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History of the Inventory Designer: With effect from 9. November 1936 Transformation of the Chief Adjutant's Office of the Reichsführer SS into the organizational unit "The Reichsführer SS Personal Staff"; function of the Persönli‧chen Staff Reichsführer SS - one of the main offices of the Reichsführung SS - as sachbear‧beitende Office of the Reichsführer SS for tasks that did not fall within the competence of SS departments; division of the Personal Staff Reichsführer SS into offices in the years 1942-1944: Amt Wewelsburg, Amt Ahnenerbe, Amt Lebensborn, Amt/Abteilung Presse, Amt München (artistic and architectural tasks in connection with the SS-Wirt‧schafts-Verwaltungshauptamt), Amt Rohstoffe/Rohstoffamt, Amt für Volkstumsfragen, Zen‧tralinstitut for optimal human recording (statistical and practical evaluation of the "human recording" at the SS and police), Amt Staffführung (internal affairs of the staff and the offices) Long text: As Heinrich Himmler at the age of 28 years by order of Hitler from 20. When the SS was appointed Reichsführer-SS on January 1, 1929, only about 280 men belonged to the SS, at that time still a special formation of the SA. The supreme leadership organ of the "Schutzstaffeln der NSDAP", set up in the spring of 1925 for Hitler's personal protection and protection of the assembly, whose abbreviation "SS" was probably to become the best-known cipher symbolizing the reign of terror of the National Socialist regime in Germany and Europe, was the "Oberleitung der Schutzstaffeln der NSDAP", which functioned organizationally as part of the Supreme SA leadership in Munich. At the height of the Second World War, on 30 June 1944, the SS then comprised almost 800,000 members, of whom almost 600,000 were in the Waffen SS alone [1]. During these 15 years, the bureaucratic apparatus of the SS had grown enormously through the establishment of new offices, main offices and other central institutions at the highest level of management and through the formation of numerous subordinate offices and institutions. At the same time - also as a consequence of Himmler's leadership principle of the division of competences on the one hand and the linking of institutionally divided competences by personal union on the other - the organisational network at the top of the SS [2], which had become an if not the decisive instrument of power, had turned out to be almost unmanageable. The formal separation of the SS from the SA took place in two steps. Himmler's communication to the SS of December 1, 1930, according to which "the complete separation of SA and SS had been completed" [3], was followed by an order issued by Hitler as the Supreme SA Leader on January 14, 1931, that the Reichsführer-SS, as leader of the entire SS, be subordinated to the Chief of Staff, and the SS, as an independent association with its own official channels, be subordinated to the Reichsführer-SS [4]. With the "elevation" of the SS "to an independent organization within the framework of the NSDAP" ordered by Hitler on July 20, 1934, the binding of the SS to the SA was finally concluded. This was justified by the great merits, "especially in connection with the events of 30 June 1934" [5], i.e. the so-called "Röhm Putsch". At the same time the Reichsführer-SS, like the chief of staff of the SA, was directly subordinated to Hitler. In 1929, the Reichsführung-SS, which at first still knew a "managing director of the overhead management", had a very modest cut within the framework of the then equally underdeveloped Obersten SA leadership. The institutional expansion of the SS leadership pursued by Himmler ran clearly parallel to the development of the Supreme SA leadership, after Ernst Röhm had taken it over as Chief of Staff in January 1931. As with the latter, several departments and departments were created in the Reichsführung-SS until May 1931 in the following structure [6]: Ia Structure, Training, Security Ib Motorisation, Transport Ic Intelligence, Press Id Clothing, Catering, Accommodation Iia Personnel Department, Staffing Iib Proof of Strength III Matters of Honour, Legal Matters Iva Money Management Ivb Medical Care of the SS (Reichsarzt-SS) V Propaganda The SS Office developed from these organisational units in 1932. The department Ic became the SD Office, a race office, later race and settlement office, at the beginning of 1932 newly created. With Himmler's appointment as inspector of the Prussian Police on April 20, 1934 and Reinhard Heydrich's function as head of both the Secret State Police Office and the SD Main Office, the SD Office, later known as the SD Main Office, underwent a development that was separate from the narrower Reichsführung-SS. In 1939, this led to the merger of the SD Main Office and the SD Main Office Security Police to form the Reichssicherheitshauptamt [7]. Although the Reich Security Main Office, the Ordnungspolizei Main Office, the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German People's Growth, and the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle were all part of the SS leadership, according to the understanding of the SS and the NSDAP; these authorities, however, apart from the joint leadership by Himmler as Reichsführer-SS and head of the German Police, and as Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German People's Growth and the linking of state and party-official tasks, essentially performed state functions [8]. The SS Office of 1932, which from 1935 was known as the SS Main Office [9], changed its tasks and became the nucleus of new main offices into the war years. They arose as the Reichsführung-SS continued to expand through increasing leadership and administrative tasks: Development of the armed units, development and leadership of the Waffen-SS during the war, administration of the concentration camps (KL) and the economic enterprises of the SS, activities in the ideological-political field. The order issued by the Reichsführer-SS on January 14, 1935, to reorganize the Reichsführung-SS with effect from January 20, 1935, named the "Staff Reichsführer-SS" in addition to the SS Main Office, the SD Main Office, and the Race and SS Main Offices, the SD Main Office, and the Race and Settlement Main Office. It was divided into a chief adjutant's office, a personnel office, a SS court, an audit department and a staff treasury [10]. The Chief Adjutant's Office was later to become the Main Office of Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS. The staff of the Reichsführer-SS and the SS-Hauptamt were closely linked in terms of personnel by the fact that the chiefs of individual offices of the Hauptamt simultaneously performed functions in the staff. So corresponded in the SS-Hauptamt: Staff Reichsführer-SS: Personalamt (II) Personalkanzlei (II) Gerichtsamt (III) SS-Gericht (III) Verwaltungsamt (IV) Verwaltungschef-SS und Reichskassenverwalter (IV) Sanitätsamt (V) Reichsarzt-SS (V) In addition, the Führungsamt (I) and the Ergänzungsamt (VI) as well as the inspector of the KL and the SS-Wachverbände - directly subordinated to the head of the SS-Hauptamt - were added to the SS-Hauptamt, from 1936 the SS-Totenkopfverbände, and, from autumn 1935, the inspector of the disposal troop. One after the other, the corresponding organizational units in the SS Main Office or the SS Main Office were subsequently transformed into in the staff Reichsführer-SS 1939: - the SS-Personalhauptamt für die Personalangelegenheiten der