the framework of law-making into the other areas of legal life, which in this form emanating from Hitler represented an important expansion of power. Frank could thus see himself in possession of a kind of special ministry for National Socialist legal formation in competition with Gürtner's Reich Ministry of Justice. In the years up to 1939, Frank, whose ministerial office moved from his first residence at Voßstraße 5 in Berlin to the Berlin building of the Academy at Leipziger Platz 15 on July 3, 1935, remained closely involved with the work of the Academy and legal policy. His attempt in 1939 to free himself from the annoying supervision of the Reich Ministry of Justice and the Reich Ministry of the Interior, which made him dependent on Gürtner and Frick above all with regard to possible changes to the statutes, but also in financial matters, and to subordinate the Academy to his supervision as minister remained unsuccessful (BA, R 2/24103). Frank's presidency ended in August 1942, after his appointment as Governor General in Poland on 12 October 1939, when business had been conducted practically by the Deputy President. Hitler released Frank from his office as President of the Academy with a deed of August 20. It was not true, however, when Frank told his deputy Professor Emge that the reason for the dismissal was the "overcrowded and ever increasing burden" of his duties in the Generalgouvernement. On the contrary, Frank had aroused Hitler's displeasure because between 9 June and 21 July 1942 he had defended law, judicial independence, personal freedom and humanity against the police state in four speeches at the universities of Berlin, Munich and Heidelberg as well as at the Academy of Sciences in Vienna (cf. H. Weinkauff, Die deutsche Justitz und der Nationalsozialismus, 1968, p. 74, 161f.) This solo effort, which was directed primarily against Himmler and Bormann, also led to a ban on speaking and the loss of his position as Reichsrechtsführer and head of the Reichsrechtsamt, which was dissolved. This also involved a change in the office of deputy president, which had to be appointed by the president according to the statutes of 1934 and confirmed by both supervisory ministries. Frank had been represented since 1937 by Dr. Carl Emge, Professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Berlin, after the Vice-President Privy Councillor Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Kisch, Professor of Civil Procedure and German Civil Law at the University of Munich, who had been appointed in 1933, had resigned for health reasons from his office. Emges was replaced in November 1942 by the State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Justice, Dr. Rothenberger. Whether after Rothenberger's dismissal (January 1944) his successor, Herbert Klemm, was also appointed deputy president of the academy after Rothenberger's dismissal as state secretary cannot be determined. The second organ of the Academy, besides the President, was the Presidium. Emerging from the Führerrat of the Academy provided for in the 1933 Law, it had the task of supporting and advising the President, determining the budget and carrying out the preliminary audit of the budget account. According to the administrative regulations issued in 1937, the president, his deputy, the treasurer and the head of the scientific and legal-political work belonged to him by virtue of office. For this purpose, the President could appoint further members of the Academy to the Presidium, which should meet at least once a year. In accordance with the new administrative regulations of 10 June 1943, the Reich Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs joined as new permanent members. The Reich Minister and head of the Reich Chancellery Lammers also belonged to the Presidium. The actual work of the Academy in the fields of legal policy and legal research was directed by the Head of Scientific and Legal Policy Work, who was appointed by the President from among the members and who gave guidelines and assigned tasks to the Legal Structuring and Research Departments. This office, which was particularly important for the work of the Academy after the strong use of Frank by his tasks in the Generalgouvernement, was initially held by State Secretary Freisler, later by the Deputy President. As long as the Academy was supported entirely or to a considerable extent by the voluntary donations of its supporting members, the Treasurer was of great importance. He was responsible for all financial and property management, in particular the supervision of the budget and all contracts affecting the Academy's finances. From the beginning, the function was held by a close confidant of Frank, General Director Arendt, who kept it until its abolition in 1942. However, the treasurer had already lost influence in 1939, since the Reich made an ever larger subsidy to the academy budget and its control thus became stronger and stronger. The general questions of organization, administration, and human resources of the Academy for German Law, as well as the liaison with the Reich authorities, lay with the Director of the Academy. Dr. Karl Lasch held this post from 1933 until his appointment as governor of the Radom district in 1939, after which Dr. Gaeb took over the post as deputy director of the Diplomvolkswirt, which he held until 1945. The members of the Academy were divided into different groups according to their rights and tasks. The core consisted of 300 full members, initially appointed for four years; the number was maintained in 1943, and membership was extended to 10 years. According to Frank, the limitation to a relatively small number should emphasize the elitist character of the academy and awaken an elite consciousness among its members. In addition to legal, political and economic scientists, lawyers and senior civil servants, there were also some corporate members, including the law and political science faculties of the universities, which were represented by their deans. Extraordinary members by virtue of office were the Reich Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs. Foreigners who were interested in the Academy's work and were willing and qualified to contribute to it were accepted as corresponding members. The sponsoring members should maintain the Academy financially. These were mostly commercial enterprises, some of which were actively established and were prepared to make a contribution that varied according to their financial means for the honour of formally belonging to the Academy. The disadvantage of this financing system was that it created a financial dependence on the donations and could arouse suspicion that the donors were influencing the work of the Academy. It was eliminated by prohibiting any acceptance of donations in 1942. The work of the Academy was carried out in the Departments of Legal Design and Legal Research. All ordinary members of the Academy were organised, supervised and directed by the head of scientific and legal policy work. The Legal Department, to which all full members belonged, had to bear the main burden. In numerous (up to over 70) committees which changed over the years, often divided into main, sub and special committees as well as working groups or central committees, it discussed current questions of legal policy and participated in the legislative preparations of the ministries through proposals, statements, expert opinions and drafts. At the Academy's tenth anniversary in June 1943, Thierack was able to point to a considerable number of laws in which it had played a significant role until 1941, including the German Community Code and the 1935 Wehrgesetz (Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - Wehrgesetz - 1935, the 1937 German Civil Service and Stock Corporation Laws, the 1938 Youth Protection and Marriage Laws, the 1939 Law on the Introduction of Compulsory Insurance, and the 1939 Law on the Introduction of Legal Structure, which dealt particularly intensively with the reform of criminal law and the creation of a new People's Code. After the beginning of the war, numerous committees were suspended and, as the war lasted longer, dissolved. Nevertheless, the work did not come to a standstill. Only the emphasis shifted to all matters related to the war, e.g. air-raid protection law and, above all, nationality and international law. The relevant committees dealt in detail with issues relating to the reorganisation of the European continent, but also with maritime and land warfare and relations with the USA. At Frank's request, the Academy also took a stand on questions of German politics in the East and a reorganisation of the Generalgouvernement; it issued a secret report in January 1940: "Rechtsgestaltung deutscher Polenpolitik nach volkspolitischen Gesichtspunkten" (BA, R 61/243, Document 661-PS of the Nuremberg Trial against the Chief War Criminals). In 1942 the Academy still had 76 committees with eleven subcommittees. After all committees that had dealt with peace issues had been gradually suspended or completed their work, by the end of 1943 only committees with directly war-related tasks remained, including the committees on social security and international law. The committees involved in the drafting of the planned National Code also suspended their work, with the exception of the main committee, which only continued the necessary work. The scientific work was carried out within the Academy of German Law by the Department of Legal Research. Only scientists have been appointed to this department. Her task was to research the history, methodology and knowledge of the law and later also of the economy; she met in working groups, which were grouped into classes. First there were three classes, of which class I dealt with the study of the history and basic questions of law, class II with the study of the law of "people and empire" and class III with the study of the "people's federal" legal life. Each class was headed by a class leader. The management was carried out by a class secretary. The offices were initially filled as follows: Class I: Chairman: Prof. Dr. Heymann, Secretary: Prof. Dr. Felgentraeger Class II: Chairman: Prof. Dr. von Freytag-Loringhoven, Secretary: Prof. Dr. Weber Class III: Chairman: Prof. Dr. Weber Dr. Hedemann, Secretary: Prof. Dr. Lange After the war began, there were only class secretaries left, namely for Class I Prof. Dr. Heymann, for Class II Prof. Dr. Gleispach, for Class III Prof. Dr. Hueck. The Department for Legal Research published the series of publications, the working reports and the yearbook of the Academy for German Law and from 1941 also "Das deutsche Rechtsschrifttum". She was also in charge of the quarterly "Deutsche Rechtswissenschaft" and the collection of non-German penal codes. Within the framework of the department there was a committee for the examination of the law study regulations, which in 1939 presented its results to the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and People's Education. In 1940 a fourth class came into being with increasing importance of economic questions, which was responsible for the research of the "national economy" and which was to make the results of economic science accessible to the authorities and offices for the execution of practical tasks. In August 1944, on the instructions of the President, the work of the remaining committees and working groups was discontinued "for the further duration of the war" as well as the promotion of the individual members of special research commissions (letter from Thierack to Lammers of 12 August 1944, BA, R 43 II/1510a). The Academy maintained close contact with foreign countries through its corresponding members. Visits by foreign scientists, students, but also politicians were frequent. In addition, the German sections of various foreign institutions were affiliated to it. On the other hand, efforts were made to expand the Academy's sphere of influence by establishing new companies or maintaining close contact with existing companies in Germany. For the work abroad, there was a separate department in the administration of the Academy, which looked after the associations; as far as purely German organisations were concerned, the support was provided by the specialist departments of the Legal Structuring Department. In the period of its existence the following associations were affiliated to the Academy of German Law: 1. German Section of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences 2. German National Group of the International Law Association 3. German Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property and Copyright 4. International Association for Financial and Tax Law 5. German Society for Financial and Tax Law 6. German Society for Prisoners (affiliated since 1935) 7. Society for Legal and Political Sciences in Vienna 8th Society for German Criminal Law 9th Working Groups: a) for the German-Bulgarian legal relations b) for the German-Italian legal relations c) for the German-Polish legal relations (until 1939) d) for the German-Hungarian legal relations Library and Publications The establishment of a reference library for academics working in the Academy began early on. It was Frank's aim to develop this library into a central collection point for all important legal literature and related areas. The basis was the purchase of the library of the legal historian Prof. Karl von Amira, who died in 1930; later the library of the Munich jurist Prof. Konrad Beyerle was also acquired. Further accesses from various sources, mostly through taxes from authorities (e.g. the library of the former R e i c h s k o l o n i a l a m t , the duplicate holdings of the R e i c h s c h s a r k a m e in Potsdam as well as duplicates of foreign law collections and periodicals from the R e i c h s t a g s a l bibliothek) brought the holdings to around 60,000 publications by 1937. Although the library was primarily intended to serve the Academy, it was basically open to any qualified interested party. An "archive" was attached to the library, which, on Frank's instructions, created 1. a "card index of Jewish legal authors", which "eradicated Jewish literature from the library or from the library". The aim was to remove the works of Jewish authors from all public libraries or libraries serving study purposes and to transfer them to their own departments "which were to indicate the activities of the Jews and the Jewish people"; 2. to edit a card index of general legal writers by author and by work. In addition, a collection of portraits of lawyers, a collection of press clippings on the topics "Law in the Press" and "Academy in the Press" as well as a collection of journal articles from the entire body of jurisprudential literature were in the works. The first library director, Utschlag, also designed a large exhibition on legal history and law in general, which the Academy organized in conjunction with the Faculty of Law of the University of Munich on the occasion of the 1936 Annual Conference in Munich under the title "Das Recht" (The Law). The journal of the Akademie für Deutsches Recht, founded in 1934, provided information on the ongoing work of the Academy and on current legal issues. It was initially supervised by the Academy's own office for writing and finally transferred to the C-H. Becksche Verlagsbuchhandlung in 1937, where it was published until 1944. In addition to detailed reports on the representative events of the Academy (often also as special supplements or commemorative editions), it produced essays, news on organisational changes and the activities of the Academy's working committees, as well as book reviews. In addition, the journal published court decisions of a fundamental nature from 1935 onwards. The decisions were forwarded to the Academy by the courts via the Reich Ministry of Justice. The President acted as editor, the main editor was initially Director Dr. Lasch, then Kammergerichtsrat Dr. Lauterbacher. From 1 January 1939, Deutsche Rechtswissenschaft was published quarterly as the second journal. With the consent of the Reich Minister for Science, Education and Popular Learning, it was transferred from the previous editor Prof. Dr. Karl August Eckhardt to the Department of Legal Research. They brought treatises, contributions and book reviews. The Academy also published the Zeitschrift für Wehrrecht and was involved in the publication of the Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für gewerblichen Rechtsschutz, the Zeitschrift für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, the Blätter für Gefängniskunde and the Gerichtssaal. The yearbook of the Academy for German Law should give an overview of the work within one year. It was also published by the President and in its first editions offered a good overview of the most important events in the Academy and its committee work, while later larger treatises on individual issues predominated. In the first years, detailed information on the committee's activities could be obtained from the work reports, which were produced in small print runs using the transfer printing process and were intended only for the confidential information of party offices and authorities and were not to be circulated further. In addition, there was another - public - series of working reports of the Academy for German Law, in which the chairmen published the results of their committees. For more extensive scholarly work that had emerged from the Academy, the series was to serve the Akademie für Deutsches Recht, of which about 80 volumes were published; it was divided into individual groups according to subject areas. Finally, the Academy continued the collection of non-German penal codes organized by the editor of the Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft and published individual writings on special occasions, e.g. on the occasion of the opening of the House of German Law. Financing and assets In his memoirs of 1946, Frank emphasized the financing of the Academy for German Law, which was independent of the "Reich, State, and Party," with which he had hoped to preserve the actual non-partisanship of his institute. In fact, in the first years of its existence, the Academy was almost entirely maintained by donations from third parties, the supporting members, which included both private individuals and business enterprises. The Reichsjustizministerium had also made its approval of the transfer to the Reich dependent on the academy having to carry itself. In the accounting year 1935/36, donations reached the record level of over 1 million RM, and in 1936, 70 donors raised just over 500,000 RM. This was sufficient to cover the expenses, especially since the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and Popular Education had made available a one-time sum of 250,000 RM for the promotion of scientific work. On the other hand, already in 1937, despite a donation volume of almost 700,000 RM by 94 donors, there was a shortfall which had to be covered by donations for the accounting year 1938. In March 1938, General Director Arendts, the Treasurer of the Academy, declared in a meeting with the responsible adviser of the Reich Ministry of Finance, in which also Director Lasch took part, "that the Academy would strive for its entire budget of about 750 - 800,000 RM to be gradually fully supported by contributions from the Reich over the course of about three years," and justified this with the "aim of developing it into a legislative institution of the Reich. In its audit report for the years 1936-1937 of 24 March 1939, the Court of Audit of the German Reich also took the view that a continuation of the previous method of financing was not compatible with the reputation of the Reich; it was the duty of the Reich to "place the financing of the tasks on a sound basis" (BA, R 2/24103). This became indispensable after the Reich Minister of the Interior, in agreement with the deputy Führer, finally rejected a collection permit for the Academy in July 1939 on the basis of the Collection Act of 5 November 1934. This also meant that advertising had to be discontinued for which the company had used its own advertising specialist. In the accounting year 1939/40, the donations fell to 290,000 RM, and for the first time a subsidy from the Reich of about 480,000 RM was granted towards the running costs, so that these were now predominantly borne by the Reich. Although in 1940/41 the income from donations increased again somewhat, the donations already received for 1942 were transferred to the Dankspendenstiftung des Deutschen Volkes on Thierack's instructions. The Academy for German Law was now financed entirely from the Reich's budget. The Akademie für Deutsches Recht used considerable financial resources to provide representative accommodation. On 6 June 1935, the Lachmann-Mosse trust administration acquired the house and property at Leipziger Platz 15 from a foreclosure sale for the Berlin office at a price of RM 1.25 million. Of the purchase amount, one million RM was raised by eight mortgages of a group of insurance institutions, for which the Reich took over the interest and redemption service at the expense of the budget of the Reich Ministry of Justice; this was the reason for the amendment of the statutes that, in the event of the dissolution of the Academy, its assets would fall to the Reich. The annual contribution to be paid by the Reich was 50,000 RM for a period of 25 years. The remaining purchase price of 250,000 RM was to be