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Inventory description Inventory history The entire file inventory was essentially the old file registry of the Buea governorate, which had been left there when it was evacuated in 1914. The holdings were later divided between the English administration in Buea and the French administration in Yaounde and merged in 1974 in the National Archives in Yaounde. After the evacuation of Yaounde on 1 January 1916, after the destruction of the unneeded parts, the files went to Spanish-Muni, from there via Fernando Poo to the seat of the Madrid embassy governorate. In 1919 the files were transferred to the Reichsarchiv, where a large part was destroyed as not worthy of preservation. The rest fell victim to a bombing raid on Potsdam on 20 April 1945. Thus the files kept in the National Archives in Yaounde - apart from the preserved files of the R e i c h s k o l o n i a l a m t - constitute the only official written record of the period of German colonial rule in Cameroon. Archival evaluation and processing The Federal Archives' efforts to secure and film the files stored in Cameroon from the time of the German colonial administration date back to 1970. Through the mediation of the Federal Foreign Office and the German Embassy, the Federal Archives were able to offer the Director of the National Archives in Yaounde Cameroon the opportunity to send a German archivist to Cameroon for a limited period of time in order to arrange and record the German holdings together with local staff. The project was approved on 6 August 1971. After solving various organizational, financial and personnel problems, the project was realized in 1974/75. In a subsequent phase of the project, beginning in 1983, the files were to be filmed by means of microfilm exchange, whereby the technical equipment was to be left to the National Archives, after local staff had received appropriate training during the filming campaign. The films exposed in Cameroon were developed, controlled and duplicated in the Federal Archives. The National Archives in Yaounde received a duplicate film.