SS-Führer [11], - the Hauptamt SS-Gericht [12], - the Hauptamt Verwaltung und Wirtschaft [13], which from 1942 was united with the Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten des Reichsführers-SS and Chefs der Deutschen Polizei und dem SS-Verwaltungsamt to form the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt [14], 1940: - the SS Main Office "for the military leadership of the Waffen SS and pre- and post-military training of the General SS" [15], - the "Dienststelle SS-Obergruppenführer Heißmeyer", which supervised national political educational institutions and home schools within the portfolio of the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and Popular Education, as it were the preliminary stage of a planned Main Office for national political education [16]. The SS-Hauptamt under its leader SS-Gruppenführer Gottlob Berger essentially retained the registration and supplementary services as well as matters of training, especially for SS members recruited in the "Germanic Lands". In addition to these main offices and offices, Himmler had early established his own office to direct the apparatus and to supervise institutions directly subordinated to him and tasks in his adjutant's office that remained outside the offices. On June 15, 1933, the SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Wolff [17], who was the same age as Himmler, had joined them as full-time adjutant. Wolff very soon became Himmler's closest confidante, accompanied him on his travels and took part in his leadership tasks. In 1935 he became chief adjutant. Himmler took the upgrading of the Chief Adjutant's Office as an institution that had outgrown its original function into account when he transformed it into the Personal Staff by order of November 9, 1936 [18]: "1.) With effect from 9 November 1936, the previous Chief Adjutant of the Reichsführer-SS was given the designation 'The Reichsführer-SS Personal Staff' in view of its size and its greatly expanded service area over the years. 2.) I appoint SS-Brigadeführer Wolff as Chief of the Personal Staff. 3.) The new Adjutant of the Reichsführer-SS to be established forms a department of the Personal Staff." The simultaneous elevation of the Personal Staff to a main office was not only not pronounced, but probably also not intended. The increasing tasks of the Personal Staff on the one hand and the consideration of Wolff's position in relation to the newly established Heads of Main Office in 1939 may have persuaded Himmler to subsequently interpret another order of November 9, 1936, later, in 1939, to the effect that he had already at that time elevated the Personal Staff to a Main Office. In this order of November 9, 1936 [19] on the "Reorganization of the Command Relations in the All SS", he had announced the "Structure of the Office of the Reichsführer SS" as follows: SS Main Office, SD Main Office, Race and Settlement Main Office, Reichsführer SS Personal Staff; in addition, the Chief of the Ordnungspolizei, SS Obergruppenführer Daluege, had the rank of Head of Main Office. In the order of June 1, 1939, with which he formed the SS Personnel Main Office and the SS Court Main Office, he took up this order again and formulated that he had "established" them as the Main Offices. Still in the order of April 20, 1939, to found the Hauptamtes Verwaltung und Wirtschaft, however, he had declared that it was "a Hauptamt like the other Hauptämter of the Reichsführung-SS (SS-Hauptamt, SD-Hauptamt, Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt, Hauptamt Ordnungspolizei, and Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei). So there was still no talk of a main office Personal Staff here. Wolff was only appointed head of the main office retroactively on 8 June 1939 [20]. The function and task of the Personal Staff are described as follows in a directive of 3 April 1937 on command management and administration in the area of responsibility of the Reichsführer-SS [21]: "The Personal Staff of the Reichsführer-SS is the administrative office of the Reichsführer-SS for those matters which do not belong to the areas of activity of the heads of the SS-Hauptamt, the SD-Hauptamt, the Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt or the administrative central offices. For reasons of competence, the Chief of the Personal Staff must finally hand over to the SS Headquarters, the SD Headquarters, the Race and Settlement Headquarters, or the Central Offices in charge all matters which fall within the competence of the Heads of the SS Headquarters, the SD Headquarters, or the Central Offices in charge. The Chief of the Personal Staff simultaneously supervises a) the Adjutant's Office of the Reichsführer-SS, b) the entrance office of the Reichsführer-SS, c) the "Chancellery of the Reichsführer-SS". Two characteristics of the Personal Staff are thus shown: It should not perform any tasks in competition with the SS specialist departments, but should be Himmler's administrative office for tasks outside these departments, i.e. at least partially exercise the specialist supervision over Himmler's directly subordinate institutions. The function of the Personal Staff as a "central command post of the Reichsführung-SS" [22], which has brought about the quality of its records and thus of the archive records to be described here, is not addressed here. In addition, a number of chief positions were assigned to the Personal Staff, whose holders functioned in personal union as heads of the corresponding offices in the SS Main Office or in the SS Main Office, but which in turn did not develop into their own SS Main Offices: The chief defender of the Reich was at the same time chief of the Office for Security Tasks in the SS-Hauptamt, later in the SS-Führungshauptamt. The Inspector for Physical Education was head of the Office for Physical Education in the SS Main Office. The Inspector for Communications, who was also Chief of the Office for Communications in the SS-Hauptamt and later in the SS-Führungshauptamt, was renamed Chief of Telecommunications and, towards the end of the war, traded as Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Chief of Telecommunications. From 1942, for example, he was ordered by Himmler to set up and train a female SS intelligence corps [23]. The head of the SS-Fürsorge- und Versorgungsamt, which was established in 1938, dissolved in 1944, and initially placed under Himmler's personal control, also held a chief position in the Personal Staff. Among the institutions that Himmler directly controlled through the Personal Staff were the economic enterprises of the SS [24] (Nordland-Verlag GmbH, Porzellanmanufaktur Allach, Photogesellschaft F.F. Bauer GmbH, Anton Loibl GmbH, Gemeinnützige Wohnungs- und Heimstätten-GmbH and the Spargemeinschaft-SS, later SS-Spargemeinschaft e.V.), the Gesellschaft zur Förderung und Pflege Deutscher Kulturdenkmäler e.V. [Society for the Promotion and Maintenance of German Cultural Monuments], which were established in the mid-30s, and the SS [24], which was the first German society to establish a "Society for the Promotion and Maintenance of German Cultural Monuments", the Externsteine-Stiftung and the König-Heinrich I.