paid interest-free in five annual instalments of 50,000 RM, which were to be raised from donations. Much more elaborate was the construction of a "House of German Law" at the Academy's headquarters in Munich. The first plans from January to June 1936 provided for three components, for which over 5.3 million RM were estimated. In the course of the negotiations, the mammoth project shrank to two construction phases. On October 24, 1936, on the occasion of the second annual conference of the Academy, Reichsminister Rust laid the foundation stone for Building I, front building and reading hall. The costs were to amount to RM 2,2 million, raised by a loan from the Reich Insurance Institution for Employees, the interest and repayment service of which was taken over by the Reich. Already on 31 October 1937 the academy could celebrate the topping-out ceremony, on 13 May 1939 the opening of the building unit I. The former Max-Joseph-Stift, which was to be renovated and extended by a festival hall, was acquired as Building II for a price of more than RM 1.3 million; in June 1938, the Reichsversicherungsanstalt took out a further loan of RM 2.2 million, the remainder of which was frozen at RM 900,000, however, when construction work was stopped after the outbreak of the war. Administration and registry The administrative apparatus of the Academy gradually developed from July 1934. Initially, most of the service operations were carried out in the Berlin office building; in addition, there was a small office mainly for the construction of the planned extensive library at the headquarters in Munich. It was only after the completion of Building I of the House of German Law in 1939 that the construction of a larger, structured office began, the management of which was placed in the hands of a speaker of its own. According to the rules of procedure, which the Academy submitted to the Reich Ministry of Justice in September 1935 (BA, R 22/198), the administration was divided into departments, headed by a speaker, assisted by an assistant. The speakers were assessors or younger officials on leave in the starting positions of their careers, provided they had knowledge of economics. The president used a presidential chancellery as his personal office. The management of the entire service operation was the responsibility of the Director of the Academy, who had a personal consultant at his disposal. The Director was also in charge of the Organisation Division, which was responsible for the preparation and implementation of the events. The office service was headed by a personnel officer who, in addition to personnel processing, was also in charge of registry and law offices, house and property administration as well as budget monitoring tasks. Other speakers assisted the committee chairmen of the Legal Department, generally one for four committees. In contrast, only assistants were assigned to the secretaries of the three research classes. For the entire financial and asset management, the preparation of the budget, the cash and bookkeeping, accounting, for the conclusion of contracts and the remaining budget management, the treasurer provided the necessary forces free of charge with the exception of an advertising expert and an assistant. The foreign department, which in addition to maintaining foreign contacts also supervised foreign publications, the exchange of journals and literature and the management of the affiliated international societies and associations, was relatively well staffed with a speaker and his deputy, a scientific assistant, an interpreter and a (part-time) unskilled worker for Slavic languages. The administrative regulations of the Academy of 1937 combined the previous organizational forms into nine administrative offices, which in January 1938 comprised one to seven departments, depending on the area of responsibility. These units corresponded to the previous departments. The most extensive was the Administrative Office for Legal Structuring with seven units (I - VII). The administrative office for magazines and press had two (X, XI), the others (legal research, libraries and international transport) had only one each (VIII, IX, XII), as did the administrative offices for cash and accounting (XIV), organisation (XV) and human resources and law firms (XIII), which, however, were also grouped under a central unit. In addition, there was a unit XVI (Legal Office) as the "Legal Office of the ADR". This organization continued to exist in principle even during the war, but with the resulting drastic personnel restrictions, which in the beginning practically paralyzed the entire academy apparatus, but later allowed it to remain in operation. After the closure of the Academy's work, whose offices were moved to the Reich Ministry of Justice building at Wilhelmstraße 65 on 10 January 1944, most of the staff was released at the end of 1944, but parts (finance) continued to work until March 1945. The files produced during the Academy's activities were initially kept in so-called departmental registries, i.e. the written records of the individual speakers. It was not until 1938 that the at least partial compilation of the written material produced so far began in a central registry. The consultant responsible for the law firm was in charge of the execution. At first, the registry business of the Legal Department was taken over, later that of the main administrative office (without the personnel files). The Department of Legal Research initially refrained from handing over its records to the Central Registry. The registry of the foreign department remained independent. Nothing significant could be ascertained about later changes in the registry system. During the establishment of the House of German Law in Munich, a registry was also set up there. It is certain that since the merger of the registries in 1938 the corresponding files have been filed according to a uniform and systematically structured file plan. As of 1940, this plan (BA, R 61/34) comprised seven main areas divided into three groups and sub-groups. The file plan was structured according to the decimal system with four-digit digits, to which an additional digit and a year could be added by slash if necessary. In addition to the documents produced in the course of administrative activities, an extensive complex of documents, characteristic of the Academy and its work, has emerged in the form of minutes of meetings of the committees and other specialist bodies, some of which are based on extensive stenographic notes. Copies were kept in the registry and in the "archive" of the magazines and press department. They form the most important part of the stock. Timetable on the history of the Academy 1933 June 26 Constitution in the Bavarian Ministry of Justice September 22 Granting of the rights of a public corporation in Bavaria by Bavarian law October 2 Ceremonial proclamation of the Academy for German Law at the German Lawyers' Day in Leipzig November 5 1st 1st plenary session in Berlin 1934 January 1st opening of the Berlin offices January 29th 2nd plenary session March 17th 3rd plenary session May 26th founding of the journal of the Academy for German Law 26th founding of the journal of the Academy for German Law in Berlin June 1st Annual Meeting in Munich, at the same time 4th plenary session July 11 elevation to public corporation of the Reich by Reich Law August 9 appointment of Dr. Hans Frank, former leader of the Academy, as President November 13 5th plenary session in Berlin November 18-22 trip to Bulgaria Frank December 19 appointment of Frank as Reich Minister without portfolio 1935 February 27 6th plenary session June 26-28 2nd Annual Meeting with ceremony in the presence of Hitler, at the same time session 21 August Celebratory session on the occasion of the XI International Congress on Criminal Law and Prison Law, also 8th plenary session 15 October Inauguration of the building in Berlin, Leipziger Platz 15 16 October Amendment to the Statutes 30 November 9 plenary session 1936 28 February 10 plenary session 12-17 March Poland trip Frank at the invitation of the University of Warsaw 2-8 April Visit Frank to Rome 2 June Celebratory session on the occasion of the International Congress on Industrial Property 21-24 October 3rd Annual Meeting, also 11th plenary session May 17 Opening of the Chair of German Law at the University of Sofia by Director Lasch June 19 Constituting the Department of Legal Research of the Academy of German Law (with 1st class session) October 28-31 4th 4th Annual Meeting in Munich, also 13th plenary session and event of the Association of Foreign Friends of the Academy of German Law 2nd Annual Meeting in Munich, at the same time 13th plenary session and event of the Association of Foreign Friends of the Academy of German Law at the University of Sofia. November Foundation of the Association for German-Italian Legal Relations December Competition: "State and Party in Italy" 1938 1 June Opening of a series of guest lectures at the University of Vienna 16-18 June 5th Annual Conference in Munich, at the same time 14th Plenary Session 1939 13 May Inauguration of the House of German Law July Prohibition on further donations 12 October Appointment of Frank as Governor General for the Occupied Polish Territories 13 October Appointment of Director Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Lasch becomes district governor in Radom and is represented by Dr. Gaeb 1940 10 January Establishment of the IV class (research of the national economy) in the Department of Legal Research 22-24 November 7th Annual Conference in Munich with plenary session 1942 9. June to July 21 Speeches by Frank in Berlin, Vienna, Munich and Heidelberg against the police state August 20 Dismissal of Frank as President and Appointment of the Reich Minister of Justice Dr. Thierack October Resignation of the Deputy President Prof. Dr. Emge 3. November State Secretary Dr. Rothenberger appointed Deputy President 1943 9 June Announcement of a new constitution of the Academy for German Law 1944 10-12 January Transfer of the Berlin office to the Reich Ministry of Justice 12 August Closure of all legal-political and scholarly work Inventory description: Inventory history Like many of the holdings of the Federal Archives, the documents of the Academy for German Law are only incompletely handed down and divided as a result of war losses. The division began as early as 1943, when the two offices moved files, books and inventory to smaller towns in the area to protect them from air raids, the Munich office to Altötting, Griesbach and Wegscheid (district court), the Berlin offices primarily to the Feldberg (Mecklenburg), Havelberg, Prenzlau, Zehdenick and probably also Templin storage sites also used by the Reich Ministry of Justice, and the Cochem Castle. Some of the files removed from Berlin were confiscated by Russian troops. Since 1957 they have been in the Central State Archives in Potsdam, where they formed the holdings 30.13 (Overview of the holdings of the German Central Archives 1957, p. 86). This had a volume of 155 volumes from the period 1933-1942, 33 of which refer to the activities of the committees and 31 of which apparently originate from the foreign department of the Academy; the holdings include files of the Association for the Improvement of Prisoners (25 volumes) and the German Society for Prison Science. In the hands of American troops fell, in addition to Munich files, the documents still available in the Berlin office at the end of the war, as well as files that had apparently still been brought from Zehdenick to Thuringia in 1945. Most of this stock was transferred via the Ministerial Collecting Center near Kassel to the World War II Records Division of the American National Archives in Alexandria, Va., where it formed the Record Group 1036 with other German documents. A smaller part was handed over to the Federal Ministry of Justice at the beginning of the 1950s, and the file of lawyers and economists remained with a branch of the US Army in Germany. In Alexandria the files were filmed in 1958 by the American Historical Association and described in 1959 in volume 6 of the Guides to German Records Microfilmed at Alexandria, Va., pp. 14-27. In 1960 this part of the collection was transferred to the Federal Archives, which in 1962 was also able to take over the remaining files from the Federal Ministry of Justice and the aforementioned index. In a final return, the Federal Archives received documents from the Academy in 1973 from the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. Some files of the Committee for German-Italian Legal Relations had been transferred to the Institut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie in Amsterdam after the end of the war; they were also made available to the Federal Archives by the latter in 1974 for further completion of the R 61 collection, which had meanwhile been formed from the existing files. Finally, the Institute for Contemporary History, Munich, which had been able to acquire some of the copies of the minutes of the committee meetings collected in Munich and the reference files of the ordinary professor Dr. jur. Hermann Krause (1939-1944 member of the main committee of the academy), also left its documents to the Federal Archives; and in March 1976, it was able to acquire the reference files of Reg. Dir. a.D. and then member of the board of Deutsche Centralbodenkredit AG, Oesterlink, member of the Mortgage Legal Committee of the Academy, will close a lore gap in this area. Thus all surviving traditions of the Academy for German Law outside the GDR were probably brought together in inventory R 61. In 1990, the part of the archive that had been preserved in the Central State Archives of the GDR was merged with R 61. Archivische Bewertung und Bearbeitung (only old stock R 61, without ZStA 30.13) The written material of the Akademie für Deutsches Recht consists essentially of two parts which are already clearly separated from each other. In addition to an extensive collection of factual and correspondence files, the "Archive" of the Press and Periodicals Office contains a considerable part of the collection of minutes and minutes of meetings, some of which can also be found in the files of the Legal Department. From 1938, with a few exceptions, the Academy's documents were filed in a central registry according to a systematic file plan. The filing was done chronologically from bottom to top, but was often disturbed afterwards. In order to eliminate the - often severe - irregularities and to improve the usability of the holdings, all subject units and individual processes were placed in an official filing system (from top to bottom) when the holdings in the Federal Archives were organized and listed in 1967, and torn file units were reunited in the process. Loose written material was reformed after factual matters. The files are therefore no longer in the same condition as they were when they were filmed in the USA, so that an identity between the volumes with the American signatures ADR 1 to ADR 238, some of which also referred to documents of other provenances, and the volumes signed in the Federal Archives exists only rarely; as far as possible, however, the corresponding American signatures were noted, and in addition the concordance between the signatures of the Federal Archives and the role designations of the microfilm T-82 (below pp. 87-90) makes a comparison possible. Cassations were primarily carried out in subject groups, most of which have been preserved in their entirety in the Federal Archives. In addition to the removal of numerous duplicates, administrative documents in particular were freed from all insignificant correspondence. Most of the submissions to committees on private legal matters of no general importance were also largely destroyed. Since the records and minutes were originally also available in the registry of the Academy, the reorganization of the status quo, which is not, moreover, based on the old file plan scheme, attempted to restore the old unit of records and minutes of the individual committees and other working bodies of the Academy of German Law as far as possible, whereby the internal "provenance" (registry or "archive") in the file directory is expressed only by the old signature. The records filed in the registry shall bear the letter "P" in front of the file number, unless they are in correspondence, and the "archive" copies shall not bear a signature. In order to indicate the separation of the holdings into the partial provenances of Berlin and Munich, the place of origin has also been entered in the Remarks column, as far as determined. In addition, the structure of the holdings in simplified form is based on the structure of the Academy. Content characterisation: Part 1 (formerly: ZStA, 30.13): Legal bases, organisation, service administration, librarianship and Veröffentli‧chungen 1933-1945 (68), Jurisprudence - Department of Legal Research 1936-1945 (47), Legal Policy - Department of Legal Structuring General committee files 1935-1943 (6), individual committees 1933-1944 (365) Part 2 (formerly: BArch, R 61): Committees 1933-1940 (36), foreign countries 1934-1942 (34), international congresses, conferences 1935-1941 (16), journal of the Academy for German Law 1935-1939 (10), Sitzungsan‧gelegenheiten, invitations, minutes 1935-1939 (7), reference files, internals, individual items 1934-1944 (26), association for the improvement of prisoners 1934-1942 (26), German Ge‧sellschaft for prison science 1927-1939 (7) state of development: Publication Findbuch: Werhan, Walter; Fensch, Elsa: Akademie für Deutsches Recht (fonds R 61) (Findbücher zu Bestände des Bundesarchivs, Bd. 9), 2nd up, Koblenz 1976; find card index citation method: BArch, R 61/...
History of the Inventory Designer: Introduction Stones do not speak. Much less can or must entire buildings reveal the whole historical truth. National Socialism should work. Building under National Socialism also served this purpose, either directly on behalf of the system or indirectly at least by not opposing it. The enslavement of architecture by the regime was not limited to new buildings of the NS era. National Socialism also established itself in the stock, instrumentalised old buildings everywhere for its purposes. Not even all of the important command centers of the Nazi regime or the main sites of Nazi terror were housed throughout in buildings which, in historical retrospect, could be regarded as having their origin and function at the time. In the memory of the city and in the urban space, places of the perpetrators are handed down as places of the victims, whose role is only revealed in the explanation and commentary of their historical function in the "Third Reich". Prehistory until 1937 In the Third Reich, architecture served to express power and domination. This is particularly evident in the inner city of Berlin. The monumental new buildings in the imperial capital were intended to symbolize "German world standing". Adolf Hitler wanted to see "works created for eternity" in Berlin, "only comparable with ancient Egypt, Babylon or Rome," as he said in 1936. At the 1937 Reich Party Congress, Hitler announced: "... Therefore our buildings should not be thought for the year 1940, also not for the year 2000, but should project directly into the domes of our past into the millennia of the future." Soon after the seizure of power, propagandistically effective building projects were started. These included the Reich Aviation Ministry, Tempelhof Airport, which was to be expanded into a "world airport", and the Reich Sports Field, which was to be expanded and redesigned with a view to the Olympic Games. The powerful buildings were presented to the public with great journalistic effort. At the 1936 Reich Party Congress in Nuremberg, Hitler announced the "reconstruction of Berlin as the capital of the German Reich". Hitler had initially intended to have his plans for the reorganization of the inner-city area processed by the Berlin city administration. When he realised that the local authorities were reluctant to impose his far-reaching transformation fantasies, he changed the responsibilities for planning and building in the capital. On 30 January 1937, the young architect Albert Speer was appointed general building inspector for the redevelopment of the imperial capital (GBI), reporting directly to the "Führer". Organization and history from 1937 A few days after Speer's appointment, Hitler ordered the House of the Academy of Arts at Pariser Platz No. 4, which until then had belonged to the office of the Minister of Education, to be vacated for the office of the General Building Inspector. Within a year and a half, the GBI's planning staff alone grew to eighty-seven people, while the so-called implementing body employed the same number of staff. Speer appointed a number of equally competent and reliable people to the executive positions in the three main departments into which he divided the office: the head office, which administered the budget, was taken over by the financial expert Karl Maria Hettlage, the general site manager Walter Brugmann, who had got to know Speer in Nuremberg, and for the planning office, since it was objectively most important to him, he, in addition to Hans Stephan, called on two long-standing friends, Rudolf Wolters and Willi Schelkes, who had been associated with him since days of study. The Speers offices, which had been established successively since 