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History of the Inventory Designer: History After the foundation of the Reich in 1871, the creation of a common railway administration for all German states was not initially on the agenda. The southern German states feared the overweight of Prussia and finally rejected Bismarck's rich railroad law of 1875. Only the railway lines in Alsace and Lorraine, which were separated from France, were subject to the Imperial Chancellor since 1871. For the railway system in Germany the network of the Alsace-Lorraine Railways (besides 7 state administrations at that time) existed as the only state administration until the transfer of the state railway administrations of the Länder into the possession of the Reich. This railway network consisted of the parts of the French Ostbahn assigned to the German Reich on the basis of the Frankfurt Peace Treaty of 10 May 1871 and the lines of the Wilhelm-Luxemburg-Eisenbahnen taken over on a lease basis by the State Treaty of 11 June 1872 with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The newly formed "Kaiserliche Generaldirektion der Reichseisenbahnen in Elsass-Lothringen" had been established for this purpose by the Most High Decree of 9 December 1871 with the powers and duties of a public authority. At first it was directly subordinated to the Reich Chancellery (Department III for Alsace-Lorraine). Until the French occupation of Alsace-Lorraine in November 1918, it was also the focal point of operations and administration. For the development of transport in Alsace-Lorraine, in addition to the special traffic situation on the Upper Rhine road and the Burgundy Gate, the development of industry was of importance. While originally the textile industry in the area of Mulhouse stood in the first place, the German heavy industry, which shifted to Lorraine and Luxembourg, came more and more into the foreground, in addition the potash works in the Upper Alsace, which developed on a coincidental discovery, and the not very important but in Germany at that time almost only petroleum extraction near Pechelbronn. In the interests of smooth cooperation between transport operators and production units, a "Railway Committee" was set up on 1 October 1874, composed of representatives of chambers of commerce, industry and agriculture. This first Railway Committee later became the model for the Railway Councils affiliated to the other German State Railway Administrations. The Directorate-General also broke new ground on the question of tariffs by creating the so-called wagon room tariff. The inauguration of the first railways in Alsace-Lorraine, the Strasbourg - Basel line, took place on 19 and 20 September 1841. Thirty years later, when the Alsace-Lorraine Railways were taken over by the German Reich, the length of the line was 768.21 km, plus 174.54 km of the Wilhelm-Luxemburg Railway Company. Under German administration more than 1200 km were added. From a technical point of view, the railways were regarded as model installations in every respect: the transhipment facilities between railways and inland waterways were brought to the highest level of technical efficiency; the stations in Strasbourg and Metz were converted from small provincial stations into metropolitan stations with all the requirements of modern times. Net revenues in 1872 amounted to more than 5 million Marks, increased to 20 million Marks in 1890, 86 million Marks in 1900 and 153 million Marks in 1913, the last year of peace. On 27 May 1878, the Imperial Decree established the Reichsamt für die Verwaltung der Reichseisenbahnen in Berlin. It was a central authority under the direct authority of the Imperial Chancellor to manage the administration of the railways in Alsace-Lorraine and the neighbouring regions. The General Directorate of the Reichseisenbahnen in Alsace-Lorraine was now subordinated to the Reichsamt für die Verwaltung der Reichseisenbahnen, which acted as the state supervisory authority. The respective Prussian Minister of Public Works was entrusted with the management of the authority. First head of the Reich Office was State Minister Albert von Maybach (1822-1904), later Karl von Thielen (1832-1906) followed from June 1891, Hermann von Budde (1851-1906) from June 1902 and Paul von Breitenbach (1850-1930) from 1906. Direct management was the responsibility of the Directorate-General for Railways in Alsace-Lorraine, based in Strasbourg. Until 1 October 1909 it consisted of three departments: Division 1 for Operations, Division 2 for Construction, Division 3 for Transport and General Administration. To this end, the company management, traffic inspections, machine inspections, workshop inspections and a telegraph inspection managed the various branches of the company and traffic, while the central technical offices (the technical office, the construction office, the mechanical office and the materials office) independently handled a number of general transactions falling within the scope of the central administration. On 1 October 1909, a reorganisation came into force, the importance of which lay essentially in the removal of the operational directorates without replacement and the abolition of the central offices and the telegraph inspection, whose business was now handled by the Directorate-General itself. At the same time, the number of departments increased to 5: Department 1 for General Administration, Finance and Budgeting, Department 2 for Operations, Department 3 for Transportation, Department 4 for Construction, Department 5 for Machinery and Workshops. The 17 operational inspections in Alsace-Lorraine and 3 operational inspections in Luxembourg were directly carried out by the Directorate-General. The Executive Board of the German operations administration in Luxembourg was the superior authority for all departments of the district. There were 8 traffic inspections in Basel, Mulhouse, Colmar, Strasbourg, Saargemünd, Metz, Diedenhofen and Luxembourg. The traffic inspector in Basel also held the post of representative of the German administration vis-à-vis Switzerland. There were 6 machine inspections: in Mulhouse, Strasbourg, Saargemünd, Metz, Diedenhofen and Luxembourg. The main workshops were in Mulhouse, Bischheim near Strasbourg, Montigny near Metz and Niederjeutz near Diedenhofen. They were subject to the workshop inspections in Bischheim and Montigny two each (for locomotive construction and for carriage construction one each). Secondary workshops subject to machine inspections were located in Saargemünd and Luxembourg. Since 1911, all inspections have been called Offices, Plant Office, Machine Office, etc.). The incorporation of the Prussian Minister of Public Works into the administrative organization of the Reich strengthened the influence of the head of the Prussian State Railways over the heads of the other federal railway administrations and reduced the importance of the Reich Railway Office for issues related to national defence. 