-Gedächtnis-Stiftung. All these institutions served financial as well as cultural, ideological or social purposes at the same time. For example, the licence fees from the exploitation of the patent for a pedal reflector for bicycles - the inventor Loibl was a motorist of Hitler - by Anton Loibl GmbH benefited "Ahnenerbe" e.V. and the association "Lebensborn". In addition to tableware, Porzellanmanufaktur Allach produced gift articles which were not sold but were distributed by Himmler alone to SS members and their families as well as to other recipients on certain occasions via the Personal Staff or the SS Adjutant's Office [25]. Among the articles that were produced for Himmler's "gift chamber" were life candlesticks and children's Frisians, Jul candlesticks and Jul plates, sculptures such as SS flag bearers, SS horsemen, lansquenets with lance, Garde du Corps, jugglers, dachshunds, mountain deer, traditional costume groups, and much more. In the Personal Staff, these businesses were assigned to a "cultural department", with the exception of the Savings Community SS, for which the "Economic Aid Department" was responsible. The old cultural department became obsolete in 1938, when all economic enterprises were economically and organizationally subordinated to the SS-Verwaltungsamt in the SS-Hauptamt. One exception was the porcelain manufactory Allach, which was institutionalized in the Personal Staff as the "Amt München". Among the institutions economically subordinated to the SS-Verwaltungsamt in 1938 were also the Externsteine-Stiftung with the purpose of preserving the alleged Germanic cult site near Detmold [26], the König Heinrich I.Gedächtnis-Stiftung, which was responsible for the care and preservation of the Quedlinburg Cathedral, and the Gesellschaft zur Förderung und Pflege Deutscher Kulturdenkmäler e.V. (Society for the Promotion and Care of German Cultural Monuments), which looked after a number of objects, the best-known of which were the Wewelsburg near Paderborn, the Sachsenhain near Verden/Aller and the Haithabu excavation site near Schleswig. Thus also the "Department for Cultural Research", which until then had been in the Personal Staff - together with a Department for "Excavations" - for these institutions and other Himmler ambitions in culturally-historically oriented areas, lost its idealistic competence and finally also its organizational basis. The beneficiary was the "Lehr- und Forschungsgemeinschaft Das Ahnenerbe", founded in 1935, which had been affiliated to the Personal Staff since the end of 1936 and belonged to the Personal Staff from April 1, 1942 in the organizational form of an office [27]. Economically, however, the "Ahnenerbe" was also subject to the SS-Verwaltungsamt since 1938. The "Ahnenerbe" - with Himmler as president at the helm - had the statutory task of "researching the space, spirit, deed and heritage of North-Rassian Indo-Europeanism, bringing the research results to life and communicating them to the people". Objectives to make the "Ahnenerbe" the "reservoir for all cultural efforts of the Reichsführer-SS" were questioned by Himmler's leadership style, however, "that he did not necessarily want to unite everything in the "Ahnenerbe" in order not to concentrate too many important and essential things in one place" [28]. In the course of its complicated history, which succinctly documented the mental aberration and confusion of Himmler's ideology and scientific ideas, the "Ahnenerbe" attempted to go beyond its early conception and become a bizarre research site for various areas of the "cultural sciences" and natural sciences that could serve both the Nazi ideas of domination and the very concrete ones. During the war it expanded its activities further, e.g. in the form of the so-called "Germanic Science Mission" in the occupied "Germanic" countries. For its journalistic activities, it had an Ahnenerbe-Stiftungs-Verlag publishing house. The "Ancestral Heritage" finally fell into direct entanglement with the inhuman and criminal practices of the Nazi regime through the affiliated "Institute for Military Research", whose establishment Himmler had personally ordered. Under the guise of research allegedly important to the war, cruel experiments were carried out on concentration camp prisoners, which were linked to the names of doctors involved, such as Dr. Siegmund Rascher. Prof. Dr. August Hirt conducted perverted "research" at the Reich University of Strasbourg with his anthropological investigations of skulls and skeletons of "Jewish-Bolshevik Commissioners" who had previously been killed in Auschwitz [29]. A "cultural object" that remained outside the jurisdiction of the "Ancestor's Heritage" was the Wewelsburg castle in East Westphalia, with which Himmler intended to create a permanent place of worship for the SS order's idea [30]. Himmler remained personally concerned about their development, up to the planting of the castle slope with walnut trees. Organizationally, it was also anchored in an office at the Personal Staff. Another office in the Personal Staff, which represented an association, was the office Lebensborn. The association "Lebensborn" had been founded in 1936 and - contrary to what was published after the end of the war - had the statutory purpose of supporting families with many children and assisting single mothers [31], in keeping with the Nazi racial ideology and population policy "racially and hereditarily biologically valuable". Special homes were set up to accommodate them. The "Lebensborn" became directly culpable during the war as a caring organization for "racially valuable" children whose parents had been persecuted, transferred to concentration camps or killed; among them, for example, were the children of the inhabitants of Lidice and Lezáky, who had been shot dead or sent to concentration camps in the course of retaliatory measures for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, and children whose parents had been executed as members of the Czech resistance movement [32]. The observation of the press was an early concern of Himmler. The later office press in the personal staff had the task of keeping Himmler informed about press news. In addition, he was responsible for cooperation with party and state press control agencies, certain censorship tasks and the development of word and image documentation. Among other things, the Office also prepared an "Organization Book of the SS," since, according to its leader, "very few SS leaders have a complete overview of the organization of the Reichsführer-SS's area of work in detail" [33]. In order to carry out Himmler's tasks within the framework of the 2nd Four-Year Plan, an "Office Four-Year Plan" was created in the Personal Staff. It was involved in labour recruitment, construction and raw materials management, energy problems and research. In 1942 it was "tacitly" dissolved and incorporated into the "Rohstoffamt" [34], which had emerged from the staff office of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Popular Growth [35]. A very early office that Himmler permanently linked to the Personal Staff was the office "Reichsarzt SS und Polizei", headed by Dr. Ernst Robert Grawitz until the end of the war. Grawitz has become less well known than Dr. Karl Gebhardt, the chief physician of the SS hospital Hohenlychen, in whose treatment Himmler very often went and who traded as "Supreme Clinician of the Staff of the Reich Physician SS and Police" [36]. Finally the "SS-Mannschaftshäuser" are to be mentioned; since the mid-30s they served to bring together the SS members at the universities "for the training of the scientific offspring required by the SS", as Himmler put it in 1939 [37], when he withdrew this institution from the Race and Settlement Main Office and turned it into an "SS office