1937, were not divided into three main offices until mid-1940 under the central management of the GBI. After his appointment to the GBI, Speer expanded his planning staff to the "office" of the GBI. This later Main Office I, Planning Office, was responsible for all planning matters, ordered more than one hundred areas of redesign by 1942 and set the respective clearance dates. From 1938, Jewish tenants were forced to cancel their tenancy agreements on the basis of the "Verordnung über den Einsatz des jüdischen Vermögens" (Ordinance on the Use of Jewish Property); they were admitted to Jewish houses and later to concentration camps. For the "resettlement" of Jews and the reassignment of the apartments, the GBI's "Implementation Office" had been set up under the direction of Karl Maria Hettlage. In this way about 18,000 apartments were requisitioned. Areas from which the Jews were completely expelled were described as "Jew-free". The number of buildings erected during the twelve years of National Socialist rule between 1933 and 1945 is surprisingly high, especially since it must be remembered that only six years were available during the Second World War. In November 1939, a ban on new construction was imposed due to the war, which was followed half a year later by the discontinuation of all construction measures not necessary for the war. The GBI was established by the Decree of 30 January 1937. The office itself was assigned to Albert Speer, who from 1934 was "the representative for construction in the staff of the deputy of the Führer" and as such had already established some Nazi party buildings, especially in Nuremberg. At first, the GBI's competence did not extend beyond Berlin and its immediate surroundings. The "Gesetz über die Neugestaltung deutscher Städte" of 4 Oct. 1937 does not yet contain a more detailed provision on the "agency commissioned" by Hitler himself to carry out these projects. Only in this way was it possible for a special "General Building Council for the Capital of the Movement" to be appointed to Munich by decree of 21 Dec. 1938 and for this office to be occupied by the NS party architect Paul Giesler; Giesler was also commissioned with the establishment of NS party buildings in Augsburg and Weimar. It was not until the third decree on the GBI of 18 Oct 1940 that the competence of the GBI was significantly extended. The latter was expressly declared a "commissioned body" within the meaning of the Act on the Redevelopment of German Cities. In the years 1938 to 1942, a total of 32 cities in the former Reich territory were included in the new planning on the basis of the law of 4 Oct. 1937 by decrees and ordinances promulgated in the Reichsgesetzblatt. As of the end of 1942, the progress of all urban development plans of a peace-related nature was completely halted, since tasks important to the war awaited solution and Speer himself had been largely involved in them since his appointment as Reich Minister for Armament and Munitions on 15 February 1942 and on 2 September 1943 as Reich Minister for Armament and War Production. With the decree of 11 Oct. 1943 on the preparation of the reconstruction of bomb-damaged cities, Speer was entrusted with the necessary tasks in his capacity as GBI. He had to determine the framework for the future design of the cities and the right to decide on urban development issues of the reconstruction cities in place of the Reich Minister of Labour. The elimination of the Reich Labour Minister, to whom Speer had previously been bound as GBI despite his direct subordination under Hitler, was above all a consequence of Speer's present position as Reich Minister. Inventory description: Inventory history In Germany, the General Building Inspector's collection for the imperial capital is divided into three archives: the Bundesarchiv, the Landesarchiv Berlin and the Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv Munich. A total of three finding aids were available in the Federal Archives for the inventory R 4606 General Building Inspector for the Imperial Capital. The holdings were brought together from Potsdam and Koblenz at the beginning of the 1990s and have since been known as R 4606 General Building Inspector for the Imperial Capital. In the Landesarchiv Berlin there are 1016 files as well as in the planning chamber there 1,000 sheets of the GBI under the signature A Pr.Br.Rep. 107 from the years (1935) 1937 to 1945. In addition there are files of the grave commissioner active since July 1932 and last on his behalf, the former social democratic government president Ernst von Harnack. The card index of the graves of important personalities, arranged according to city districts and cemeteries, was intended to prepare the construction of an honorary cemetery "to express the spiritual significance of the imperial capital" (148 vols., 1941-1943). With the provenance indication "Baubüro Speer", the Hauptstaatsarchiv Munich contains more than 3,000 plans for buildings mainly in Berlin (including the Reich Chancellery, Reichstag, "Haus des Führers", "Große Halle"), the party congress grounds in Nuremberg and others. Furthermore, the special archive in Moscow contains a collection of 86 files of various contents from the years 1920 to 1944 under the title Fond 1409 General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital, e.g. on the use of prisoners of war at the GBI or correspondence between Speers and authorities and private individuals. Archival evaluation and processing Before 1990, the holdings were processed both in Potsdam with the inventory designation R 46.06 and in Koblenz (R 120) up to the preparation of the finding aid book. With the merging of the holdings mentioned above, the Koblenz files received new signatures. In view of the great public interest in information from this archive stock, it was decided in 2008 to retro-convert the finding aids with the aim of publishing them on the Internet. 177 files from a transfer of files from the Bamberg State Archives from the 1980s, which deal with the construction of the High Command of the Army and the Soldiers' Hall, were indexed and subsequently recorded. In 2008, the 29 files of the head of department at GBI, Schelkes' estate documents under the previous name "Kleine Erwerbungen Nr. 864" were also added. A further takeover included the "Art in the Third Reich" component, which had been incorporated into the archives, from which 38 index units of maps and plans were allocated to the holdings and listed. The archives were already taken over by the GDR Department in 1997. However, they have not been added to the portfolio due to equal signatures, but have been managed as an extra bundle without a direct reference to the portfolio. The classifications found were largely adopted and summarised in a factual manner. The development data available up to then were partly modified and series and volume sequences formed. The internal order of the files has been maintained. The inventory has already been moved from standing folders to folders. The maps are stored in specially designed folders and cabinets. Characterization of content: Office Speer 1937-1944 (111); files of leading employees (as far as not objectively assigned) 1937-1944 (59); Main Office Administration and Economy: General Administration: Administration of services 1937-1945 (99), General administration 1932-1945 (442), Land and building matters 1937-1945 (71), Procurement and inventory management 1937-1945 (4), Budget matters 1937-1945 (299), Accounting 1938-1944 (17), Secret files (chronological) 1938-1945 (34), Examination office 1940-1945 (56), Treasury 1938-1945 (91), Other financial and administrative matters 1939-1945 (11). Personnel 1938-1943 (152), Law 1937-1945 (51), Housing issues (evacuation and resettlement), 1937-1945 (50), Quota administration 1939-1945 (80); Planning office: Plankammer 1937-1943 (15), Competitions exhibitions and collections 1934-1942 (44), Area declarations 1938-1944 (64), Individual construction planning areas: General 1937-1945 (133), armament expansion 1939-1943 (43), Wehrmacht installations 1937-1944 (98), Reich Air Ministry Airports 1937-1940 (31), traffic 1934-1943 (402), buildings and installations 1935-1944 (567), Authorities and organisations 1936-1944 (428), industrial buildings 1936-1944 (402), residential buildings in individual administrative districts of Berlin and the surrounding area 1936-1944 (405), other planning projects 1938-1944 (7), construction projects outside Berlin 1936-1943 (164); Implementation office for the redesign of the imperial capital 1938-1944(19); general construction management: Supervision of the army high command: General 1939-1945 (38), individual projects (building blocks) 1939-1945 (150). Construction management 1939-1945 (10), maps plans schematics: General 1938-1942 (11), development planning of settlements and peripheral communities 1938-1942 (20), streets and squares green and open spaces 1937-1943 (50), authorities and institutions 1938-1943 (36), Wehrmacht facilities of the Reich Aviation Ministry 1937-1940 (7), University and teaching facilities 1938-1943 (11), industrial and office buildings 1939-1943 (28), residential buildings 1939-1944 (46), Reichsbahnbaudirektion Berlin 1939-1941 (18), theatre buildings 1936-1943 (260), buildings outside Berlin 1923-1948 (44). Settlement agency: 1946-1948 (1). Citation style: BArch, R 4606/...
History of the Inventor: Established in June 1936 by Heinrich Himmler's decree as Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police; the Main Office was responsible for the administrative and protective police (including traffic and water police), the gendarmerie, the municipal and Feuerschutzpoli‧zei police, and the Technical Emergency Aid Long text: Overview of the internal official organization of the Main Office Ordnungspolizei The Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich of 30 June 1936 provides for a comprehensive overview of the internal administrative organization of the Main Office. Jan. 1934 (RGBl. I,75) the police sovereignty rights of the countries were transferred to the Reich. As a result, a police department (III) was established in the Reich Ministry of the Interior on May 1, 1934, which, after the merger of the Reich Ministry of the Interior with the Prussian Ministry of the Interior in November 1934, was united with the police department (II) of the latter. Organizationally, this development came to an end on 17 June 1936 with the appointment of Heinrich Himmler as "Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior" (RGBl. I,487). By decree of 26 June 1936 (MBliV, 946), the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police divided his authority into the main offices of Ordnungspolizei and Sicherheitspolizei and subordinated them to their own bosses. The head of the Ordnungspolizei was Kurt Daluege, the former head of the police department of the Reich and Prussian Ministry of the Interior, who became ministerial director and SS-Obergruppenführer (most recently general colonel of the police and SS-Oberstgruppenführer). On 31 August 1943 he was replaced by the General of Police and Waffen-SS Alfred Wünnenberg (m.d.F.b.) until the end of the war. The administrative police, the protective police (including traffic and water police), the gendarmerie, the municipal police, the fire police and the technical emergency aid belonged to the department of the order police. The Main Office of the Ordnungspolizei was divided into "offices", of which there were initially only two: the Office of Administration and Law (VuR) and the Command Office (Kdo). The Administration and Law Office was responsible for handling all administrative police, legal and economic tasks of the entire Ordnungspolizei. Until the end of 1938, it was divided into departments, then into official groups, groups, sub-groups and subject areas. In the course of the organisational changes in the main office of the Ordnungspolizei it was dissolved in September 1943 (see below) and was headed by Ministerialdirektor Bracht until 1943. The command office dealt with all management and other general service matters of the order police. It was initially divided into offices and, since the end of 1940, into groups of offices according to the military model, etc. such as the Office of Administration and Law. From September 1943 there were special inspections at the Command Office for the technical fields of work (communication and motor vehicle systems, weapons and equipment) as well as for veterinary, air-raid protection and fire-fighting matters. The heads of the office were Lieutenant General von Bomhard (until October 1942), Lieutenant General Winkelmann (until March 1944), Major General Diermann (until July 1944) and Major General Flade (until May 1945). These two core offices of the Ordnungspolizei main office were joined by two other offices in the course of 1941. By circular decree of the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police of 14 January 1941, the Colonial Police Office was established in preparation for the colonial deployment of the Ordnungspolizei. However, it lost its importance with the deterioration of the military situation in 1943 and was dissolved in March 1943 by order of the Führer. On 9 May 1941, the Fire Brigades Office was formed as the fourth office and on 30 December 1941, the Technical Emergency Assistance Office was formed as the fifth office in the Ordnungs- Polizei main office. Fundamental changes in the organization of the Ordnungspolizei main office occurred after Himmler's appointment as Reich Interior Minister (August 1943). With effect from 15 September 1943, the offices of Administration and Law, Fire Brigades and Technical Emergency Aid were dissolved. The tasks of the Office of Administration and Law were mainly transferred to the two new bodies, the Economic Administration Office and the Legal Office. However, the legal office was dissolved at the beginning of December 1943. The majority of his areas of work came to the Office of Economic Administration. By the end of the war, this office had essentially taken over the tasks and position of the old administration and law office again. Its chief became the SS-Obergruppenführer and general of the Waffen-SS and police August Frank from the SS-Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt. Most of the areas previously dealt with by the Fire Brigades and Technical Emergency Aid Offices fell to the Command Office, parts also to the newly formed "Reichsämter" Volunteer Fire Brigades and Technical Emergency Aid. The designation "Reichsamt" expressed the special character of these organizations as public corporations. As an office directly subordinated to the head of the Ordnungspolizei, the Sanitäts-Amt, which was detached from the Kommando-Amt (Amtsgruppe III) on 1 Oct. 1944, is to be mentioned. Relocation measures during the war (For this and the following section compare: Jürgen Huck; alternative places and file fate of the main office Ordnungspolizei in the 2nd World War in: Neufeldt, Huck, Tessin: Zur Geschichte der Ordnungspolizei 1936 - 1945; Koblenz 1957) Until 1942, most of the Ordnungspolizei main office was housed in the old office building of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior in Berlin NW 7, Unter den Linden 72/74. In the course of the year 1942, the office administration and law was transferred to Berlin-Halensee, Kurfürstendamm 106/107. His successor, the Wirtschaftsverwaltungsamt, had to leave the building as a result of bombing and in February 1944 moved into an office building in Berlin-Lichterfelde, Unter den Eichen 126, together with the official groups I (Economy) and III (Accommodation) and the group "Personnel". The official group II (administration) sat in the barracks camp in Berlin-Zehlendorf, Potsdamer Chaussee, and the official group IV (supply and law) in the building Unter den Linden 72/74 until its dissolution in February 1944. At the end of March 1944, after parts of the group "Personal" and the official group II had already gone to Biesenthal, the entire economic administration office was transferred to the alternative camp "Heidenberg" near Biesenthal/Mark in the district of Oberbarnim. After the air raid of 23/24 November 1943 had severely damaged the building Unter den Linden 72/74, the Kommando Office was transferred to the barracks of the alternative camp "Paula" near Biesenthal in December 1943. Only the inspection L (Luftschutz) remained in the service building in Berlin, Schadowstraße 2, until April 20, 1945. The inspection Feuerschutzpolizei (in the Offiziersschule der Ordnungspolizei in Eberswalde), parts of the inspection Veterinärwesen (in Cottbus) and parts of the personnel groups (in the Offiziersschule der Ordnungspolizei in Berlin-Köpenick) were accommodated elsewhere. The group "War History" was transferred to the Waffenschule der Ordnungspolizei in Dresden-Hellerau in August 1943 and one year later to the castle of Prince Carl von Trauttmannsdorff in Bischofteinitz near Taus (Bohemia). On the other hand, the parts of the motor vehicle inspection initially transferred to Dresden were moved to Biesenthal in November 1944, so that this inspection was closed in the "Paula" camp until April 1945. In March 1945, the relocation to Potsdam-Babelsberg was ordered for the offices of the Chief of Ordnungspolizei in and around Berlin. As a result of the rushing war events, this and other projects (Suhl and Weimar) could not be carried out. At the end of March/beginning of April 1945 it was therefore decided to divide the main office of the Ordnungspolizei into a south and a north staff. The division of services between the two staffs is opaque. The mass, however, has been assigned to the south staff. In the 2nd half of April, the "Süd" task force moved to the officers' school of the Ordnungspolizei in Fürstenfeldbruck. A large part of his staff was dismissed here. On April 28, 1945, the miniaturized working staff drove to Eben/Achensee (Tyrol) and was captured by the Americans in mid-May 1945 in Rottach-Egern (Tegernsee). The "North" task force left Biesenthal on 18 April 1945, reached Flensburg via Lübeck at the beginning of May and was captured there by the English at the Harriesleefeld fire brigade school. Inventory description: Inventory history Reference: Koblenz Inventory Fate of the files of the Main Office Ordnungspolizei The mass of files of the Chief of Ordnungspolizei must be considered lost. The processes that led to this loss are still largely in the dark. We are relatively well informed about the fate of larger parts of the old registries of the Chief of the Ordnungspolizei, which mainly contained files of the former police departments of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior and the Reich Ministry of the Interior as well as those of the Prussian State Police dissolved in 1935/36, and about the files of the group "War History". The old registries of the Chief of the Ordnungspolizei were located in the so-called "Archive of the Main Office of the Ordnungspolizei", which was renamed "Aktenverwaltung des Hauptamtes Ordnungspolizei" from October 1941 on the objection of the General Director of the State Archives. During the war, the holdings of this file administration can be found in the service buildings Unter den Linden, Kurfürstendamm and Breitestraße. From 1941 to 1944, about 8,500 volumes of files from the police department registries of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, taken over by the head of the Ordnungspolizei, were handed over to the Prussian Secret State Archives in Berlin-Dahlem. The Secret State Archives had for the most part outsourced these files to Central German mines. From there, together with the other outsourced holdings, they probably came to the Central State Archives II of the GDR in Merseburg. Files of unknown size of the police department of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, mainly through the Schutz- und Kriminalpolizei-, which had been taken over by the head of the Ordnungspolizei in 1936, arrived in 1941/42 from the Hauptamt Ordnungspolizei to the Reichsarchiv in Potsdam, where they were most probably destroyed by the air raid of 14./15. 4. 