7 After the assignment of Alsace-Lorraine to France as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, the Reich Ministry of Transport took over the Reich Office's execution tasks in the autumn of 1919. The source value of the files taken over from the General Directorate in Strasbourg was described by the Reichsarchiv as "sufficient" at the time. "Apart from some historically interesting details from the recent times of Emperor Wilhelm I and Prince Bismarck, their value for the history of the German Empire lies in the... 9 Reference should be made to the peculiarities of Alsace-Lorraine's traffic situation at the intersection of important north-south and east-west connections and the resulting tradition of archival sources. The files contain documents from negotiations on the construction of major Alpine passes (Gotthard Railway, Eastern Alpine Railway, Simplon Railway), traffic between England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy, traffic between the Balkan states, Austria-Hungary and the southern German administrations on the one hand and France and Spain on the other. Further documents are available on construction and engineering, operational services, passenger, baggage and freight traffic. A comprehensive component reflects the collective bargaining system, including social aspects taking into account foreign language problems. Measures against espionage, sabotage and agent activity, also persecution of political opponents are recorded in the "Secret Acts A and B", statements on military facts, especially the mobilization, the war 1914/18, the armistice and the peace negotiations can be found in the "Secret Acts M". Inventory description: Inventory history The files of the Directorate-General of the Reichseisenbahnen in Strasbourg have been transferred to France. A few files from the former Central State Archives in Potsdam are in the inventory R 4202 General Directorate of the Reich Railways in Alsace-Lorraine in the Federal Archives. The files of the Reichsamt for the administration of the Reichseisenbahnen were offered to the Reichsarchiv for takeover in autumn 1931. From the entire file stock of about 4000 volumes, 1313 volumes were transferred to the Reichsarchiv for permanent storage in accordance with the then existing regulations. Obviously, there were no war losses. Archival evaluation and processing The files of the Reich Office for the Administration of the Reich Railways taken over by the Reichsarchiv were arranged, listed and recorded on index cards in 1932, followed by a finding aid book for the holdings (today: R 4201). In 2008, the inventory was recorded in the BASYS-S database of the Federal Archives on the basis of the find book available from 1932. This was done by entering the data into the BASYS-S database of the Federal Archives for the purpose of making the search results available online. The intensive index data were taken over for the most part original with the abbreviations used at that time. Only the numerical archive signatures were retained for the indexing; for found files with volume numbering (e.g. 154 a), each volume received a new archive signature. This concerned all files with the now new archive signature R 4201/729 to R 4201/1430. The previous signatures were listed as old signatures, the files themselves were re-signed in 2008 in the course of an inventory revision and magazine-technical work. Content: Organization and administration of the Reichsamt 1870-1920 (186), budget and cash administration 1870-1921(386), personnel matters: Civil servant matters 1871-1920 (385), special personnel matters (secret files B) 1872-1919 (13), building and construction 1864-1919 (152), operational services 1871-1918 (86), passenger and baggage traffic 1871-1918 (21), freight traffic 1871-1919 (169), collective bargaining 1871-1919 (145), Measures against espionage, sabotage and agent activity, also persecution of political opponents (secret files A) 1881-1919 (14), mobilization, war, armistice, peace negotiations (secret files M) 1872-1920 (93) Online Findbuch (2009) In total, the holdings in the Federal Archives include 1430 files. Together with the holdings of the Reichseisenbahnamt (R 4101) and the Generaldirektion der Eisenbahnen in Elsass-Lothringen (R 4202), a rather complete set of files exists for the early period of traffic organisation in the railway age in Germany - regardless of its correspondence with the files of the Prussian Ministry of Public Works, which are located in the Prussian Secret State Archives in Berlin-Dahlem, and the large number of archival sources on railway history in the archives of the Länder, districts and cities. The source value of the files taken over from the General Directorate in Strasbourg was described by the Reichsarchiv as "sufficient" at the time. Apart from some historically interesting details from the recent time of Emperor Wilhelm I. and Prince Bismarck, their value for the history of the German Empire [lies] in the... that at the Reichsamt almost all the questions that the Prussian Ministry of Public Works had to deal with were reflected in a more concise and concise form. Reference should be made to the special features of Alsace-Lorraine's traffic situation at the intersection of important north-south and east-west connections and the resulting tradition of archival sources. The files contain documents from negotiations on the construction of major Alpine passes (Gotthard Railway, Eastern Alpine Railway, Simplon Railway), traffic between England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy, traffic between the Balkan states, Austria-Hungary and the southern German administrations on the one hand and France and Spain on the other. Further documents are available on construction and engineering, operational services, passenger, baggage and freight traffic. A comprehensive component reflects the collective bargaining system, including social aspects taking into account foreign language problems. Measures against espionage, sabotage and agent activity, also persecution of political opponents are recorded in the "Secret Acts A and B", statements on military facts, especially the mobilization, the war 1914/18, the armistice and the peace negotiations can be found in the "Secret Acts M". Supplementary traditions Further traditions include the inventories R 4101 Reichseisenbahnamt and R 4202 Generaldirektion der Eisenbahnen in Elsass-Lothringen. The Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin contain the files of the Prussian Ministry of Public Works (holdings I. HA Rep. 93 B Ministry of Public Works). Citation style: BArch, R 4201/...