in the Personal Staff". According to staffing plans and job descriptions [38], the Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS in 1942/44 was structured and staffed as follows: Chief of the Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS Karl Wolff Offices Wewelsburg: SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS Siegfried Taubert, Burghauptmann der SS-Schule "Haus Wewelsburg" Amt Ahnenerbe: SS-Oberführer Professor Dr. Walter Wüst, curator and head of office; SS-Standartenführer Wolfram Sievers, Reichsgeschäftsführer and deputy head of office Amt Lebensborn: SS-Standartenführer Max Sollmann, board member and head of office Amt/Abt. Presse: SS-Obersturmbannführer Gerhard Radke, later SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Behrendt Amt München: SS-Standartenführer Professor Karl Diebitsch (processing of all artistic and architectural questions in connection with the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt) Amt Rohstoffe/Rohstoffamt: SS-Standartenführer Albert Kloth Amt für Volkstumsfragen: SS-Brigadeführer Erich Cassel, head of office and liaison officer to the Reichsleitung der NSDAP and the offices of the Reichsführer-SS Zentralinstitut für optimale Menschenerfassung: SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Albert Bartels (Statistical and practical evaluation of the entire "human recording" in the SS and police) Office staff management: Staff leader SS-Oberführer Otto Ullmann, from February 1943 SS-Standartenführer Paul Baumert (responsible for all internal affairs of the staff and the offices) with the directly subordinate main departments: SS-Adjutantur: SS-Obersturmbannführer Werner Grothmann Police-Adjutantur: Lieutenant Colonel of the Schutzpolizei Willy Suchanek and SS-Hauptsturmführer Martin Fälschlein Personal Department Reichsführer-SS: SS-Standartenführer Dr. Rudolf Brandt, Ministerialrat, Personal Officer of the Reichsführer-SS and Reichsminister des Innern Sachbearbeiter Chef Persönlicher Stab (S.B.Ch.P.): SS-Obersturmführer Heinrich Heckenstaller Orden und Gäste: SS-Standartenführer Hans von Uslar, later SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Helmut Fitzner Administration: SS-Hauptsturmführer Oskar Winzer, later SS-Obersturmbannführer Christian Mohr (administration of the staff and the subordinated offices) Economic Aid: SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Helmut Fitzner (debt relief and loan matters for the SS) Staff: SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritz Breitfeldt SS-judicial liaison officer: SS-Standartenführer Horst Bender The representative for service dogs at the Reichsführer-SS: SS-Oberführer Franz Mueller (Darß) (service dogs questions of the Waffen-SS and police at the Reichsführer-SS) and departments: - Awards and orders (subordinate to the SS-Adjutantur; processing of high awards in Waffen-SS and police) - records management and office (records registration and custody) - intelligence office (monitoring of all intelligence means of the Berlin office of the Reichsführer-SS) - driving service - commander of the staff department of the Waffen-SS (leadership and supervision of all Waffen-SS members transferred to the Personal Staff). This overview also mentions a number of other institutions that Himmler personally subordinated, were "worked on" in the Personal Staff and are documented there. These included, for example, the Reichsführer-SS Personal Staff, Department F, SS camp Dachau - Haus 13, Ernährungswissenschaftliches Versuchsgut. The director was Dr. Karl Fahrenkamp; his main task was the development of preparations for the promotion of plant growth. Around 1940 the Statistical Inspectorate was set up. From January 1944 it was called the Statistical-Scientific Institute of the Reichsführer-SS, was headed by Dr. Richard Korherr and was commissioned with the preparation of statistical work for Himmler. To be mentioned in this context are still ad hoc special institutions such as the representative of the Reichsführer-SS in the staff of the Special Representative for the Investigation of the Appropriate Use of War, General von Unruh, SS-Standartenführer Harro With, and the Reichsführer-SS Sonderstab Oberst Streck, who had to follow letters about grievances in offices and troops. Another of Himmler's countless areas of interest, the development of raw materials during the war, is probably to be attributed to the fact that he was not only very personally concerned, for example, with the breeding of caraculae and perennial rye or with the extraction of oil shale, but that he had Göring officially appoint him special envoy for all questions of plant rubber [39]. In the occupied Polish and Soviet territories, cultivation trials with Kok-Sagys, a plant found in European Russia, were undertaken at great expense in order to obtain usable quantities of natural rubber for the German war economy. The business of the Personal Staff in the narrower sense was conducted by the Office Staff Management with the subordinate main departments and departments. The other offices - the Amt für Volkstumsfragen and the Zentralinstitut für optimale Menschenerfassung (Central Institute for Optimal Human Recording) (with tasks of statistical labour force recording using the Hollerith method), which were established only towards the end of the war and apparently remained without significance and precipitation, were listed only for the sake of completeness - belonged to the Personal Staff, but had separate offices and their own registries. The most important organizational units in the Office of Staff Management were the main departments Personal Department Reichsführer-SS and S.B.Ch.P. (Head of Personal Staff) and the adjutant offices. The Dog Service Officer worked outside the Personal Staff Unit. Although the SS-richterliche Verbindungsführer was always located in the vicinity of Himmler, he conducted his official business separately from that of the staff; his registration was not included in the records of the Personal Staff [40]. Wolff's main task as Chief of the Personal Staff was to support Himmler as the closest employee and confidant in his leadership tasks. His function changed when he was appointed liaison leader of the Reichsführer-SS at Hitler on 26 August 1939. He now stayed in the immediate vicinity of Hitler, i.e. also in his field quarters. Without having any technical competence, he should keep Himmler up to date on developments at the Führer's headquarters and be available to answer questions from the Führer's headquarters. The position directly assisting the Chief of Personal Staff was the S.B.Ch.P. Main Department. (clerk chief of personal staff). The incumbent or one of his employees had to work for Wolff at the Führer's headquarters [41]. When Wolff fell seriously ill in February 1943, Himmler took over the leadership of the Main Office Personal Staff "until further notice" himself. Wolff did not return to this position; after his recovery in the summer of 1943 he prepared for his function in Italy [42]. Himmler did not appoint a new chief of the Personal Staff, but continued to perform this function himself. He dissolved the S.B.Ch.P. department. Himmler's closest collaborator after Wolff, especially since Wolff's appointment as Liaison Leader at Hitler and finally as Supreme SS and Police Leader in Italy, was his personal advisor Dr. Rudolf Brandt. Himmler's already large area of responsibility was expanded by Himmler's appointment as Reich Minister of the Interior to include