1945. The files of the Prussian State Police from 1933 to 1935, which were transferred to the Wehrmacht in 1935, appear to have been transferred to the Army Archives in Potsdam during the war. Here they were probably burned as a result of the air raid of April 1945. Far more incomplete than the old registries are our knowledge about the fate of the current registries at the Main Office Ordnungspolizei. At the end of the war the following registrations have to be proved: O - Adjutantur O - HB Head Office O - Jurist O - Kdo Adjutantur O - Kdo WF Weltanschauliche Führung O - Kdo Org/Ia Organisation, Einsatz, Führung O - Kdo I - Ib Nachschuf O - Kdo I Ausb Ausbildung O - Kdo I Sp. Sport O - Kdo I KrG War History O - Kdo II P O - Kdo II P Allg) Personal Data O - Kdo II P R 1) O - Kdo II P Disciplinary Matters 2) O - Kdo II P KrO War Orders and Decorations of Honor 3) O - Kdo In K Inspection Motor Vehicles 4) O - Kdo In N Inspection Communications 5) O - Kdo In WG Inspection Weapons and Appliances 6) O - Kdo In L inspection air raid protection 7) O - Kdo In F inspection fire police 8) O - Kdo In Vet inspection veterinary 9) O - W personal data 10) O - W verse supply 11) O - W I economy 12) O - W II administration and law 13) O - W III accommodation 14) O - medical 15) O - I. - S Inspector General of the Schutzpolizei O - I. - G Inspector General of the Gendarmerie and Schutzpolizei der Gemeinden 16) O - I. - Sch Inspector General of the Schools O - I. - FSchP Inspector General for Fire-fighting 17) (Fire Police and Fire Brigades) O - I. - FwSch Inspector General for Firefighting 18) extinguishing system (fire schools, factory fire brigades and fire show) 19) O - RTN Reichsamt Technische Nothilfe 20) O - RFw Reichsamt Freiwillige Feuerwehren 21) Secret registry Most of these 35 running registries seem to have been completely lost. Only the following incomplete news about their whereabouts have become known to the Federal Archives so far. A part of the personnel files of the command office (registries O-Kdo II P) seems to have been moved in 1943/44 in agreement with the Reichsamt Technische Nothilfe to the castle Eisenhardt in Belzig/Mark (TN school). His fate is unknown. Another part came in spring 1945 first to the police administration Gera, then to Weimar or Gschenda, Kr. Arnstadt, was temporarily brought back to Biesenthal and went in April 1945 with the south staff to Fürstenfeldbruck. Already in Biesenthal the mass of files about the law for civil servants burned, and further losses entered on the march from there to Fürstenfeldbruck by low-flying fire. In Fürstenfeldbruck and at the beginning of May 1945 in Eben, the mass of the files carried along by members of the South Staff was burned. The personnel files of the Economic Administration Office (registry O-W Pers.) were moved to Thuringian towns together with those of the Commando Office in the spring of 1945. They arrived via the police administration in Gera at the Linda police supply camp near Neustadt a. d. Orla - according to other news also to Gschwenda - and returned to Biesenthal for a short time when the Americans arrived, after considerable parts had been burned in Thuringia due to a misunderstood radio message. From there, they were taken to Fürstenfeldbruck by the hourly staff in April 1945, losing their lives in air raids. Here and in Eben, most of the files were destroyed at the end of April/beginning of May 1945. According to other sources, however, it was burned in Maurach/Achensee at the beginning of May 1945 according to further files. A special fate had the files of the group "War History" of the command office (registry O-Kdo I KrG). In the course of the war, a "special archive" had been created for the group through the release of material from the area of the Ordnungspolizei that was important for the history of the war. Among its best sands, the diaries of the SS Police Division established in 1939, the 35th SS (Police) Grenadier Division established in 1945, the SS Police Regiments, the Police Shooting Regiments, the police battalions and other police troop units, as well as a collection of the most important decrees of the Main Office of the Ordnungspolizei (Ordnungspolizei - Ordnungspolizei - Order Police Department) are to be emphasized. These valuable documents were completely destroyed at the end of April/beginning of May 1945 by members of the group "War History" in Bischofteinitz/Bohemia. It is still unclear to what extent the records of the chief of the Ordnungspolizei are kept today by GDR offices. It is only certain that the holdings "Reichsministerium des Innern" of the Central State Archives I in Potsdam under Dept. III contain 46 volumes about the police from the period 1934 to 1937 and personnel files from the main office of the Ordnungspolizei. The remains of the personnel group registries not destroyed in Fürstenfeldbruck and Eben, and apparently also parts of other registries of the Main Office Ordnungspolizei, were confiscated by the Americans. After the occupation of the Offiziersschule der Ordnungspolizei in Fürstenfeldbruck, the police inspected the files they had found, took them to a warehouse, transported them away in the autumn of 1945, leaving behind the person of no interest to them. The material remaining there from the personnel registry of the Economic Administration Office was transferred directly to the Federal Archives in November 1954 via the Bavarian Main State Archives, Dept. I, that of the Command Office in January 1955 and in July 1957 from the Bavarian Police School Fürstenfeldbruck. As early as December 1956, about 550 personnel notebooks of the Kommando-Amtes with the initial letters M - Z had arrived here, which, initially confiscated, had been handed over by the American military government to the Command of the Schutzpolizei in Wiesbaden in 1949 and there - with a stock of originally about 900 notebooks - had been reduced by the handing over of documents about reused police personnel to their office. The main mass of the removed files, however, was first transferred to the file depot of the U.S. Army (Departmental Records Branch) in Alexandria/Virginia and filmed within the Records Group 1010/EAP 170 - 175 (Microfilm Guide 39). The transfer from there to the Federal Archives took place in April 1962. Further file takeovers took place from documents that had initially been brought together in the Document Center in Berlin - first in 1957 personal files on gendarmerie officials via the Hessian Ministry of the Interior, then in 1962 on a larger scale and directly in connection with the so-called Schumacher Collection of documents from various organizational units and at about the same time Daluege's reconstructed files from biographical materials of the Adjutantur of the Chief of Ordnungspolizei. Other provenances that have been grouped according to biographical criteria can still be found in the Berlin Document Center. In the summer of 1957, the former chief of the command office, Lieutenant General of the Ordnungspolizei a. D. Adolf v. Bomhard, two volumes of files personally secured by him (R 19/282 and 283) and, in addition, the documents listed under C in the Annex. 1958 followed tax, salary and wage documents of former employees of the main witness office of the Ordnungspolizei of the Versorgungsanstalt des Bundes und der Länder in Karlsruhe. Finally, files of the Reich Office Voluntary Fire Brigades were handed over by the Oberfinanzdirektion Hamburg in 1957 and 1964. Archival evaluation and processing Reference: Koblenz stock In view of the insignificance or absence of other records handed down by the police and the need under pension law for proof of service time for members of the police force, a thorough cassation was dispensed with. On the other hand, in order to fill at least some of the gaps in the status quo, not only the official printed matter of the Main Office Ordnungspolizei was listed, but also important matters concerning the Ordnungspolizei from the holdings of the Federal Archives R 43 (Reich Chancellery), R 18 (Reich Ministry of the Interior), R 2 (Reich Ministry of Finance), R 22 (Reich Ministry of Justice), NS 19 (Personal Staff Reichsführer SS), NS 7 (SS and Police Jurisdiction) and R 36 (Deutscher Gemeindetag (German Community Day) were incorporated, without the aim of completeness. On the other hand, the stocks R 20 (chief of the gang combat units; schools of the order police) and R 70 (police services of integrated, affiliated and occupied areas of the 2nd world war), which must be consulted anyway with appropriate investigations, were completely omitted. When classifying the stock, it was not possible to structure the stock in accordance with the registry principle, given the incomplete nature of the preserved files, any more than it was possible to do a close analogy to the administrative structure of the main office. Therefore, an ideal structure of the competence area of the Main Office Ordnungspolizei was developed which was adapted to the importance of the subject areas actually handed down in the inventory. Dr. Neufeldt, Mr. Huck, Mr. Schatz, Dr. Boberach, Dr. Werner and Mr. Marschall were particularly involved in the chronological order in which the inventory was developed. Koblenz, October 1974 Content characterization: Adjutant of the Chief of Ordnungspolizei 1933-1945 (24), Dienststellenverwaltung 1933-1945 (50), Nachrichten- und Befehlsblätter, Erlasses, Besprechungungen 1933-1945 (41), Orga‧nisation and Zuständigkeit 1933-1945 (58), Haushalt 1933-1944 (9), General service law and police service law 1931-1945 (37), courses and schools 1930-1945 (89), assessment, promotion, secondment and transfer of members of the police 1931-1945 (38), remuneration and pensions 1933-1945 (19), Criminal and disciplinary matters 1937-1945 (8), uniforms and orders 1933-1945 (8), Comradeship Association of German Police Officers 1933-1945 (6), personnel statistics 1938-1945 (7), accommodation, equipment and armament 1933-1945 (8), Sanitäts- und Vete‧rinärwesen, Polizeisport 1933-1945 (12), Polizeiverwaltungs- und Vollzugsdienst 1935-1945 (93), Einsatz von Polizeiverbände und -einheiten 1933-1945 (108), Personalakte 1917-1945 (1.067), State Hospital of Police in Berlin. Medical records (ZX) of patients 1940-1945 (1946) (3,149), file of the State Hospital of Police in Berlin (n.a.) State of development: Findbuch (1974) Citation method: BArch, R 19/...
On April 21, 1933, Hitler appointed his personal secretary Rudolf Hess, the former head of the "Political Central Commission" of the NSDAP, as "deputy of the Führer" and authorized him to decide in his name on all matters concerning the leadership of the party. The main task of the deputy leader and his staff, formed at the headquarters of the NSDAP in Munich, was to "align the Gauleitungen, divisions and affiliated associations of the NSDAP uniformly and to give them political guidelines"(1) This function of a central authority of the internal party leadership had to be fought for and defended first and foremost against the resistance of the Reichsorganisationsleiter Robert Ley, who regarded himself as the main heir of Gregor Strasser and his concentration of power within the party. (2) The "NSDAP liaison staff" set up on 24 March 1933 in the former building of the Prussian State Ministry in Berlin was subordinated to Hess and subsequently served as the Berlin office of the Führer's deputy, without achieving or even exceeding the importance of the Munich staff, also with regard to the later coordination functions vis-à-vis the Reich government. As was already the case when Hess was commissioned to head the Central Political Commission, which had been created at the end of 1932 after Gregor Strasser's dissolution of the Reichsorganisationsleitung, which had developed into a central party-internal power apparatus, as a supervisory organ for its previous main departments III and IV,(3) Hitler's appointment of his private secretary as deputy to the leader was by no means intended to strengthen the position of the party or its Reichsleitung within the National Socialist power structure. While the comparatively generous endowment of the deputy leader's central authority of the party leadership should undoubtedly also serve to curb the power ambitions of other, personally stronger party leaders, the personality of Hess, who had always been a devoted follower of his leader without any independent power within the party leadership, offered a guarantee that a center of power alongside Hitler, as it threatened to develop in the short term in 1932 with Gregor Strasser's rise to "a kind of general secretary of the party with comprehensive powers of attorney" (4), could no longer emerge in the future. Hess could not speak of a supremacy over other "law firms" (law firm of the leader of the NSDAP, Reich Chancellery and - after Hindenburg's death - Presidential Chancellery). Even the later use of the central competences of the office of the deputy of the Führer under the energetic and ruthless leadership of Martin Bormann to develop his known personal position of power could only succeed, since Bormann consciously built up his position, but never only that of Hitler. Rudolf Hess, who was personally rather weak, was, however, granted comprehensive powers in state affairs by the Law of 1 December 1933 on Securing the Unity of Party and State. Like Röhm, the head of the SA staff, Hess was appointed Reich Minister without a portfolio in order to "ensure the closest cooperation between the Party and the State".(5) The position of the deputy leader was decisively strengthened by Hitler's unpublished circular of 27 March, which was issued by the Reichsminister in Berlin. On July 7, 1934, "the deputy of the Führer, Reich Minister Rudolf Hess", was given the position of a "participating" Reich Minister in the legislation without exception.(6) This gave Hess the opportunity to comment on all drafts of laws and ordinances and to assert the party's position. By the "Erlass über die Beteiligung des Stellvertreter des Führers bei der Ernennung von Beamten" (Decree on the Participation of the Deputy Fuehrer in the Appointment of Civil Servants) of 24 September 1935 (7), Hitler also ordered Hess to participate in the appointment of Reich and Land officials in such a way that he received a copy of the proposal for promotion or appointment with more detailed information about the civil servant and was granted a reasonable period of time to comment. As a rule, this deadline was used to obtain the opinion of the local party organisation, particularly on the political position of the candidate. After this decisive expansion of competence, the office of the deputy leader, whose staff comprised "two, three men" when Martin Bormann took over the leadership of the staff in July 1933, (8) took on firmer contours. In 1937, the deputy of the Führer or his staff leader, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, was headed by Rudolf Mackensen, the staff manager, and a number of clerks, representatives, special representatives, heads of offices, and other officials, only some of whom served exclusively on the staff of the Führer's deputy, while the vast majority headed party institutions that only formally served Hess or (9) The latter included (1937): Main Archive of the NSDAP: Head of Headquarters Dr. Uetrecht The Head of the Foreign Organization of the NSDAP: Gauleiter Bohle The Commissioner for Foreign Policy Issues: Ambassador von Ribbentrop The Commissioner for all Issues of Technology and its Organization: Head of Headquarters Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. G. Bohle The Commissioner for Foreign Policy Issues: Ambassador of Ribbentrop The Commissioner for all Issues of Technology and its Organization: Head of Headquarters Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. G. Bohle The Commissioner for Foreign Policy Issues: Ambassador of Ribbentrop The Commissioner for all Issues of Technology and its Organization: Head of Headquarters Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. G. Todt Der Sachbearbeiter für alle Fragen der Volksgesundheit: Hauptdienstleiter Dr. Wagner Commission for Higher Education Policy: Haupttellenleiter Prof. Dr. Wirz The representative for the new building of the Reich: Gauleiter Adolf Wagner The official for questions of job creation, for financial and tax policy: Hauptdienstleiter State Secretary Reinhardt The official for art and culture: Amtsleiter Schulte-Strathaus The official for music: Head of main office Adam The clerk for school questions: Head of main office Wächtler The clerk for practical-technical questions: Head of office Croneiß Party official examination commission for the protection of Nazi literature: Reichsleiter Bouhler The representative for building industry: General Building Inspector Head of Office Speer In 1938, the following were added: Central Office for the Economic Policy Organisations of the NSDAP: Head of Main Office Keppler Commission for Economic Policy: Head of Office Köhler. In addition to the already mentioned office of the deputy of the Führer in Berlin (liaison staff under head of the main office Stenger), there were also: Special representative of the deputy of the Führer: head of the main office Oexle Representatives for special use (e.g. V.): head of the main office Brockhausen and head of the main office Seidel (Nazi camp for civil servants in Tutzing and Reich camp for civil servants in Bad Tölz). De facto, the Munich office of the deputy leader's deputy consisted essentially of two parts, in addition to the leadership of the staff and the adjutants: Internal party affairs and constitutional issues. According to the published organisational overviews, they were headed by 'clerks', referred to as 'Division II or Division III' in the secret business distribution plans (10 ). During the preparation of this finding aid book, a business distribution plan (1938) of Division II, headed from March 1934 until the end of the war by Helmuth Friedrichs, former Gaug Managing Director of the NSDAP in the Gau Hessen-Kassel region, was determined for the first time for the office of the deputy leader's deputy. There the organisational level below the department level was also called "department" instead of "group" or "main office" as was later the case. Division II - Internal Party Matters - Field: Political Issues of the Party and the State Staff: Head of Main Office Helmuth Friedrichs Division II A Establishment and Expansion of the Party, its Structures and Associated Associations. Observation of economic, social and agricultural policy issues. Head: Head of Office Albert Hoffmann Representative: Head of Head Office Erich Eftger II A a Head of Head Office Pannenborg Organisational questions of the whole party, orders and orders of the deputy of the leader, as far as they concern organisational questions. Observation of the organizational relations of the affiliated associations and the divisions to the party and among each other. liaison with organisations outside the Party dealing with human leadership, as far as the organisation's issues are concerned. II A b Head of Headquarters Franz Schmidt II Social, economic and agricultural policy issues, labour front and questions of the Reich's nutritional status. Connection to the NSBO main office and the Reichsamt für Agrarpolitik. II A d Head of main office Long connection to the main offices and affiliated associations and their fields of activity; in particular local politics, civil servants, educators, war victims, NSDStB, women's affairs, people's welfare with the exception of the National Socialist Association of Lecturers, the National Socialist Association of Physicians, the German Labour Front, the Office for Agricultural Policy, the Office for Technology. Division II B Observation of domestic political developments and their impact on the party and the state. Head: Head of Office Gerland Representative: Witt II B a Head of Witt Reporting (in cooperation with all departments of the staff); orders of the deputy of the leader, as far as they concern ideological questions. II B b Head of Gerland Propaganda and Press Liaison Office (film, radio, post and celebration). II B c Head of office Schütt Liaison office training (training questions of the party in connection with the Reichsschulungsamt). II B d Head of the Lindhorst office Connection guide to the RAD Schnurbein connection office SA, SS, NSKK, Arbeitsdienst, HJ. II B e Head of department Gerland Liaison office KdF. II B f Head of Office Gerland Lutze Liaison Office Wehrmacht. II B g Office for Guests of Honour R e i c h s p r t a g e s . Department II C Head of Office Opdenhoff Führungsamt und Personalamt des Stellvertreters des Führers. Recording and supervision of junior leaders of the NSDAP. Processing the personal files of the political leaders to be confirmed by the deputy leader and the leader. Supervision of the Gauamts- and Kreisleiter detached to the staff. Membership system. Division II D Head of Office Opdenhoff Handling of complaints concerning party departments. Head of the Thurner headquarters Supervision of the junior staff members who have been seconded to the staff for one year. For the Department for Questions of Constitutional Law (Division III) set up in the summer of 1934 after the transfer of the authority to participate in the preparation of state legislation, there is no business distribution plan for the office of the deputy of the Führer. In the 1938 and 1939 National Socialist Yearbooks, in addition to the "official in charge of questions of state law", Hauptamtsleiter Sommer, the heads of the departments Dr. Johann Müller, Heim and von Helms are only listed as heads of department (11) This department, which was responsible for "supervising" the legislation and personnel policy of the Reich government, was subdivided, analogous to the individual ministries, into respective organisational units (groups or main offices, offices, main offices) for domestic, legal and economic policy. Since it could itself be regarded as a part of the state administration in terms of civil servant and budgetary law and had almost exclusively to do with draft laws and civil servant issues, it was obvious for Hess to entrust the work of this department to experienced administrative officials with legal knowledge. At the request of the deputy of the Führer, the officials were transferred from the respective Reich or Land departments to the staff of the deputy of the Führer. Until 1941, Head of Division III was the administrative lawyer Walther Sommer in the rank of Ministerial Councillor; his successor became State Secretary Dr. Gerhard Klopfer in 1941. Due to the composition and origin of the staff, Division III was hardly in a position to bring about the originally intended implementation of a radical party position in