the processing of tasks from the area of this ministry. Brandt always worked in the immediate vicinity of Himmler. His powers extended far beyond those of a personal speaker who accompanied Himmler on his travels and, for example, as a trained stenographer, recorded Himmler's speeches. He decided which post was presented to Himmler or not, gave a daily lecture on the problems involved, independently implemented instructions from the Reichsführer-SS, and fended off requests if they did not appear to be presentable as Himmlers in terms of content or time. Even without personally obtaining Himmler's decisions, in individual cases he could take his decision or opinion for granted and act accordingly. The police adjutants essentially had "speaking" or "transmitting" functions. The Police Adjutant's Office was the office of the two liaison officers of the Reich Security Main Office and the Main Office of the Ordnungspolizei. Suchanek was always in Himmler's field command post during the war, while Fälschlein was on duty in Berlin. In contrast to the Police Adjutant's Office, the SS Adjutant's Office, in addition to the adjutants' task of "accompanying" the Reichsführer SS, also carried out administrative tasks such as setting appointments, preparing trips, processing invitations, congratulating and giving gifts. It also dealt with factual and personnel matters of the Waffen SS, maintained contact with the SS Main Office and SS Head Office as well as with the front units of the Waffen SS. In Munich, Karlstraße 10, the SS-Adjutantur maintained a branch office occupied by SS-Hauptsturmführer Schnitzler. The headquarters of the Personal Staff was the building Prinz Albrecht-Straße 8 in Berlin, which was also Himmler's headquarters as Reichsführer-SS and chief of the German police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior as well as the chief of the security police and the SD (Reichssicherheitshauptamt) [43]. During the war Himmler often worked in various "field command posts". One of the most constant places of residence was the field command post "Hochwald" in a forest near Großgarten in East Prussia, about 40 km away from the Führer's headquarters "Wolfsschanze" [44]. Commander of the Feldkommandostelle Reichsführer-SS and responsible for its security was the SS-Obersturmbannführer Josef Tiefenbacher. He was in charge of the SS and police escort units as well as the special train "Steiermark", Himmler's rolling field command post, which brought him to the desired destinations or also let him follow Hitler's special train. This happened, for example, after the German invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, when Himmler's special train was parked near Hitler in Bruck/Murr. His motorcade was called "Sonderzug Heinrich". Near Hitler's Führer Headquarters "Wehrwolf" near Vinnitsa in the Ukraine, Himmler had established his field command post "Hegewald" in a German ethnic settlement area south of Shitomir. The increasing air raids on Berlin made it necessary to look for alternative quarters outside the city. These apparently accommodated larger areas of the service and had facilities that could do justice to Himmler's safety and that of his closer staff even if they were present for a longer period of time. The largest and most systematically developed object was apparently the alternative site "Birkenwald" near Prenzlau (Uckermark). On an area of approx. 290,000 m2 with some permanent buildings, which had been given over by the city administration, extensions were carried out until the last months of the war; the laying of a connecting track for the special train "Steiermark" was still in the planning stage in November 1944. The alternative place also had accommodations for Himmler, his personal adviser and the adjutants. For the year 1944 the existence of the alternative sites "Bergwald" and "Tannenwald" is proven in the files of the Personal Staff, as well as for March 1945 the alternative camp "Frankenwald" in Bad Frankenhausen (Krs. Sondershausen/Thüringen) [45]. _ [1] Cf. the data of the Statistical-Scientific Institute of the Reichsführer-SS in NS 19/1471. [2] Cf. Hans Buchheim, Die SS - Das Herrschaftsinstrument. Command and Obedience (Anatomie des SS-Staates, vol. 1), Olten and Freiburg i. Br 1965 [3] SS Command No. 20 of 1. 12. 1930 (NS 19/1934). 4] SA command no. 1 (simultaneously for SS) dated 16. 1. 1931 (NS 19/1934). 5] Hitler's Order of July 20, 1934 by Gerd Rühle, Das Dritte Reich, 1934, p. 237 [6] Staff Order of May 12, 1931 (NS 19/1934). 7] See Shlomo Aronson, Reinhard Heydrich and the Early History of the Gestapo and SD, Stuttgart 1971, and Buchheim (note 3 above). 8] The Federal Archive and its holdings, edited by Gerhard Granier, Josef Henke, Klaus Oldenhage, 3rd ed., Boppard 1977, p. 41 ff., 51 and 53 [9] Federal Archive holdings NS 31 [10] SS-Hauptamt, Staff Order No. 6 (NS 31/70). In an order to reshape the Reichsführung-SS dated February 9, 1934, Himmler had issued a new order for his staff with the Departments I. Adjutantur, II. Personalabteilung, III. Gerichtsabteilung, IV. Revisionsabteilung and V. Pressabteilung only the official title "Der Reichsführer-SS" (NS 17/135, copy in NS 19/4041). 11] Order of 1.6.1939 (NS 19/3901); residual files of the SS Personnel Main Office in the Federal Archives NS 34. [12] Also order of 1.6.1939 (ibid.); Federal Archives NS 7. [13] Order of 20.4.1939 (NS 19/1166). 14] Command of 19.1.1942 (NS 19/3904); Federal Archives holdings NS 3. 15] Commands of 15.8.1940 and 5.9.1940 (NS 19/3903); preserved files of the SS-Führungshauptamt in the Federal Archives holdings NS 33. 16] See Himmler's order of 12.1.1941 (NS 19/3903), also letter of 7.11.1941 from the Reich Minister of Science, Education and People's Education to the Reich Minister of Finance (R 2/12745). 17] Documents on Wolff's personal and private service affairs can be found in NS 19/3456 as well as in the other archive units described below in Section B. 2; in addition also the dossier concerning Wolff (copies) in the documents of the Freundeskreis Reichsführer-SS in NS 48/81. 18] NS 19/3901. Himmler announced the wording of the order in a speech at the SS-Gruppenführertagung on 8.11.1936 in Dachau (NS 19/4003; see also note 72), which had long been regarded as incomplete. 19] NS 19/3902 [20] See the documents of the Friends of Himmler concerning Wolff (copies) in NS 48/81 [21] NS 19/2881 [22] Gunther d'Alquen, Die SS. History, task and organization of the Schutzstaffeln of the NSDAP, Berlin 1939, p. 24 [23] The preserved files of the SS-Helferinnenschule Oberehnheim are in the Bundesarchiv stock NS 32 II. 24] See note 23. 25] See, for example, the archives described in section B.1.6 below. 26] Cf. Klaus Gruna, Die Externsteine kann sich nicht fhren, in: Menschen, Landschaft und Geschichte, edited by Walter Först, Cologne and Berlin 1965, pp. 239-249 [27] Tradition of the "ancestral heritage" in the Federal Archives NS 21 - Cf. Michael H. Kater, Das "Ahnenerbe" der SS 1935-1945. A contribution to the cultural policy of the Third Reich, Stuttgart 1974. [28] File note of the Reich Secretary of the "Ahnenerbes", Wolfram Sievers, from 4.11.1937 about a visit of Pohl to the "Ahnenerbe" on 2.11.1937 (NS 21/779). 29] See, among others, Reinhard Henkys, Die Nationalsozialistischen Gewaltverbrechen, Stuttgart und Berlin 1964, p. 66, 69 f., 247. Sievers was sentenced to death and executed for the criminal activities of the Institute in the Nuremberg medical trial. Shepherd's been missing since the end of the war. Rascher was executed on Himmler's orders for child undermining. 