state legislation and civil servant policy. Rather, we can speak of a mediating function between party offices and ministries. Within this framework, the public authorities expected "their" officials transferred to the staff of the deputy leader to have a supportive influence on the responsible NSDAP department, which was usually actually exercised (12). Nonetheless, it is beyond doubt that the party's right to participate in the appointment and promotion of civil servants, from which only the Wehrmacht was able to keep itself free, had a considerable influence on the civil service and, among other things, had to impair its traditional view of service. Immediately after the England flight of his deputy Rudolf Hess, Hitler made the order on 12 May 1941 that the previous office of the Führer's deputy should bear the name "Party Chancellery" and be subordinated to him personally. The leader was "as before Reichsleiter Martin Bormann" (13). In his decree of 29 May 1941 "On the Position of the Head of the Party Chancellery" Hitler specified "in order to ensure the closest cooperation of the Party Chancellery with the Supreme Reich Authorities: The Head of the Party Chancellery, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, has the powers of a Reich Minister, he is a member of the Reich Government and of the Council of Ministers for the Defence of the Reich". Hitler then affirmed that the previous head of staff of the office of the deputy leader's deputy did not receive the title of his former superior, but rather all of his powers: "Where in laws, ordinances, decrees, orders and other orders the deputy leader's deputy is named, he shall be replaced by the head of the Party Chancellery" (14). According to the NSDAP's self-image, the Party Chancellery was Hitler's office in his capacity as leader of the party. Their Hitler leader, who was directly responsible for Hitler, had "to process all fundamental plans and suggestions from the area of the party centrally" for Hitler. The instructions issued by Hitler himself or prepared on his behalf for the entire party were sent exclusively via Bormann to the departments responsible for implementation. Not only the political leadership of the party, but also all work arising from the party's supremacy towards the state was to be done in the party chancellery. During the war, these tasks included, as a matter of course, the "versatile deployment of the party organs in total internal warfare" and the work of the party in the integrated and occupied territories. In addition to the party and the Wehrmacht, the focus of the jurisdiction of the party chancellery was on "securing the unity of party and state" (15). In the Ordinance of 29 May 1941 on the Implementation of the Decree of the Führer on the Position of the Head of the Party Chancellery, the Reich Minister and Head of the Reich Chancellery Lammers and the Head of the Party Chancellery ordered the following on 16 January 1942: (16) The Party's participation in the legislation was to be effected exclusively through the head of the Party Chancellery, unless Hitler determined otherwise in individual cases. Proposals and suggestions from the area of the Party, its divisions and affiliated associations could only be forwarded via Bormann, the responsible ministries and other supreme Reich authorities, as far as the legislation was concerned. This practically amounted to a concentration of power on the person of Bormann. The party also played a central role in processing the personal data of the civil servants. In any case, the head of the Party Chancellery had the position of a b e t e i l t e Reich Minister in the preparation of state legislation in legislative work. This also applied to the laws and ordinances of the provinces and governors of the empire. In addition to these formal competences, it was stipulated that, in matters other than legislative matters, the communication between the supreme Reich and Land authorities, insofar as these were responsible regionally for several districts of the NSDAP, on the one hand, and the services of the Party, its divisions and affiliated associations, on the other hand, took place solely via Bormann if these were "fundamental and political questions". Direct traffic was expressly declared inadmissible. Thus an instrument of power equipped with far-reaching competences came under the exclusive leadership of an energetic party functionary who was just as servile upwards as he was after him under brutally ruthless party officials, who of course used it as far as possible to expand his own position of power, which of course was not exclusively based on his position as head of the party office. Bormann's rise from organizer of illegal Freikorpsgruppen and Feme desk murderers to head of the relief fund of the NSDAP and finally to chief of staff of the Führer's deputy, his constant approach to the person of Hitler - from the administration of Hitler personally from various sources funds available, the conversion of the House of Wachenfeld to the "Berghof" and "Berghof" respectively. the expansion of the entire Obersalzberg complex into Hitler's summer residence, up to Hitler's constant company in the Führer's headquarters or "special Führer train" during the war - cannot be traced here in detail (17). The coupling of these two functions - the leadership of the political coordination centre of the party (staff of the deputy leader or party chancellery) and Hitler's constant support and advice, also in personal matters - formed the basis of Bormann's special position of power, which could not easily be equated with the strengthening of the party leadership as such. Structurally, even an energetic head of staff or head of the party office was unable to change the desolate weakness of the NSDAP's Reich leadership. Even under Bormann, the party chancellery did not develop into an all-powerful, bureaucratic command center comparable to communist politburo. Bormann's special position was based on the personal, independent power of attorney as Hitler's personal clerk, which was institutionalized on April 12, 1943 with Bormann's official appointment as "Secretary of the Führer" (18). From Bormann's dominant position in the Führer's headquarters - not actually from his function as head of the Party Chancellery - the path led to the Super and Control Minister of the Reich Government, when the Bormann was not only seen by dissatisfied party and contemporaries in the final years of the war, but is also portrayed in historical studies on the Nazi regime in general (19). The two-pronged organisational structure of the office of the leader's deputy, which was essentially based on the two departments for internal party affairs and for questions of constitutional law, remained basically unchanged, even under the name of the party chancellery. In Division II, the following groups or main offices were added in accordance with the expansion of the tasks: II M (Reich Defence, Planning of Operations for the War Tasks of the Party), II W (Fundamental Questions of the Wehrmacht, Liaison Office to the OKW), II E (Foreign and People's Growth Work of the Party, including Occupied Territories), II F (Nazi Leadership in the Wehrmacht and Nazi Lead Officers) and II V (Staff Leadership Volkssturm). The offices II C and IID, on the other hand, which dealt with the party's junior leaders and personnel issues, were merged to form the II P office. The organisational overview of Division II given below is essentially taken from a note in Division III of 11 April 1945. The offices II A 2, 3 and 5 as well as II B 6 and II W 1 - 4 no longer listed there were supplemented from earlier business distribution plans from 1942 and 1944. Apart from a few exceptions, the names given as heads of organizational units originate from a plan for the introduction of dictation marks dated 26 March 1942 (20) and a telephone directory of 20 Jan 1945 (21), divided into departments and official groups/main offices. Head of Department: Friedrichs Hauptamt II A Management duties and organisation of the party, its divisions, affiliated associations and organisations Neuburg (1945: Keitel) II A 1: Organisational matters and fundamental questions of party structure, fundamental membership issues, staffing plan in cooperation with II P. Examination of content, coordination and publication of orders, circulars and announcements of the party office. Monitoring and evaluation of the announcements of all other Reich management offices. steering of the party's alignment sheets. Design of the arrangement. Collection of guide words, laws and decrees for evaluation for party work. Welsch (as representative) II A 2: The Party's commitment to economic, agricultural, financial and transport policy affairs Stengel (as representative) II A 3: Social policy affairs Elberding II A 5: Volkstumspolitik Seekamp (as representative) II A 6: General complaints and petitions Gerber Hauptamt II B: Ritterbusch (1945: Wall) II B 1: Propaganda and press, events and lectures Buhler (as representative) II B 2: Training and education in the party, adult education, leader training Schenke (as representative) II B 3: Culture and celebration design, written material Dr. Hammerbacher II B 4: Reporting and information system, events and lectures of the Brandes II B 5: Structure Detering (in representation) II B 6: e.g. V. Haar (in representation) Hauptamt II E II E 1: Party political leadership and organisational questions of the working areas of the National Group Norway and Belgium, the Adriatic Coastal Region, the Alpine Foothills and the Party Liaison Office Prague, as well as their coordination within the party to the national political and Germanic control centre. Refugee issues from evacuation areas outside the empire. Evaluation of the reporting material produced by the party sector. II E 2: Party political leadership issues of the AO National Group, the NSDAP and the Gauinspektionen See-Schifffahrt. Intergovernmental work of the party abroad by coordinating within the party and cooperating with the AA. (Domestic I and II) Align the Party's foreign work with the policy of the people and evaluate the foreign policy material generated in the Party sector. II E 3: Treatment of folklore issues within the Reich through the political orientation of German folk growth, consolidation of the endangered German folk growth and treatment of foreign peoples in the territory of the Reich. German folklore groups abroad, folk-political questions in the Generalgouvernement, Protectorate and in the occupied territories. Racial Issues in People's Growth Work. Corresponding work with: Main Office for Folklore Issues, Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, Reichskommissar für die consolidation deutscher Volkstums, VDA, Kärntner Volksbund, Steirischer Heimatbund, Volkstumsreferenten der Gliederungen und angeschlossenen Verbände. Hauptamt II F NS leading officers as leadership in the Wehrmacht. Rudder (1944/45) Hauptamt II M II M 1: Air war measures and operational planning. Beier (1945) II M 2: Securing personnel and material needs. (UK positions, fuel management, home flak, etc.) Zander Hauptamt II P Personalamt Hesseldieck (1945: Walkenhorst) II P 1: General personnel policy, seniority and service issues, pay and pensions. Young drivers and driver selection. II P 2: Disciplinary and appeal matters, judgments of war courts II P 3 Orders and decorations. care for surviving dependants and general care measures. Personal care for the soldiers of the service. Elections and conscripts to the Reichstag II P 4: Kommandiertenheim Rauchstraße. Hauptamt II V Staff management "Volkssturm" Bofinger (1945) Hauptamt II W Wehrmachtsfragen, at the same time liaison office to OKW Passe II W 1: Fundamental Wehrmachtsfragen. Rodegerts II W 2: Leadership office for Wehrmacht issues in parties, divisions, affiliated associations and supervised organisations. Rodegerts (in representation) II W 3: Special tasks of Rodegerts (in representation) II W 4: Questions of welfare and support for party comrades and people comrades vis-à-vis the Wehrmacht Rodegerts (in representation) The organisational structure and distribution of tasks of Division III are best derived from an undated "Provisional Business Distribution Plan of Division III - Party Law, Economy, Church", which was drawn up before 1944 at any rate: (22) Head: State Secretary Head of Command Dr. Klopfer Representative: Ministerialdirektor Dienstleiter Klemm, (at the same time Head of Group III C) Personal advisor: Oberregierungsrat Mainchnittsleiter Dr. Lincke Personalstelle III PSt.: Regierungsamtmann Klein, Regierungsinspektor Hausrath Special tasks: III V: Government Councillor Section Head Dr Beyer Government Councillor Dr Beyer Lang SS-Hauptsturmführer Will SS-Hauptsturmführer Klauß Affairs of the Security Police and the SD, procurement and evaluation of intelligence material, general questions of competence, political science investigations and research tasks, assessment of the political science literature - cooperation with the Party Official Examination Commission -, magazine and press editorial office of the department, affairs of the Black Corps, archive and map office of department III S: Regierungsrat Bereichsleiter Knöpfel Studienrat Dr. Scheele Lehrer Funk Frau Thomas Special orders of the Reichsleiter, Sonderbücherei, Archiv, Reichsschule Feldafing Gruppe III A: (Internal Administration, Folklore) Leiter: Oberregierungsrat Dienstleiter Ancker Vertreter: Oberregierungsrat Oberbereichsleiter Kap III A 1: Ministerialrat Dr. Dr. Hillebrecht Amtsrat Blankenburg Amtsrat Erler Amtsrat Verwaltungs- und Verwaltungsreformfragen; Administrative simplification; New areas; Reichskanzlei III S 2: Oberregierungsrat Oberbereichsleiter Kap Gemeinschaftsleiter Wöll Volkstumsfragen; Nationality matters; Eastern issues; Sammlungssagen III A 3: Currently unoccupied, distributed among III A 2, 4, 7 Public health (incl. (civil status, special sovereign matters); presidential chancellery (especially decorations); Federal Foreign Office; colonial matters Group III B: (economy, labour, nutrition, transport) Head: Ministerialrat Dienstleiter Dr. Bärmann 1st representative: Oberregierungsrat Oberbereichsleiter Fröhling 2nd representative: Oberregierungsrat Bereichsleiter Dr. Geißler III B 1: Head: Gauhauptstellenleiter Mittag Organisation der gewerblichen Wirtschaft Gauwirtschaftsberater - Ausschüsse III B 1 a: Regierungsrat Section head Dr. Densow Energie; Ostwirtschaft; Preise; Handel; Handwerk; Entjudungen; Allgemeine Wirtschaftsfragen III B 1 b: Regierungsrat Section head Kopp Produktion der gewerblichen Wirtschaft (außer Kohle, Bergbau, Energie); Rohstoff- und Warenbewirtschaftung; Personalien in der gewerblichen Wirtschaft III B 1 c: Reichsbankrat Vellmer Kohle-Bergbau; money and capital markets; banking and credit; insurance; foreign trade; tourism III B 2: Head: Oberregierungsrat Bereichsleiter Dr. Geißler Basic questions of social policy III B 2 a: Regierungsrat Section head Schwingenstein Amtsrat Gemeinschaftsleiter Fiedler Arbeitseinsatz; Sozialversicherung; Versorgungswerk III B 2 b: Regierungsrat Beimes Lohnpolitik; Gewerbeaufsicht; Berufserziehung III B 2 c: Section Head Gölz Construction Industry; Housing and Settlement; Transport; Post III B 3: Senior Government Council Section Head Kok Government Officer Eisermann Food Industry; Agriculture; Forestry; Hunting; Price Policy in Food, Agriculture and Forestry; Reich Office for the People of the Reich; Reich Nutrition Office; Armament of the German Village; Regional Planning; Battle of Production III B 4: Attorney at Law Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. (German Federal Law Gazette) On top of that, support of the Gauwirtschaftsberater; conferences; reporting; newsletter "Der Gauwirtschaftsberater"; editing; economic policy training and propaganda; special assignments III B 5: main editor, section leader Vollmann Wirtschaftswissenschaft; archive; business press and magazines; magazine "Nationalsozialistische Wirtschaftspolitik" Group III C: (Justice, law of the NSDAP) Head: Ministerialdirektor Dienstleiter Klemm Representative: Oberregierungsrat Oberreichsleiter Dr. Enke III C 1: Ministerialdirektor Dienstleiter Klemm Reserved special areas: NSRB; Academy for German Law; Participation in personnel matters of the judiciary III C 2: Oberregierungsrat Oberreichsleiter Dr. Enke Justizinspektor Gemeinschaftsleiter Ungethüm Party Law; Civil Law; Commercial Law; Labour Law; Procedural Law; Voluntary Jurisdiction; Bar Law; Civil Cases; Individual Cases III C 3: Oberlandesgerichtsrat Müller Justizinspektor Gemeinschaftsleiter Ungethüm Criminal Law; Wehrmacht Criminal Law; Juvenile Criminal Law; Grace Cases; Compensation Act; Criminal Cases, Individual Cases III C 4: Prosecutor von Kaldenberg Secondary criminal laws; traffic law; criminal proceedings for racial defilement; criminal procedural law; costs and fees; testimony approvals (interrogation law) III C 5: District Court Council Section leader Klemm-Werner participation in III C 2; industrial property law; copyright and publishing law; shipping law; treatment of hostile property III C 6: Higher Regional Court Council Dr. Hopf Strafsachen, Einzelfälle; Heimtückesachen; study and training reform; prison group III D: (Church, school, university, youth leader of the German Reich, Ministry of Propaganda, organization of celebrations, provision for war survivors) Head: Ministerialrat Dienstleiter Krüger Representative: Oberregierungsrat Reichsleiter Dr. Schmidt-Römer III D 1: Oberregierungsrat Abschnittleiter Dr. Fruhwirth Central steering of political and denominational affairs in the new areas, insofar as they are not dealt with in Divisions III D 2 to III D 4. Confessional contributions; right to leave and enter the church; cemetery law; public holiday law; acquisition of the right of the dead hand; confessional activities in hospitals; church statistics; general legal issues; insofar as they concern political-confessional matters III D 2: Oberlandesgerichtsrat Dr. Birk Steuerinspektor Wischer Allgemeine Kirchenfragen; Special Questions of the Protestant Church; Special Questions of the Catholic Church; Church and Wehrmacht; Other Churches and Sects; God-believers III D 3: Oberregierungsrat Bereichsleiter Dr. Schmidt-Römer Tax Inspector Wischer Finance and Property Affairs of the Churches, including Church Matters of the Reich Ministry of Finance; Church and Economy III D 4: Government Councillor Dr. Schlapper Tax Inspector Wischer Transfer of clergy and church officials to other professions; Personnel and Salary Matters of Political and Denominational Significance III D 5: Head of Office Dr. Wischer Landwehr Reichspropagandaministerium Restriction of confessional propaganda work and deconfessionalization of political and cultural means of leadership (literature, press, music, film, visual arts); celebration design; Reich Aviation Ministry; Confidential Information III D 6: Head of Studies, Section Head Dr. Anton Allgemeine Erziehungsfragen; personal details of teacher training institutions; HJ participation in educational matters at schools; German education abroad and in the areas incorporated into the Reich III D 7: Regierungsrat Section leader Kristandt Allgemeine Verwaltungs- und Rechtsangelegenheiten der Schule; Schule und Kirche; Landjahr; Heimschule; Kinderlandverschickung; Minderheitenschulwesen; Lehrerbesoldung; Jugendführer des Deutschen Reiches III D 8: z. Philipp Government Inspector Gerst University Affairs, including Personal Data; Technical and Vocational Schools; High Command of the Wehrmacht, in particular Wehrmacht Welfare III D 9: Kreisleiter Dr. Kurt Schmidt Displacement of denominational influences, especially denominational influence on youth outside school and on adult education; denominational interventions in hero worship; denominational superstition (miracles, prophecies, chain letters, pilgrimages, processions, etc.).); denominational influence on foreign peoples in the Reich; the abusive use of National Socialist terms, symbols and institutions as well as German customs by the churches; Churches and Party Group III E: (Finances) Head: Ministerialrat Oberbereichsleiter Dr. Gündel Representative: Oberregierungsrat Gemeinschaftsleiter Dr. Brack Financial policy; property and transport taxes; family burden equalisation; customs and excise taxes; monopolies; budget matters, financial equalisation; financial relations with the incorporated territories and with non-German territories and states; Reich assets and Reich debts; compensation issues Group III P: (civil servant matters and participation in state personnel policy) Head: Ministerialrat Dienstleiter Dr. Kernert Representative: Oberregierungsrat Oberbereichsleiter Döll III P 1: Ministerialrat Dienstleiter Dr. Kernert Reserved special areas: III P 2: Landrat Dr. Grazer General and internal administration; questions of junior staff and training III P 3: Landrat Dr. Hoffmann Auswärtiges Amt; Ministry of Labour; Unterrichtsverwaltung III P 4: Oberregierungsrat Oberbereichsleiter Döll Reichsjustizministerium; individual cases according to §§ 42 and 71 DBG III P 5: Oberregierungsrat Abschnittleiter Dr. Grazer Bode Amtsrat Gemeinschaftsleiter Sommer Beamtenrecht; Remuneration Law; Reich Finance Administration; Court of Audit; Prussian Finance Ministry; East Ministry; Colonial Policy Office III P 6: Reich Bank Council Section Head Grimm Reich Economics Ministry; Four-Year Plan; Reichsbank; Freemason Issues III P 7: Oberregierungsrat Section Head Kirn Reich Transport Ministry; Division Reich Minister Speer; Reich Post Ministry III P 8: Head of the section Brändle Beurlaubungen for purposes of the NSDAP; service penal cases - individual cases; civil servants of the simple, middle and upper service of all business areas; OKW; Reich Aviation Minister; Reich Forester III P 9: Regierungsrat Section leader Tent Jewish and mixed-race issues; police, medical, veterinary, and surveying administration; Reich Labor Service; Reich Ministry of Food; Reich Nutrition A business distribution plan for Division I, which was exclusively concerned with the administration of the Reich's agencies and whose leader in the years 1941 - 1943/44 was to be proven to be Hauptdienstleiter Winkler, from 1944 Dienstleiter Zeller (23), could not be determined. Externally, the three departments of the Party Chancellery continued to appear as "managing directors, internal party affairs officers and constitutional affairs officers". In addition to these three departments, which de facto constituted the "Party Chancellery" office, the published organisational overviews also continued to include other institutions de iure as parts of the Party Chancellery, which in practice developed as relatively independent independent entities or whose heads did not appear in their Party Chancellery function or appeared only marginally. Listed are (1942/1944): (24) Special representative at the party chancellery: Oberdienstleiter Oexle Main archive of the NSDAP: Reichsamtsleiter Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944: Bereichsleiter Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944: Head of the Department Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944 on: Head of the Department Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944 on: Head of the Department Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944 on: Head of the Department Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944 on: Head of the Department Dr. Uetrecht, from 1944 on: Head of the Department Dr. Uetrecht. Brügmann The Head of the Foreign Organization: Gauleiter Bohle The Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Popular Growth (from 1944: The Commissioner of the NSDAP for all Popular Issues): Reichsleiter Himmler The Commissioner for the New Construction of the Reich: Gauleiter Adolf Wagner The Commissioner for all Issues of Technology and its Organization: Commander-in-Chief Dr. Todt, Oberbefehlsleiter Speer The official in charge of all public health issues: (Chief) Befehlsleiter Dr. Conti The head of the NSDAP's Race Policy Office: Ober- bzw. Hauptdienstleiter Dr. Groß The head of the Office of Genealogy: Reichsamtsleiter bzw. Hauptbereichsleiter Dr. Mayer Der Beauftragte für Fragen der Finanz- und Steuerpolitik: Fritz Reinhardt, Reichslager of the NSDAP, Bad Tölz: Seidel, Reichsschule of the NSDAP, Feldafing am Starnberger See: Reichsamtsleiter or Oberdienstleiter Görlitz Remarks: (1) Thus the contemporary terminology of the task description in the organization and yearbooks of the NSDAP; here: Organisationsbuch der NSDAP, edited by the Reichsorganisationsleiter der NSDAP, 2.