30] Cf. Heiner Lichtenstein, Wo Himmler wollte residieren, in: Menschen, Landschaft und Geschichte (above Note 29), pp. 115-128 and Karl Hüser, Wewelsburg 1933 to 1945. Cult and Terror Site of the SS. Eine Dokumentation, Paderborn 2nd edition 1987 [31] Cf. Georg Lilienthal, Der "Lebensborn e.V." Ein Instrument Nationalsozialistischer Rassenpolitik, Stuttgart, New York 1984 [32] Cf. the correspondence on the accommodation of Czech children 1943-1944 (NS 19/375) as well as Marc Hillel and Clarissa Henry, Lebensborn e.V. In the name of the race, Vienna, Hamburg 1975 [33] Accountability report of the head of office from 1.11.1942 (NS 19/2985). 34] Letter from SS-Standartenführer Kloth to SS-Obergruppenführer Wolff of 3. 8. 1942 (NS 19/349). 35] File note of SS-Standartenführer Kloth of 4.10.1943 to. Establishment of the office m.W. of 15.1.1942 and letter of the Rohstoffamt to the administration of the Personal Staff of 22.9.1943 (NS 19/1786). 36] See Henkys (note 36 above) and Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, Vols. 1-2, Washington, D. C. 1950, and Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke (ed.), Medicine without Humanity. Documents of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial, Heidelberg 1949 [37] SS Order of 12.2.1939 (NS 19/3901). 38] NS 19/2881. 39] Letter of appointment dated 9.7.1943 (NS 19/1802). 40] Remains of tradition in the Federal Archives NS 7 [41] Indictment of the Public Prosecutor's Office at the District Court Munich II in the criminal proceedings against Karl Wolff; see also Note 22 [42] On the takeover of the Personal Staff by Himmler himself see NS 48/81; on Wolff's later use in Italy see also NS 19/3456 [43] Cf. Topography of Terror. Gestapo, SS and Reich Security Main Office on the "Prinz-Albrecht-Gelände". Eine Dokumentation, ed. by Reinhard Rürup, Berlin 8th ed. 1991 [44] Cf. Peter Hoffmann, Die Sicherheit des Diktators, Munich 1976, p. 219 [45] The construction of alternative sites essentially documents the archives described in section A.1 below as well as other documents scattered throughout the indices. For Birkenwald see above all NS 19/2888, 3273, 2211 and 1518. Inventory description: Inventory history The file tradition developed at the offices of the Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS essentially shares the general fate of German contemporary historical sources described elsewhere in the war and post-war period [1]. Losses of files as a result of air raids in November 1943 are documented several times in the files of the Personal Staff. The office building at Prinz-Albrecht-Str. 8 was destroyed by bombs in February 1945 [2]; members of the Soviet and U.S. occupying forces are said to have recovered files from the ruins of the building after the end of the war [3]. There is no information about the fate of the files of the Personal Staff at the end of the war, nor about where the traditions of U.S. troops now kept in the Federal Archives were captured. The first message is conveyed by a file directory of the "7771 Document Center OMGUS", the subsequent U.S. Document Center in Berlin-Zehlendorf which existed until 1994 and which, as of July 1948, records an inventory of 2.5 tons of Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS "transferred to another location". It had been made available to the prosecution authorities of the Nuremberg War Beaker Trials [4]. When preparing the files for trial purposes, numerous and extensive "personnel processes" were taken from the files of the Personal Staff in Nuremberg and the Führer personnel files of the SS Personnel Main Office were added. While these later returned to the Document Center in Berlin and - reduced by withdrawals, e.g. for the "Schumacher Collection", which was formed in the Document Center against all archival provenance principles on the basis of factual aspects and which was transferred to the Federal Archives in 1962 - remained in the custody of the Document Center until it was taken over by the Federal Archives in the summer of 1994 [5], the Personal Staff, which had also been reduced by further withdrawals for trial purposes, was transferred to the USA during the Berlin blockade in 1948/49. In the course of the general repatriation of confiscated German archival records from British and American custody in 1962, it was handed over by the National Archives in Washington to the Federal Archives in Koblenz in a mixture with other records from the command area of the Reichsführer-SS [6]. After the restoration of the state unity of Germany on 3 October 1990 and the unification of the former central state archives of the GDR with the Federal Archives, the archives of the Personal Staff together with the other state and party official holdings of the Federal Archives from the period before 1945 came under the responsibility of the newly established "German Reich" Department of the Federal Archives, which was initially located in Potsdam and has been part of the Federal Archives Office in Berlin-Lichterfelde since 1996. The tradition of the Personal Staff in the Federal Archives was supplemented by a "Himmler Collection" formed in the Document Center and also handed over to the Federal Archives in 1962 [7]. It contained Himmler's personal papers, which were kept in the Federal Archives, supplemented by a microfilm of diary entries from the years 1914-1924 [8] kept in the Hoover Institution, and which constitute Himmler's estate [9]. However, the majority of the collection consisted of documents from the Personal Staff and the SS-Adjutantur, which were added to the files of the Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS. These include notes and recordings of Himmler's appointments and telephone conversations. 10] Finally, the Federal Archives were able to reunite the files of the Personal Staff that had previously been placed in the "Schumacher Collection" in the Document Center with the main holdings in NS 19. This also applies to those parts of a comprehensive collection of copies of Personal Staff documents that were created in the Document Center before the transfer of the holdings to the USA and whose "original" originals can no longer be verified in the holdings or could not yet be verified. The identification of the copies with the corresponding originals proved to be very time-consuming above all because the internal structure of the collection of copies, consisting mostly of compiled individual pieces, differed fundamentally from the order found or newly created for the files. The remaining copies, i.e. copies that could not be identified on the basis of "originals", were finally assigned to the holdings as such, and their form of transmission as copies were recorded as comments. For the majority of these remaining copies, including the few larger connected processes [11], it can be assumed that the corresponding "originals" were lost before the repatriation from the USA, or were excluded from the repatriation for reasons which can no longer be understood today, or simply, like many other German contemporary historical sources, must be regarded as lost. In individual cases, on the other hand, a double tradition cannot be ruled out; the "originals" of the documents recorded as copies may still be in an unexpected place in the inventory, but to want to find them under any circumstances would have required an unjustifiable effort. In the course of the revision and increase of the total holdings in August 2007 by orders, orders and decrees of the individual departments in the Personal Staff of the Reichsführer-SS as well as of the command authorities of the Waffen-SS and individual units of the SS upper sections concerning documents, the existing collection could be further expanded in its range of holdings. Furthermore, activity reports and partly personal documentations of the higher SS and police leaders as well as announcements, decrees and orders concerning cultural and ideological matters of folklore and resettlement policy were included. _ [1] Cf. the general aspect Josef Henke, Das Schicksal deutscher zeitgeschichtlicher Quellen in Kriegs- und Nachkriegszeit (The Fate of German Contemporary History Sources in the War and Post-War Period). Confiscation - repatriation - whereabouts, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 30 (1982), pp. 557-617 [2] Cf. Topography of Terror (Note 51), pp. 178 ff. and Gerald Reitlinger, Die SS, Munich 1957, p. 55 [3] Findings of members of the then main archive (former Prussian Secret State Archive) in Berlin-Dahlem. 4] On the use of confiscated German files for the Nuremberg Trials see Henke (Note 54), pp. 570-577. 5] See Dieter Krüger, Das ehemalige "Berlin Document Center" im Spannungsfeld von Politik, Wissenschaft und öffentlichen Meinung, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 45 (1997), pp. 49-74. 6] Guides to German Records Microfilmed at Alexandria/Va.., Vol. 32, 33, see also Heinz Boberach, Die schriftliche Überlieferung der Behörden des Deutschen Reiches 1871-1945. Securing, repatriation, substitute documentation, in: Aus der Arbeit des Bundesarchivs (oben Anm. 1), p. 50-61, here: p. 57 [7] See NSDAP Main Archive, Guide to the Hoover Institution Microfilm Collection, compiled by Grete Heinz and Agnes F. Peterson, Hoover Institution Bibliographical Series XVII, Stanford 1964, p. 144-149 [8] See Werner T. Angress and Bradley F. Smith, Diaries of Heinrich Himmler's Early Years, in: The Journal of Modern History, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, 1959, p. 206-224 [9] Federal Archives holdings N 1126 [10] See the below in Sections B.1..3 and B.3 archival records. 11] [(NS 19/539) and in Ukraine 1942-1945 (NS 19/544). Registrar's Relationships The "Administration of records" department of the Personal Staff was responsible for the administration of records. A "document management order" regulated "file creation and storage" [1]. The filing plan provided for the written material to be divided into four categories: Personnel filing cabinet (red), Subject filing cabinet (blue), Special filing cabinet (green), Command filing cabinet (yellow). The identification of the processes took place within a stamp imprint: personal staff Reichsführer-SS, records administration, file. No. ..., by handwritten colour inscriptions of the name (personal file) or the file number. The assignment to the individual categories, in particular the distinction between "Personnel folder" and "Subject subject folder", was often inconsistent, that is, things were also stored according to the names of correspondence partners. Subject-matter filing could take place both to a narrower subject in the sense of a "process", but also to subject series up to the number of 25 numbered individual processes increase. In addition to open files, secret files with their own characteristics and structures were also kept. The war situation and in particular the decentralised keeping of records in the field command posts led to different forms of filing after a combination of Roman-Arabic numerals without any recognisable factual connection between the individual "events", partly also - originally not foreseen - correspondence files. Filing aids and storage aids that have not been preserved may have secured access to the not particularly sophisticated document storage system to some extent. NS 19/2881: Archive evaluation and processing of confiscations at the end of the war, file transports to file collection points, file withdrawals and file rearrangements for various purposes (e.g. for the Nuremberg Trials and for the biographical collections of the Document Center in Berlin), mixtures of provenances and new formations of files have not left the already weak classification system unimpaired. In addition, files that were confiscated, as it were, on the desks of the departments and authorities, and this includes a large part of the documents captured from SS departments, were mostly in a loose state and were particularly susceptible to disorder. The SS tradition that arrived in the USA was essentially classified into three categories: Files of command authorities and troops of the Waffen-SS on the one hand and files of SS upper sections with subordinate units and facilities on the other hand were put together in separate complexes with different signatures. In a third category, in provenance overlapping to the two mentioned categories and in a colorful mixture of provenance and pertinence (e.g., files of state authorities with SS matters), all the files were brought together that seemed suitable to present the SS as an organization with its manifold ramifications. In the Federal Records Center, a file depot in Alexandria, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., these files - like numerous other traditions of civilian provenance - were arranged according to a scheme developed on the basis of a captured "Unified File Plan for the OKW and the OKH. The SS files were assigned to the EAP (= Einheitsaktenplan)-collection groups 160-164 (160 = Development of the SS, 161 = Top Division of the SS, 162 = Territorial Division of the SS, 163 = Advertising, Service, Special Affairs of the General SS, 164 = Concentration Camps and Death's Head Units), within which they were divided into a subject group with one or two subgroups. This order was converted into an alpha numerical signature (e.g. EAP 161-c-28-10); the counting of the file units followed a horizontal line in the numbering 1-N (e.g. EAP 161-c-28-10/1). This complex of files, formed in this way, largely filmed by the Americans and finally transferred to the Federal Archives, was divided here according to provenance. Considerable parts of the archives today consist of the holdings NS 31 (SS-Hauptamt), NS 33 (SS-Führungshauptamt) and NS 34 (SS-Personalhauptamt). The holdings NS 7 (SS- and police jurisdiction), NS 3 (SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt), NS 4 (concentration camps), NS 21 (Ahnenerbe), NS 17 (Leibstandarte SS "Adolf Hitler"), NS 32 (SS-Helferinnenschule Oberehnheim) also received considerable growth from this restitution, NS 2 (Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt-SS) and NS 48 (Sonstige zentrale Einrichtungen der SS, including a few remaining documents from the Institute of Statistical Science and the SS School "Haus Wewelsburg") as well as - to varying degrees - numerous other archival holdings of both party and state provenances. Documents of regional SS offices and institutions, in particular of SS upper sections and SS sections, but also of SS standards, storm bans and storms reached the responsible state archives of the Länder. The found files of Waffen-SS units were handed over to the Military Archives Department of the Federal Archives in Freiburg i. Br. for the RS inventory group there. The orders, orders, decrees and communications of all central SS services, originally combined in the "Befehlsablage", later in the