-4. Aufl., Munich 1937, p. 152 (BArch NSD 9/17). (2) On the overall complex of the relationship between party and state during Nazi rule, cf. in particular Martin Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers. Foundation and development of his internal constitution, Munich 8th edition 1979; Peter Diehl-Thiele, Party and State in the Third Reich. Studies on the relationship between the NSDAP and general internal state administration 1933-1945, Munich 1969. (3) Broszat, Staat Hitlers, p. 80, on the structure of the Reichsorganisationsleitung der NSDAP under Gregor Strasser see p. 73 ff. (4) Broszat, Staat Hitlers, p. 80, on the structure of the Reichsorganisationsleitung der NSDAP under Gregor Strasser cf. p. 79. (5) RGBl. I p. 1016. (6) BArch R 43 II/694. (7) RGBl. I. S 1203. (8) Information from the unprinted essay by Kurt Borsdorff: "Mit Reichsleiter Martin Bormann auf dem Obersalzberg" in BArch NS 6/789; cf. Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat, p. 218, note 46 (9) See above all the NSDAP Organization Books available until 1941 (BArch NSD 9/16-19) and the National Socialist Yearbooks published until 1938 "with the cooperation of the Reichsleitung der NSDAP" by Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler, from 1939 by Reichsorganisationsleiter Robert Ley (BArch NSD 9/22-26). (10) Organisational overviews and business distribution plans of the department of the deputy leader or of the party chancellery are summarised in NS 6/451. (11) NSD 9/25-26. (12) Cf. Broszat, State of Hitler, pp. 311 ff. (13) Printed, inter alia, in the Organisation Book of the NSDAP, 1943, p. 151 (NSD 9/20). (14) RGBl. I p. 295. (15) Cf. the detailed task description of the Party Chancellery in the National Socialist Yearbook 1944, p. 181 f. (NSD 9/28). (16) RGBl. I p. 35. (17) See above all Josef Wulf, Martin Bormann - Hitlers Schatten, Gütersloh 1962, Lew Besymenski, the last notes by Martin Bormann. A document and its author, Stuttgart 1974, and Jochen von Lang, The Secretary. Martin Bormann: The man who ruled Hitler, Stuttgart 1977. The various depictions of Rudolf Hess concentrate above all or even exclusively on his flight to England, the conviction in Nuremberg and in particular the prison time in Spandau, so that a comprehensive, scientific representation of the "deputy of the Führer" and his activities 1933 - 1941 is basically still outstanding. (18) NS 6/159. (19) Cf. in detail Broszat, State of Hitler, pp. 392 ff. (20) All plans and overviews in NS 6/451. (21) NS 6/138; below the group leader level it was not possible to assign the names listed there to certain organizational units. (22) NS 6/451; there also the less detailed organizational overview printed by Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat, pp. 222 ff. For the staff at the beginning of 1945, see also the telephone directory of 20 Jan. 1945 in NS 6/138. (23) In addition to the organizational overviews in NS 6/451, see NS Yearbooks 1942 and 1944 (NSD 9/27-28). (24) NS Yearbooks 1942 and 1944 (NSD 9/27-28). Inventory description: Inventory history of written records management in the party office Although file plans and other registry aids have only been handed down in fragments for certain periods of time, even then, a clear picture of the written records management of the Hess and Bormann offices can be drawn. A file plan from the year 1937 is divided into two main areas (10 party, 20 state) and then divided into four levels according to the subject system. Files that could have been listed according to this plan, which was valid until about 1940, are only preserved in the form of single sheets or small processes, so that this file plan was of no particular importance for the indexing of the holdings. On the other hand, an excerpt from the file plan for matters of Reich defence (1) dating from 1939 proved to be a useful aid. It provides for up to 80 small subject series, of which 3 to 18 each are grouped into five groups (operational planning, subject areas, defence, preparation of mobilisation and general affairs); finally, collective folders for routine processes could be created as required. The systematic weaknesses that are typical of small subject series became clearly apparent in the distortion. The division of the records into "destination files", "auxiliary files" and "files for correspondence" is not convincing and could be neglected in the listing of the files of the competent Division M and Group II M respectively. File plans for the mass of the surviving records, i.e. from the time of the Party Chancellery (1941 - 1945), have not been preserved. After all, Rotulus sheets preserved for a sub-area with titles to essentially completed processes show the systematics of the underlying file plan (2). Rotulus leaves for the file numbers 1010/0 to 3230/4 have been preserved, whereby a further stage in the numerical classification was partly formed. The classification was based on the department principle. The file plan was used until the end of the war, as the comparatively closed tradition from Department III shows, and was observed in principle. The reference number consisted of the name of the respective organizational unit and the file number. The fate of the holdings since the conquest of Germany by the Allies corresponds to the history of German contemporary historical sources in the war and post-war period in general. Perhaps there is a specific feature typical of the existence of a political party in that self-destruction by party functionaries accounts for a larger proportion than destruction by enemy action. Of course, the acts of annihilation cannot be proven in detail. Since 1955, the Federal Archives have received splinter-like remnants and a few closed groups of records, essentially from offices of the victorious powers USA and Great Britain, to a lesser extent from authorities and universities in the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as about two dozen individual donations from private holdings, whereby takeovers from other holdings of the Federal Archives are added. In 1955, the Federal Archives took over copies of letters from the Chief of the Security Police and the SD to Bormann, of judgments handed over to Bormann by the Reich Minister of Justice, and of other documents from the Provenance Party Chancellery, all relating to events in connection with the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, all of which - supplemented by a small amount of material from private collections - were combined in the NS 6 "Party Chancellery of the NSDAP" as a special "Collection July 20, 1944" due to their common provenance. The originals of these documents, which had already been transferred to the main archive of the NSDAP before the end of the war, were received by the Bundesarchiv in 1962 in the course of the repatriation of German files from the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia (USA). These historically highly significant materials were already made accessible in detail by Jürgen Huck in November 1955. His title recordings have been completely incorporated into this finding aid book (p. 94 ff.). The other contributions come from the University Library of Heidelberg, the American Document Center in Berlin, the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia, and the National Archives of the United States in Washington, D.C., the Library of Congress there, and the British file depot in Whaddon Hall. In addition, there were a large number of smaller statements from German authorities and private owners. The holdings received a larger increase in the course of many years of organizing work from other holdings of the Federal Archives, above all from the NS 26 holdings (main archive of the NSDAP) and the "Schumacher Collection", which is to be dissolved altogether. In total, no more than 5 documents of the Party Chancellery should be preserved in the Federal Archives. This rough estimate may disregard the registries of the State Secretary Reinhardt in his capacity as "representative of the deputy of the leader or of the Party Chancellery for matters of job creation, financial and tax policy" and his personal adviser Dr. Hans Gündel, who was head of Group III E Public Finances in the Party Chancellery, remaining in inventory R 2 (Reich Ministry of Finance). Comments: (1) Both file plans in NS 6/69. (2) NS 6/803 - 804. Archival processing While the "Collection 20. July 1944" and which became known according to their core as "Kaltenbrunner Reports", were subjected to a detailed indexing, which already led in 1955 to a finding aid book with a detailed introduction and comprehensive index, the remaining parts of the inventory, fed by a multitude of duties and takeovers, were first recorded in the order of access, provided with provisional signatures, and in some cases marked summarily in terms of content - whereby, if available, the delivery directories of the delivering agency, for example the "Kaltenbrunner Reports", were usually followed. B. of the US Document Center -, Z. T. however, also downright according to archivfachlichen points of view registered. The final organizing and indexing work now carried out on this stock could therefore only partly be concerned with recording a number of accesses that had not been indexed at all up to now. The main task was rather the consolidation, standardisation and, in particular, the overall classification of the archival records - also from other holdings of the Federal Archives - which had been divided into numerous accesses and indexed to varying degrees of intensity up to that point, and which naturally necessitated an examination, but mostly also a reformulation, of the provisional titles found. This applied in particular when, on the one hand, the dissolution of predefined archive units, which had previously only been described in summary form and which had mostly been formed formally in Allied custody, into individual processes was offered, and, on the other hand, the combination of scattered parts of processes into processes or also of scattered individual processes into uniform series, some of which were provided for by the file plan, became possible. The intensive recording to Bormann of the reports of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD on the events in connection with the assassination attempt on 20 July 1944, made almost thirty years ago, was taken over in the finding aid book. Since, of course, it was not necessary to index the remaining components at this extraordinary depth, this complex of archival records described in Section C 8.1 continues to occupy a special position within the holdings, which is also clearly discernible according to formal criteria. This can be justified both on the basis of the exceptional importance of the documented object, proven by the very high user frequency, and on the remarkable quality of the sources. The "originals" of the above-mentioned documents, which arrived in the Federal Archives considerably later (1962) - the indexing in 1955 had been done on the basis of copies taken over from the Federal Archives at the time and made in American custody - had been formed according to American principles of order and were provided with their own provisional archive signatures in the Federal Archives. They have now been adapted to the order and distortion as they were created in 1955 for the distortion of the corresponding copies. This adaptation also extends to the signatures, so that the found distortion of the copies can also be applied without any restriction to the corresponding volume of originals - which now bears the same signature. In principle, attempts were made to adopt predefined registry units, to retain grown processes as archive units, and to use existing titles as a basis for title formation during indexing wherever possible. This attempt, however, could essentially only succeed with the organically grown written material from the years after 1940/41 handed down from Division III in the areas of "Foreign Trade" (C 12), "Money and Capital Markets" (C 14), "Construction Industry" (C 18) and "Housing Construction, Housing Management, Settlements" (C 19) - i.e. from the offices III B 1 and III B 2 - with limitations also in the surviving records of the main offices and the main offices with restrictions. Groups II M (mobilization of the party and distribution of the Reich) and II F (Nazi leadership and education of the Wehrmacht). As a rule, only scattered and incoherent remnants from the other organisational units, i.e. also from the registries of the deputy leader, his staff leader or the head of the party chancellery, the department heads, from the groups II A and II B concerned with the actual party leadership in the narrower sense, as well as from the years 1933 to 1936 in general, reached the holdings. Here, therefore, there was only the choice of registering individual pieces as such - if the historical value made it appear justified - or of combining documents that belonged together thematically or according to formal criteria to form artificial processes in which either the documented object or the formal criterion (e.g. Führer's discussions with Bormann, templates for Reichsleiter Bormann, lectures by Friedrich's head of department to the Führer's deputy) were decisive for the process formation. The relatively complete and complete series of orders, decrees and circulars of the deputy of the leader or of the party chancellery is of central importance not only with regard to the overall wrecked tradition of the entire collection, but also because of its outstanding independent source value. The information contained in these documents (cf. Section C 1) on all areas of the Party Chancellery's leadership and administrative activities was primarily intended for higher Nazi functionaries and constitutes a high-quality collection of sources, both in terms of quality and quantity, for research into the ruling apparatus of both the NSDAP and the Nazi regime in Germany, which could be used not only for special studies on Hess and Bormann's offices, but also for a variety of questions in the research of the Nazi era. It therefore seemed advisable not to leave it - under the influence of the party announcements printed in the Reichsverfügungsblatt - with a conventional recording of titles by volume, which was limited to chronological information, but to make the content of both the subject matter and the text of the decrees, orders and circulars as accessible as possible using the possibilities of automatic data processing. The result of this indexing will be presented in the second part of this finding aid book, while in the first part the series of party announcements will be recorded and listed in purely chronological order within the overall systematics of the stock (Section C 1). As far as possible, the classification of the records is based on the remaining business distribution plans of Divisions II and III. The "regulatory registration principle" was applied insofar as, for practical reasons, it proved necessary to provide for several development sections (Sections C 18 and C 19) at a relatively low organisational level (e.g. head office III B 2 c) in the case of relatively dense parts of the transmission from offices III B 1 and III B 2. In organisational areas with a ruinous tradition, on the other hand, written records of several groups were sometimes combined, e.g. groups II F and II W in section C 5. It goes without saying that in cases in which a classification was not formally possible due to a lack of business signs or due to the dissolution of the registry discipline at the end of the war, a decision was made on the basis of factual aspects. This applies in particular to the documents in connection with 20 July, which went directly to Bormann at the Führer's headquarters without any noteworthy processing by the Party Chancellery and from there went directly to the main archive of the NSDAP. In the classification scheme of the index they now appear under the generic term "Combating political opponents by security police and SD", although an assignment to Bormann's reference files in Chapter B would also have been conceivable. This applies mutatis mutandis to the documents relating to general party management matters, which are combined under "Management, Adjutant's Office" and in Sections C 2 and C 3 and for which there was no recognisable regulatory approach - not even in the form of a reference number - to registration. As it were, those documents were appended to the inventory under the designation "Special Tasks" which did not arise from Bormann's activity as head of the Party Chancellery, but were related to Bormann's activity as an administrator of Hitler's private assets. These are remnants of the traditions of the equipment of the planned "Führer Museum" in Linz and the recovery of the art treasures already "acquired" for this purpose, as well as a few files from the management of the "Führerstiftung Wohnungsbau Linz" and the administration of the "Führerbauten" on the Obersalzberg. A total of three concordances not only ensure that certain signatures of the holdings can be easily identified in the finding aid book (Concordance I), but also guarantee that archival documents cited after Allied signatures (Concordance II), after the provisional numbers of the Federal Archives or after earlier signatures from other holdings of the Federal Archives (Concordance III) remain easily accessible. In principle, an inventory of the Federal Archives is to be used according to the Federal Archives' specially prepared finding aids, since the Allied signatures indicated, for example, in the American "Guides to German Records microfilmed at Alexandria" or other finding aids for confiscated German files, mostly represent an outdated state of order of the files and can only be used for ordering American microfilms. For practical reasons, it should still be possible in individual cases to move from the Allied signature possibly cited in publications to the signature of the original in the Federal Archives. The present finding aid book was created as part of a retro-digitisation project of the Federal Archives and contains the digitised indexing results of the present conventional finding aid. In connection with the planned online launch, the portfolio was revised in 2008. The entire collection was supplemented above all by files and dossiers from the collection "NS Archive of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR". Citation method BArch NS 6/ .... Characterization of the content: The fact that a user of the inventory is repeatedly reminded of the fact that these are only highly unequally distributed debris or even scattered fragments of a formerly quantitatively and qualitatively important registry body, roughly comparable with the inventory of the Reich Chancellery (R 43), is certainly the main reason why considerations of the historical value of the existing traditions must have an ambivalent result. Due to the closed series of the "Verfügungen, Anordnungen und Rundschreiben" and the - admittedly for the most part for a long time published -(1) Überlieferung zum 20. Juli 1944 (1) the holdings certainly belong to the qualitatively most significant from the time of the Nazi rule. However, even against the background of the most recent outstanding importance and competence of the party law firm and in particular of its head, the tradition still received cannot make up for the loss of important parts of the registry. Thus Bormann's much-described closeness and position of trust in relation to Hitler is documented at best in some splintery notes on "Führerbesprechungungen". The party's relationship to the state, Bormann's role in the Nazi power structure, in particular also considerations of the actual power of Hitler's directly assigned offices and the forms of rule exercised by them cannot be conclusively assessed on the basis of Bormann's preserved sources and the party chancellery, in which some important conclusions could rightly have been expected for the aforementioned reason. The fact that, instead, the Nazi regime's efforts to build social housing during the war are very closely documented and can largely make up for the loss of the Reich Housing Commissioner's tradition is a pleasing finding for the detailed researcher in this context, but it is undoubtedly of subordinate importance overall. The question remains as to whether the decisive files - such as the personal registry - will be filed by the applicant.
History of the Inventor: Establishment of an office on 12 February 1919 for the processing of the duties assigned to the Reich President by the Constitution as head of state, at the same time official liaison office between the Reich President and the Reich and state authorities; transfer of the powers of the Reich President to the "Reich Chancellor and Führer" Adolf Hitler by the law on the head of state of 1 August 1934; retention of the office of the Reich President and renaming of the office to Präsidialkanzlei by ordinance of 4 September 1934. Inventory description: Inventory history In the 1930s, the office of the Reich President regularly handed over so-called "Weglegesachen" to the Reich Archives, for example in April 1932 and March/April 1935. However, the registry, which was still ready for handing over in 1944, with processes up to 1934, no longer reached the Reich Archives. In 1944, the archives already kept in the Reichsarchiv Potsdam were transferred to the galleries of Staßfurt and Schönebeck a.d.Elbe. The office of the presidential chancellery and the current registry were maintained at the end of the war in Kleßheim Castle near Salzburg. In 1942/1943 Schloss Kleßheim had been lavishly refurbished as the guest house of the presidential chancellery and the Führer for special purposes. After the capitulation of the German Reich and the occupation by the Allies, the archive holdings fell into their hands. For the files of the presidential chancellery, this meant, in accordance with the territorial division of the occupation zones, that the documents from the tunnels in Staßfurt and Schönebeck a.d.Elbe were largely transported to the USSR, and that the service records at Schloss Kleßheim were under American administration. During the Berlin blockade of 1948/49, the ministerial holdings subsequently brought together in the western sectors of Berlin were transferred to Whaddon Hall in Buckinghamshire and jointly administered by the Foreign Office of the United Kingdom and the American State Department. File returns from the Soviet Union to the GDR began in the mid-1950s. As part of the most extensive restitution campaign, the files of the Presidential Chancellery were transferred to the German Central Archive Potsdam (DZA) in 1959 and stored here under the signature 06.01. The holdings were supplemented in 1963 by further additions that had previously been assigned to the Reich Chancellery. At the same time, the files from American and English administration were transferred from the archive in Whaddon Hall to the Federal Archives in Koblenz. The inventory signature was R 54. After the unification of the two German states and the takeover of the Central State Archives of the GDR (ZStA) by the Federal Archives, the partial inventories were merged and are now stored in Berlin with the inventory signature R 601. 2,536 transactions from the NS archive of the MfS were incorporated during the current processing, the third comprehensive addition. After the repatriation of the files from the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1950s, the MfS also took over documents in order to expand and build up a personal collection for "operative" purposes. As a consequence, the concentration on individual persons, i.e. the person-related filing, meant the destruction of the historical context in which the tradition originated, as files and processes were torn apart or reformed. In autumn 1989 the archive came under the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior of the GDR (MdI) and thus of the Central State Archive of the GDR. After its transfer to the Federal Archives and its provisional use in the 1990s, comprehensive IT-supported indexing began in 2001. At the Centre for the Preservation of Historical Documentary Collections, formerly the Central State Archives Special Archive Moscow, there are still 53 file units from the period 1921-1944 as Fund 1413 in the Centre for the Preservation of Historical Documentary Collections. These are "...above all files on the awarding of the Ostmark Medal (12 volumes, 1938 - 1943), Police Service Award (3 volumes, 1938 - 1943), and the.., 1942) and other awards (4 vols.), among others to railway workers in the Eastern territories, furthermore individual political reports (2 vols., 1935 - 1937) and documents on the representation at the London Disarmament Conference (1933), the discontinuation of proceedings for maltreatment of prisoners (1935 - 1936), racial and population policy (1935 - 1936) as well as a list of employees (1942 - 1943)". In the course of processing, the inventory was supplemented by files that had been proposed for cassation at an earlier date, but were returned to the inventory due to requests for use. These are files from Department B (Domestic Policy), Title XV, support given by the Reich President of Hindenburg to corporations and individuals, but above all for the purpose of assuming honorary sponsorships - inventory adjustments between the holdings R 43 Reich Chancellery, R 1501 Reich Ministry of the Interior and with the Central Party Archives of the SED The volumes with the previous signatures 1499 to 1502 were the provenance adjutant of the Wehrmacht to the Führer and Reich Chancellor. It was handed over to the Department of Military Archives in Freiburg/ Breisgau and assigned to the holdings RW 8. R 2 Reich Ministry of Finance R 43 Reich Chancellery R 2301 Court of Audit of the German Reich N 429 Paul von Hindenburg Estate NS 3 Economic and Administrative Main Office NS 6 Party Chancellery of the NSDAP Foundation Reichpräsident-Friedrich-Ebert Memorial, Heidelberg Archive of Social Democracy of the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation, Bonn Zentrum für die Aufbewahrung historisch-dokumentarischer Sammlungen (formerly Zentrales Staatsarchiv Sonderarchiv Moskau) Fonds 1413 Archivische Bewertung und Bearbeitung A first finding aid book on the files of the presidential chancellery was produced in the German Central Archive Potsdam in 1960. The 1,213 volumes of files were broken down by administrative structure and provisionally recorded. In 1967 the provisional indexing took place in the Federal Archives in Koblenz and in 1981 the submission of a finding aid book to the 241 volumes under the stock signature R 54. After the consolidation of the partial stocks from Potsdam and Koblenz a complete finding aid book was submitted in 1998. At the end of 2008, the database-supported revision of the finding aid book and the incorporation of 2538 files with the provenance Presidential Chancellery from the NS archive of the MfS began. The present archival records are composed of files in their original order of origin, partly with the original file covers and in the predominant number of individual folders comprising only a few sheets. The stock grew from 1,581 files by 933 signatures to a total of 2,547 files. The majority of these are personal transactions such as appointments and dismissals of civil servants and awards of orders. However, it was possible to supplement the volume series with two fact files from the years 1926 and 1927 both chronologically and verifiably on the basis of the diary numbers with volumes 8 and 9. The five-volume series in connection with Paul von Hindenburg's honorary membership is a complete complement. The current processing, including classification, was based on the registry order already used in the previous finding aid: Department A (Internal Affairs) Department B (Internal Policy) Department C (Foreign Policy) Department D (Military Policy) Department E (Not documented) Department O (Chancellery of the Order) Citation BArch R 601/1... Content characterization: Internal affairs of the presidential chancellery 1919-1945 (56): Correspondence with other authorities, rules of procedure of the Reich government, of Ministe‧rien and of the Reich Representation of the NSDAP 1924-1943 (8); organization, personnel, cash and budget matters of the presidential chancellery, private correspondence of Staatsmini‧ster Dr. Otto Meissner 1919-1945 (48); domestic policy 1919-1945 (939): Constitution 1919-1936 (19), Reich President 1919-1939 (190), Reich Government 1919-1936 (23), Legislation 1919-1936 (24), Civil Service 1919-1943 (109), Departments of the Reich Ministry of Labor 1919-1943 (46), Peripheral Areas of the Reich (Saar, Eastern Provinces), including Eastern Aid, Revolutionary Movements, Press, Police and Technical Emergency Aid, Disputes between Princes, Holidays and constitutional celebrations 1919-1945 (42), ministries of the Reich Ministry of Finance 1919-1944 (40), ministries of the Reich Ministry of Justice 1919-1942 (35), church, cultural and health services 1919-1944 (20), Economic and financial policy 1919-1944 (21), economic policy 1919-1944 (40), transport 1919-1943 (26), Disposi‧tionsfonds and donations 1919-1940 (292), Prussia 1919-1937 (5), Bavaria 1919-1936 (15); Foreign Policy 1919-1945 (143): Treaty of Versailles and its implementation 1919-1940 (39), international organizations and treaties 1919-1944 (26), Foreign Office 1921-1945 (2), intergovernmental agreements 1919-1944 (64), cultural relations with foreign countries 1920-1944 (4), foreign policy situation, weekly reports of the Foreign Office 1920-1933 (8); military policy 1919-1939 (48): Military Legislation and Policy 1919-1934 (39), Submitted Writings and Books 1928-1932 (1), Adjutant of the Wehrmacht to the Führer and Reich Chancellor 1934-1939 (4), Prisen‧ordnung 1939-1941 (1), Civil Air Defence 1927-1938 (2), Reich Labour Service 1935-1941 (1); Order Chancellery 1935-1945 (237): Management of orders and decorations 1935-1944 (3), service awards 1937-1945 (102), decorations 1939-1945 (43), decorations on certain occasions 1937-1944 (43), acceptance of foreign titles, orders and decorations by Germans 1941-1944 (6), war awards 1939-1944 (34), trade with orders and decorations 1941-1944 (6); Miscellaneous (congratulations) 1935-1944 (65); Letter diaries 1942 (1) State of development: Findbuch 2011 Citation method: BArch, R 601/...
History of the inventor: Joseph Goebbels, who had already been head of the NSDAP's Reich Propaganda Department since 1929, had certainly developed plans for a Ministry of Propaganda even before the seizure of power.(1) The Reichskabinett (Reich Cabinet) dealt with the issue of the Propaganda Department on 11 September. The arguments for the foundation, which the Reich Chancellor (Hitler) himself presented, sounded extremely harmless ex post and far from future realities: "One of the predominant tasks of this ministry would be the preparation of important acts of government. On the oil and fat issue, for example, which now occupies the cabinet, the people should be enlightened in the direction that the farmer would perish if something were not done to improve the sale of his products. The importance of this matter also for the war measures would have to be pointed out ..." Government action would only begin if the awareness-raising work had taken place and worked for some time. ..."(2) On 16 March 1933, however, Goebbels described the future tasks of his ministry programmatically three days after his appointment in a remarkably open manner in front of press representatives: "If this government is now determined never to give way again, never and under no circumstances, then it need not make use of the dead power of the bayonet, then in the long run it will not be able to be satisfied with knowing 52 percent behind it ..., but it will have to see its next task in winning the remaining 48 percent for itself. This is not only possible through objective work". And about the nature of his propaganda he proclaimed: "Not any aesthete can judge the methods of propaganda. A binding judgment can only be given on the basis of success. For propaganda is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.(3) A timid attempt by Hugenberg to at least delay the decision to establish the Ministry of Propaganda in the cabinet meeting of March 11, 1933 failed miserably. Already on 13 March 1933 the law on the establishment of the RMVP was signed by the Reich President and the "writer" Dr. Goebbels was appointed minister.(4) Almost three weeks later, on 5 April 1933, Goebbels noted in his diary: "The organisation of the ministry is finished".(5) In difficult negotiations(6) with the ministries, which had to cede parts of their competences to the new ministry, the responsibilities were determined in detail. The RMVP was responsible for all tasks relating to intellectual influence on the nation, advertising for the state, culture and economy, informing the domestic and foreign public about them, and the administration of all institutions serving these purposes. As a result, the business area of the RMVP will be: 1. from the business area of the Federal Foreign Office: News and education abroad, art, art exhibitions, film and sports abroad. 2. From the RMI division: General Domestic Enlightenment, Hochschule für Politik, introduction and celebration of national holidays and celebration of national holidays with the participation of the RMI, press (with Institute for Newspaper Science), radio, national anthem, German Library in Leipzig, art (but without art-historical institute in Florence, copyright protection for works of literature and art, directory of nationally valuable works of art, German-Austrian Convention on the Export of Art, Protection of Works of Art and Monuments, Protection and Maintenance of Landscape and Natural Monuments, Nature Parks, Preservation of Buildings of Special Historical Importance, Preservation of National Monuments, Verband Deutscher Vereine für Volkskunde, Reich Memorial), Music Conservation, including the Philharmonic Orchestra, Theatre Matters, Cinema, Combating Trash and Dirt 3. From the business areas of the Reich Ministry of Economics and the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture: Economic Advertising, Exhibitions, Trade Fairs and Advertising 4. From the business areas of the Reich Ministry of Posts and the Reich Ministry of Transportation: Traffic Advertising Furthermore, all radio matters dealt with by the Reich Ministry of Posts and the Reich Ministry of Transportation are transferred from the business area of the Reich Ministry of Posts, unless they concern the technical administration outside the premises of the Reich Broadcasting Company and the radio companies. In matters of technical administration, the RMVP shall be involved to the extent necessary to carry out its own tasks, in particular in determining the conditions for the awarding of broadcasting rights and the regulation of fees. In particular, the representation of the Reich in the Reichsrundfunkgesellschaft and the broadcasting companies is fully transferred to the RMVP. The RMVP is in charge of all tasks, including legislation, in the designated areas. The general principles shall apply to the participation of the other Reich Ministers." (RGBl. 1933 I, p. 449) These competences were exercised by seven departments, so that the business distribution plan of 1 Oct. 1933 (7) shows the following picture: Ministerial office (with five employees), directly subordinated to the Minister. State Secretary, at the same time Head of Press of the Reich Government I. Administration and Law with one main office Administration, three departments as well as the registry II. Propaganda with 10 departments 1. Positive world view propaganda, shaping in state life, press photography 2. Jewish question, foundation for victims of work, Versailles treaty, national literature, publishing etc. 3. Demonstrations and regional organisation 4. Opposing world views 5. German University of Politics 6. Youth and sports issues 7. Economic and social policy 8. Agricultural and eastern issues 9. Transport 10. Public health III. Broadcasting with three sections 1. Broadcasting 2. Political and cultural affairs of broadcasting 3. Organisation and administrative issues of German broadcasting IV. Press, simultaneously press department of the Reich government with eleven papers V. Film with three papers VI. Theatre, music and art with three papers VII. Defence (defence against lies at home and abroad) with eight papers Goebbels was obviously not satisfied with the official title of his ministry. The extensive tasks in the fields of culture and the arts did not come into their own and the word propaganda, of which he was aware, had a "bitter aftertaste" (8). His proposal to rename his department "Reichsministerium für Kultur und Volksaufklärung", however, met with Hitler's rejection. (9) In July 1933, a circular issued by the Reich Chancellor drew the attention of the Reich governors to the exclusive competence of the Reich or of the new Ministry for the above-mentioned competences and called on them to cede to the RMVP any existing budget funds and offices of the Länder. (10) At the same time, 13 regional offices were established as the substructure of the Ministry, the sprinkles of which corresponded approximately to those of the regional employment offices, and 18 imperial propaganda offices, which subdivided the territory of the regional offices once again. After the Reichspropagandastellen were already converted after short time (approx. 