Federal Archives in an "SS-Befehlssammlung", were restructured in chronological series according to exhibitor provenance (Reichsführer-SS, SS-Hauptämter or other subordinate organisational units) and assigned to the corresponding provenance holdings. The consequence of this was that the NS 19 holdings only contain the special category of the so-called "SS orders" and those issued by the Reichsführer-SS without any additions, as well as the orders, decrees, and orders issued by the departments of the Personal Staff themselves. The remaining records of the Personal Staff, at that time also called the NS 19 holdings "new", proved, as a glance at the Microfilm-Guides can confirm, to be a tradition that consisted largely of formed records management files, but could not be left in the traditional order or file description. However, in a very time-consuming working procedure, which was fully justified by the quality of the holdings, which could not be overestimated with regard to the authentic documentation of the history of the SS and the National Socialist state, a rearrangement and re-drawing according to events or subject series - as far as these had been formed in a meaningful appendix - was carried out, as a rule without regard to the original file units. The primary goal was to create clearly defined and described procedures from larger complexes of written documents with little or no factual connection. The fact that this often led to archival archival units, whose size is very small, often only minimal, had to be accepted, as well as the resulting disappointment of the user to find only a few sheets of archival material behind an important title. As a rule, more comprehensive archive units appear with detailed "Contained" and "Herein" notes, so that their exhaustive description of content is also guaranteed. The indexing begun by Elisabeth Kinder at the end of the 1960s was based on the "Guidelines for the Title Recording of Modern Files" (Instruction for Archival Activity No. 29), which were valid at the time in the Federal Archives and entered into force on 15 January 1963. The recorded running times of the archive units, most of which were newly created in the archives, consistently follow the date that can be determined first and last in the records. Deviations are usually indicated. Only where it seemed important and above all expedient, especially in the case of individual documents, are monthly and daily data given. Terms of annexes falling within the time frame of the actual transaction, also of other documents which are obviously "outliers" in terms of time, are listed in brackets, time data indexed in square brackets. Cassations were handled with the utmost caution in the cataloguing of this collection of archival records of the Nazi regime - apart from duplicates and the collection of copies from the "Schumacher Collection". Even in those cases where the reasons for cassation in the archives did suggest a cassation, it was decided in principle to preserve the archival records. In this context, the problem of the destruction of files of important authorities and departments of the Nazi state, which sometimes touched on political dimensions as well, especially when these were directly linked to the ideology and extermination machinery of the Nazi state, such as those of the SS and especially of the Reichsführer-SS, should be remembered. 1] The classification of the holdings carried out after the completion of the title records could not, as for example in the case of a large number of ministerial file holdings, be based on prescribed file plans or other highly developed registration aids. Therefore, it was necessary to find an objective structure independent of the registry, which was primarily based on the above-described competence structure of the Personal Staff and, in a broader sense, also on the overall organizational responsibilities of the Reich leadership of the SS, as defined by the various main offices and other central offices. From the registry order outlined above, only the above-mentioned "command file" (in Section C.1) and the "personnel file" (Sections C.2 and C.7.6) can be identified in general terms. The fact that this rather factual-technical classification is accentuated by Himmler's special, sometimes peculiarly quirky personal fields of interest in a conspicuous way, sometimes even superimposed, so in the areas of health care, race and population policy, science, nutrition, plant breeding and inventions, gives the stock of his Personal Staff a special, from the traditions of the other SS-main offices deviating, just "personal" coloring. It is true that the individual areas of classification are to be understood primarily as related to the SS. So education and training means first of all education and training of the SS. Science stands above all for the "science" pursued by the SS and misunderstood, even perverted, in its ideological sense. And economy refers primarily to the SS economic enterprises. It is not difficult to recognize, however, that a mixture with "SS-free" dimensions of the concepts and areas could not always be avoided. The chapter on finances documents not only the financing of the SS but also some aspects of state financial policy. In addition to the administration and the completely ideologized health policy ideas of the SS, some files also concern state administration, as well as state health policy. Section C.19 (Reichsverteidigung...) also concerns the warfare of the Wehrmacht in addition to the widely documented establishment, organization and deployment of Himmler's Waffen SS. Ultimately, however, this mixture appears to be a reflection of the mixture of state and party official competences that was consistently practised in Himmler's power apparatus, i.e. here mostly "SS-like" competences, apart from the fact that a convincing archival separation would mostly have been possible only at the "sheet level" and thus too costly. Cross-references were applied relatively sparingly. On the other hand, titles that apply to several subject areas appear several times in case of doubt, i.e. in each of the appropriate sections. Since its return to the Federal Archives, the holdings have been usable from the outset and at all times due to the declaration of disclosure [2] requested by the Allies from the Federal Government before the return of German files. And it is undoubtedly one of the most frequently used archives of the Federal Archives since then. In the more than three decades it was used unchanged strongly for all purposes of use, essentially of course for historical research, but also for the numerous domestic and foreign lawsuits for Nazi violent crimes and Nazi war crimes up to the late seventies. This led not only to the unusually long duration of his indexing - the processing of the holdings could not be a reason for temporarily excluding the archives from use for reasons of both archival expertise and politics - but also to different citation methods in the numerous publications he was called upon to produce, corresponding to the respective state of indexing. In addition to the American EAP signatures used almost exclusively, especially in very early publications, the "old" NS-19 signatures assigned immediately after the repatriation, but still before the indexing, were also frequently used, and from the late 1960s these were increasingly combined with the "old" NS-19 signatures assigned in the L

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/...