1934) to Landesstellen, in each Gau of the NSDAP a Landesstelle of the RMVP was located. Their leaders were in personal union at the same time leaders of the Gaupropagandaleitungen of the NSDAP, which in its leadership, the Reichspropagandalleitung, was also perceived by Goebbels in personal union. (11) As a result, conflicts of loyalty between the Gaupropaganda leaders/leaders of the RMVP regional offices were unavoidable in disputes between Goebbels and individual Gauleiters. According to theory, the regional offices were supposed to monitor and implement the political decisions made in the ministry in the individual districts, but in practice their heads were often more dependent on their respective Gauleiter than on the ministry due to the above-mentioned personal union. By the Führer decree of 9 September 1937 (RGBl. 1937 I, p. 1009), the Landesstellen were renamed Reichspropagandaämter and elevated to Reich authorities. After the integration of Austria there were no less than 42 Reichspropagandaämter with 1400 full-time employees. (12) In addition to the state offices and Reich Propaganda Offices, a whole range of offices, organizations, associations, societies and societies soon developed, which are to be counted to the subordinate area of the Ministry. (13) Despite the apparently clear regulation on the responsibilities of the RMVP, the 13 years of its existence were marked by disputes over responsibilities with other ministries, in particular with the ministers Rust, Rosenberg and Ribbentrop, of whom Goebbels, as is known, held very little personally. Successes and failures in the competence disputes cannot be followed in detail here; they depended to a large extent on Hitler's relationship with Goebbels. For example, Goebbels did not succeed in extending his competence in theatre to the Prussian State Theatres in Berlin. By contrast, in 1943 the RMVP assumed responsibility for carrying out the Eastern propaganda, while Rosenberg, as Reich Minister for the occupied Eastern territories, was left with only the authority to issue guidelines. (14) In the conflict with the Federal Foreign Office over the delimitation of responsibilities for foreign propaganda, an arrangement was reached in a working agreement in October 1941. (15) Wehrmacht propaganda also remained long and controversial. Despite many efforts (16), Goebbels did not succeed in making a decisive break in the competencies of the OKW/Wpr department until the end of the war in March 1945. Propaganda into the Wehrmacht and about the Wehrmacht at home and abroad was then to be taken in charge by the RMVP. It is not possible to determine whether the planned organizational consequences have yet been implemented. (17) Another major success for Goebbels was the establishment of the Reichsinspektion für zivile Luftschutzmaßnahmen (Reich Inspection for Civilian Air Defence Measures), which was headed by the RMVP (18), and his appointment as Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War Operations by Führer Decree of 25 July 1944 (19). For the last months of the Third Reich, Goebbels had reached the zenith of power with this function, apart from his appointment as Reich Chancellor in Hitler's last will and testament of April 29, 1945, which had become effective only theoretically. As Reich Plenipotentiary for the total deployment in war, he had extremely far-reaching powers over the entire state apparatus with the exception of the Wehrmacht. (20) Until that date, the competences of the RMVP had changed only slightly in the main features of all disputes over jurisdiction. That it nevertheless grew enormously and steadily until 1943 (21) was mainly due to diversification and intensification in the performance of its tasks. After 1938, the expansive foreign policy of the Third Reich necessitated further propaganda agencies to direct and influence public opinion in the incorporated and occupied territories. In the occupied territories with civil administrations, "departments" (main departments) for "popular enlightenment and propaganda" were usually set up in the territories with military administration, "propaganda departments", which exercised roughly the functions of the Reich Propaganda Offices. Their position between their superior military services and the RMVP, which sought to influence the content of the propaganda and from where part of the personnel came, was a constant source of conflict. As an indication for the weighting of the individual areas of responsibility of the Ministry in relation to each other, the expenditures for the individual areas in the 10 years from March 1933 to March 1943 are mentioned. With a total volume of 881,541,376.78 RM (22), the expenses for the Active propaganda: 21.8 Communications: 17.8 Music, visual arts, literature: 6.2 Film: 11.5 Theatres: 26.4 Civil servants and equipment: 4.3 Salaries, business needs, including film testing agencies and RPÄ: 12.0 By 1942, the RMVP and its division had been continuously expanded, before facilities in the subordinate area were shut down and departments in the ministry were merged as part of the total war from 1943 onwards. The business distribution plan of Nov. 1942 was as follows: (23) Ministerial Office, reporting directly to the Minister with adjutants, personal advisers and press officers of the Minister, a total of 10 employees State Secretaries Leopold Gutterer, Reich Press Head Dr. Otto Dietrich, Hermann Esser Budget Department (H) with 11 departments; reporting to the Head of the Department, the Main Office and the House Administration Personnel Department (Pers) with seven departments Legal and Organisation Department (R) with three departments Propaganda Department (Pro) with the following ten departments: 1. Political Propaganda 2. Cultural Propaganda 3. Propaganda Exploration 4. Public Health, Social Policy 5. Economy 6. Imperial Propaganda Offices 7. Major Events 8. Youth and Sports 9. Representation 10. Budget of the Department, Preparation of the Peace Treaties, Stagma and other Press Department of the Imperial Government I. Department German Press (DP) with 13 Speeches II. Foreign Press Department (AP) with 19 papers III. Journal Press Department /ZP) with five papers Foreign Press Department (A) with the following five groups: 1. Organization 2. Europe and Middle East 3. Non-European 4. Propaganda Media 5. Deployment abroad and in the Reich Tourism Department (FV) with four units Broadcasting Department (Rfk) with the following eight units 1. Coordination, Interradio and others 2. Broadcasting Command Office 3. Mob Department 4. Broadcasting Programme Support 5. Foreign Broadcasting 6. Broadcasting Industry 7. Broadcasting Organisation 8. Rundfunk-Erkundungsdienst Filmabteilung (F) with five departments Schrifttumsabteilung (S ) with eight departments Theaterabteilung (T) with seven departments Bildende Kunst (BK) with four departments Musik-Abteilung (M) with ten departments Reichsverteidigung (RV) with six departments Abteilung für die besetztischen Ostgebiete (Ost) with twelve departments Generalreferate with State Secretary Gutterer directly subordinated: 1. Exhibitions and Fairs 2nd General Cultural Department (General Cultural Department for the Reich Capital) 3rd General Department for Reich Chamber of Culture Matters 4th Technology (propaganda, radio, film, sound, stage, press, service installations of the RMVP) Press Recording Office for the PK reports of the Press Department of the Reich Government (directly subordinated to the Reich Press Head) A major change in this distribution of responsibilities took place in September 1944 (24). The art departments of theatre, music and visual arts were dissolved and merged into a single department of culture (cult). The East Department was integrated into the Propaganda Department as a main department, the Tourism Department was shut down and the General Departments of the Reich Cultural Chamber, Armaments and Construction and Propaganda Troops were dissolved. Notes (1) J. Goebbels: Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, p. 28. (2) R 43 II/1149, p. 5, excerpt from the minutes of the ministerial meeting of 11 March 1933. (3) R 43 II/1149, pp. 25 - 29, wording of Goebbels' speech of 16 March 1933 according to W. T. B. (4) R 43 II/1149, RGBl. 1933 I, p. 104 (5) J. Goebbels: Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, p. 293 (6) In an elaboration presumably by Goebbels on a "Reichskommissariat für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda" to be created (R 43 II/1149, pp. 49 - 53) further competences had been demanded. In particular, additional responsibilities were demanded of the German section of the RMI and section VI of the AA, as well as in foreign propaganda. (7) R 43 II/1449, pp. 126 - 133. Heiber gives a diagram of the organisational development of the RMVP at department level with the names of the department heads on the inside of the cover of his Goebbels biography. (8) See speech to representatives of the press on the tasks of the RMVP of 16 March 1933 in R 43 II/1149. It was not without reason that there was a language regulation for the press according to which the term propaganda was to be used only in a positive sense (R 55/1410, Decree of the RMVP to the RPA Nuremberg, 8 Nov. 1940). (9) R 43 II/1149, p. 169, Note by Lammers of 9 May 1934 on a lecture to the Reich Chancellor. (10) R 43 II/1149. (11) After the establishment of the Reichskulturkammer organization, they were also state cultural administrators in the substructure of the RKK. (12) Boelcke, Kriegspropaganda, p. 185. (13) Ebendort, p. 136 ff. there are hints for some institutions. (14) The Führer's order concerning the delimitation of responsibilities dated 15 Aug. 1943, cf. R 55/1435, 1390. (15) Boelcke, Kriegspropaganda, p. 126/127. (16) Lochner, Joseph Goebbels, p. 334, p. 442. (17) R 55/618, p. 123; cf. also the depiction of Hasso v. Wedel, the propaganda troops of the German Wehrmacht. Neckargemünd 1962, Die Wehrmacht im Kampf, vol. 34 (18) Führer decree of Dec. 21, 1943, R 55/441 (19) RGBl. 1944, p. 161, R 43 II/664 a. (20) This competence is virtually not reflected in the RMVP files available in the BA. However, it is well documented in R 43 II. See R 43 II/664 a. (21) See the annual budget negotiations on increasing the number of posts in R 2/4752 - 4762. (22) R 55/862, Statistical overview of monetary transactions. Accordingly, 88,5 % of the expenditure was covered by the licence fee. It remains unclear whether the old budgetary expenditure has been taken into account. (23) R 55/1314 According to this schedule of responsibilities, the files held in the Federal Archives were essentially classified. (24) Newsletter of 13 Sept. 1944 in R 55/441. Inventory description: Inventory history The RMVP records have suffered substantial losses, although the main building of the Ministry, the Ordenspalais am Wilhelmplatz, was destroyed relatively late and almost accidentally in March 1945. Large parts of the old registries, including the previous files from the Federal Foreign Office and the Reich Ministry of the Interior (1), had already been destroyed by air raids in 1944. Moreover, in the last days of the war before and during the conquest of Berlin by the Soviet Russian army, files were also systematically destroyed. (2) In view of the total collapse and devastation of Berlin by the air war, it is not surprising that hardly any manual or private files of RMVP employees have been handed down. Notable exceptions are, in particular, documents from Ministerialrat Bade (press department) (3) and hand files of the head of the broadcasting department, Ministerialdirigent Fritzsche. In this context, the diaries of Goebbels should also be mentioned, which, with the exception of those edited by Lochner in 1948, had been lost for almost 30 years. (4) The bulk of the volumes available in the Bundesarchiv Koblenz until 1996 was transferred from Alexandria (cf. Guide No. 22) and from the Berlin Document Center to the Bundesarchiv in the years 1959 - 1963. The personnel files still held back were added to the portfolio in 2007. The RMVP files kept by the Ministry of State Security of the GDR (mainly personnel files, personnel processes of the theatre, music and defence departments), which were stored in the so-called NS archive until 2006, are also assigned to the holdings. Not in Allied hands was only a small collection from the Music Department and some documents from the German Press Department, which were transferred to the Federal Archives in 1969 as part of the land consolidation with the Secret State Archives of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. Some original RMVP files can still be found at the Hoover Institution Standford, the Yivo Institute New York and the Wiener Library London. Fortunately, all three institutions were willing to produce microfilms for the Federal Archives (5). In 1974, the Rijksinstitut voor Oologsdocumentatie Amsterdam (Rijksinstitut for Oologsdocumentatie Amsterdam) kindly handed over some original fragments of files to the Federal Archives. In 1946, officers of the French and Soviet secret services found films of about 35,000 documents that had been filmed in the RMVP and buried near Potsdam at the end of the war with the help of an American mine detector (6). The films were taken to Paris to make re-enlargements of them, and it is possible that they will still be kept in the French secret service. The Americans apparently did not receive copies because they had withheld from the French documents of other provenance found in the CSSR. Only incomplete information is available about the content of the films; it can be assumed, however, that not exactly unimportant files have been filmed. Notes (1) Only a few handfiles and a few volumes on the promotion of music have survived. (2) Files of the Reichsfilmarchiv that had been moved to Grasleben/Helmstedt were even to be destroyed by agents of the RSHA when they threatened to fall into the hands of the English (cf. R 55/618). (3) Cf. Kl. Erw. 615, which is a selection of the bath papers from the time around 1933 in the Hoover library. (4) Frankfurter Allgemeine, 21 Nov. 1974, reader's letter. Insignificant fragments from Goebbels' estate from his student days can be found in the Federal Archives under the signature Kl. Erw. 254. (5) A collection of newspaper clippings concerning Goebbels in the amount of 82 Bde for the years 1931 - 1943 was not filmed at the Yivo-Institut. (6) See the documents in: National Archives Washington, RG 260 OMGUS 35/35 folder 19. Archival processing The order and indexing work on the holdings was relatively time-consuming and difficult, as the order of the files was extremely poor. On the one hand there were no detailed file plans or other registry aids for the mass of files from the budget and personnel departments, on the other hand the file management in the ministry, which at least in its development phase was always deliberately unbureaucratic, left a lot to be desired. Especially during the war, when inexperienced auxiliaries had to be used more and more during the war, the Ministry's staff often complained about the inadequacy of the registries. The organisation of the RMVP's records management showed typical features of office reform (1): Registries were kept on a departmental basis, with each registry having a "self-contained partial list of files". The documents were stored in standing folders (System Herdegen). Instead of a diary, an alphabetical mailing card was kept, separated according to authorities and private persons. The reference numbers consisted of the department letter, file number, date as well as an indication, on which card of an order file the procedure was seized. All in all, the files of the Budget and Human Resources Department were in a certain, albeit unsatisfactory, state of order when they entered the Federal Archives. Numerous volumes from the other departments, on the other hand, were formed in a chaotic manner, possibly as a result of a provisional recording of loose written material when it was confiscated. These were often amorphous and fragmentary materials that lacked the characteristics of organically grown writing. So it was practically impossible to form meaningful band units in all subjects. In the case of some "mixed volumes" with written material on numerous file numbers, only the most frequent ones were noted in the finding aid book. Due to the high loss of files, no strict evaluation standard was applied to the files. The main items collected were volumes from the budget department on preliminary checks in the subordinate area and individual procedures for the procurement and management of managed goods for the purposes of the Ministry. Formal records of non-compliant positions in the business division and a number of unarchivalable documents from the Human Resources Department will still be kept for the foreseeable future for the purpose of issuing service time statements. It is not listed in this guide. Preparatory work for the indexing of the Koblenz part of the stock was carried out by Mr. Oberarchivrat Regel (1967) with regard to the files of the budget department on the Reich's own film assets, Mr. Ltd. Archivdirektor Dr. Boberach (1966) with regard to correspondence and the reference files of the head of the broadcasting department, Hans Fritzsche and Ms. Archivoberinspektorin Schneider, née Fisch (1966) for files of the propaganda department. In 2005, the inventories of the finding aids of both sections of the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda were imported into the database of the Federal Archives via a retroconversion procedure. The data records were then combined in a classification. Despite the inhomogeneity of the traditions of most specialist departments, it was advisable to maintain the division by departments. (2) Within the departments, the structure was essentially based on file numbers and factual contexts. The file numbers used in the RMVP were - as far as possible - used as aids for further subdivision. The final step was the integration of the personnel files and personal documents from the NS archive (approx. 5000 individual transactions) and the former Berlin Document Center (approx. 700 transactions). The documents taken over are mainly documents from the personnel department (in addition to personnel files also questionnaires and index cards), theatre (applications, appointments, confirmation procedures) and imperial defence (applications in propaganda companies). The personal records also contain isolated documents on denazification from the period 1946-1950. Since a relatively large number of individual transactions from the NS archives were often only a few sheets, transactions that objectively related to one transaction (e.g. applications for interpreting) were merged into one file. The names of the individual persons as well as the old signatures from the NS archive can still be traced via the BASYS-P database. Both the files from the NS archive and those from the former BDC are not always filed according to the provenance principle. However, the files were not separated again. Most of the files taken over from the former BDC are personal files and questionnaires as well as personnel index cards of individual employees of broadcasting stations. A search is still possible via the BASYS-P database. The procedures for the donation "Artist's thanks" still present in the personal records of the former BDC concerning the Theatre Department were not adopted in this context (approx. 15,000 procedures). The names are entered in the BASYS-P database and can be searched there. Notes (1) Rules of Procedure and Registration of 8 May 1942 in R 55/ 618. (2) The structure of the business distribution plan of Nov. 1942 was used as a basis. Abbreviations AA = Federal Foreign Office Department A = Department Abroad AP = Foreign Press BDC = Berlin Document Center BdS = Commander of the Security Police ChdZ = Chief of the Civil Administration DAF = German Labour Front DASD = German Amateur Broadcasting Service e.V. DNB = Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro DRK = Deutsches Rotes Kreuz Dt. = Deutsch DVO = Durchführungsverordnung french = French Gestapo = Geheimes Staatspolizeiamt KdF = Kraft durch Freude KdG = Kommandeur der Gendarmerie KdS = Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei Kl. Erw. Small acquisition KLV = Kinderlandverschickung LG = District Court MA = Military Archives, Department of the Federal Archives MdR = Member of the Reichstag MinRat = Ministerialrat MdL = Member of the Landtag NDR = Norddeutscher Rundfunk NSV = National Socialist Volkswohlfahrt o. Az. = without file number or date = without date OKW = Oberkommando der Wehrmacht OLG = Oberstes Landesgericht OLT = Oberleutnant ORR = Oberregierungsrat OT = Organisation Todt PG = Parteigenosse PK = Propagandakompanie RAVAG = Österreichische Radio-Verkehrs-AG Reg. Pres. RMI = Reich Ministry of the Interior RMJ = Reich Ministry of the Interior RMK = Reich Ministry of Justice RMK = Reich Chamber of Music RMVP = Reich Ministry of Education and Propaganda ROI = Reichsoberinspektor RPA = Reichspropagandaamt RPÄ = Reichspropagandaämter RPL = Reichspropagandalleitung RR = Regierungsrat RRG = Reichsrundfunkgesellschaft RS = Reichssender RSHA = Reichssicherheitshauptamt RSK = Reichsschrifttumskammer SBZ = Soviet Occupation Zone SD = Security Service SD-LA = SD-Leitabschnitt SDR = Süddeutscher Rundfunk Sipo = Security Police STS = Secretary of State and a. = among others v. a. = above all VGH = Volksgerichtshof VO = Regulation WDR = Westdeutscher Rundfunk ZSTA = Zentrales Staatsarchiv (Potsdam) citation method: BArch R 55/ 23456 Content characterization: Rounded delivery complexes are available only from the budget department and from the personnel department. From the point of view of financing and personnel management, they illuminate almost all areas of the Ministry's activities. From the specialist departments, the volumes from the Propaganda Department should be emphasized, which document above all the design of propaganda and the propagandistic support of foreign workers and resettled persons in the last years of the war. Also worth mentioning are mood and activity reports of individual RPÄ and suggestions from the population for propaganda and for leading the total war. In the Radio Department there is some material about the design of the radio program and the propaganda reconnaissance with reports about the opposing propaganda, which were compiled from the bugging reports of the special service Seehaus. A separate complex of this department are 14 volumes of pre-files from the RMI with handfiles of the Oberregierungsrat Scholz as representative of the Reich in supervisory committees of broadcasting companies in Berlin from 1926 - 1932. Of the film department there are only a few, but interesting volumes about the film production of the last war years with numerous ministerial documents. The majority of the theatre department's traditions are based on documents on professional issues and the Reich's dramaturgy. From the music department the promotion of musical organizations from the years 1933 - 1935 with pre-files from the RMI, the support and job placement of artists as well as material about the musical foreign relations is handed down. The files of the Department for the Occupied Eastern Territories offer rich sources for questions of Eastern propaganda. The losses are greatest in the departments Law and Organization, Magazine Press, Foreign Press, Foreign Countries, Tourism, Literature and Fine Arts. State of development: Publication Findbuch (1976, reprint 1996), Online Findbuch (2007). Citation style: BArch, R 55/...