History of the Inventory Designer: Introduction Stones do not speak. Much less can or must entire buildings reveal the whole historical truth. National Socialism should work. Building under National Socialism also served this purpose, either directly on behalf of the system or indirectly at least by not opposing it. The enslavement of architecture by the regime was not limited to new buildings of the NS era. National Socialism also established itself in the stock, instrumentalised old buildings everywhere for its purposes. Not even all of the important command centers of the Nazi regime or the main sites of Nazi terror were housed throughout in buildings which, in historical retrospect, could be regarded as having their origin and function at the time. In the memory of the city and in the urban space, places of the perpetrators are handed down as places of the victims, whose role is only revealed in the explanation and commentary of their historical function in the "Third Reich". Prehistory until 1937 In the Third Reich, architecture served to express power and domination. This is particularly evident in the inner city of Berlin. The monumental new buildings in the imperial capital were intended to symbolize "German world standing". Adolf Hitler wanted to see "works created for eternity" in Berlin, "only comparable with ancient Egypt, Babylon or Rome," as he said in 1936. At the 1937 Reich Party Congress, Hitler announced: "... Therefore our buildings should not be thought for the year 1940, also not for the year 2000, but should project directly into the domes of our past into the millennia of the future." Soon after the seizure of power, propagandistically effective building projects were started. These included the Reich Aviation Ministry, Tempelhof Airport, which was to be expanded into a "world airport", and the Reich Sports Field, which was to be expanded and redesigned with a view to the Olympic Games. The powerful buildings were presented to the public with great journalistic effort. At the 1936 Reich Party Congress in Nuremberg, Hitler announced the "reconstruction of Berlin as the capital of the German Reich". Hitler had initially intended to have his plans for the reorganization of the inner-city area processed by the Berlin city administration. When he realised that the local authorities were reluctant to impose his far-reaching transformation fantasies, he changed the responsibilities for planning and building in the capital. On 30 January 1937, the young architect Albert Speer was appointed general building inspector for the redevelopment of the imperial capital (GBI), reporting directly to the "Führer". Organization and history from 1937 A few days after Speer's appointment, Hitler ordered the House of the Academy of Arts at Pariser Platz No. 4, which until then had belonged to the office of the Minister of Education, to be vacated for the office of the General Building Inspector. Within a year and a half, the GBI's planning staff alone grew to eighty-seven people, while the so-called implementing body employed the same number of staff. Speer appointed a number of equally competent and reliable people to the executive positions in the three main departments into which he divided the office: the head office, which administered the budget, was taken over by the financial expert Karl Maria Hettlage, the general site manager Walter Brugmann, who had got to know Speer in Nuremberg, and for the planning office, since it was objectively most important to him, he, in addition to Hans Stephan, called on two long-standing friends, Rudolf Wolters and Willi Schelkes, who had been associated with him since days of study. The Speers offices, which had been established successively since 1937, were not divided into three main offices until mid-1940 under the central management of the GBI. After his appointment to the GBI, Speer expanded his planning staff to the "office" of the GBI. This later Main Office I, Planning Office, was responsible for all planning matters, ordered more than one hundred areas of redesign by 1942 and set the respective clearance dates. From 1938, Jewish tenants were forced to cancel their tenancy agreements on the basis of the "Verordnung über den Einsatz des jüdischen Vermögens" (Ordinance on the Use of Jewish Property); they were admitted to Jewish houses and later to concentration camps. For the "resettlement" of Jews and the reassignment of the apartments, the GBI's "Implementation Office" had been set up under the direction of Karl Maria Hettlage. In this way about 18,000 apartments were requisitioned. Areas from which the Jews were completely expelled were described as "Jew-free". The number of buildings erected during the twelve years of National Socialist rule between 1933 and 1945 is surprisingly high, especially since it must be remembered that only six years were available during the Second World War. In November 1939, a ban on new construction was imposed due to the war, which was followed half a year later by the discontinuation of all construction measures not necessary for the war. The GBI was established by the Decree of 30 January 1937. The office itself was assigned to Albert Speer, who from 1934 was "the representative for construction in the staff of the deputy of the Führer" and as such had already established some Nazi party buildings, especially in Nuremberg. At first, the GBI's competence did not extend beyond Berlin and its immediate surroundings. The "Gesetz über die Neugestaltung deutscher Städte" of 4 Oct. 1937 does not yet contain a more detailed provision on the "agency commissioned" by Hitler himself to carry out these projects. Only in this way was it possible for a special "General Building Council for the Capital of the Movement" to be appointed to Munich by decree of 21 Dec. 1938 and for this office to be occupied by the NS party architect Paul Giesler; Giesler was also commissioned with the establishment of NS party buildings in Augsburg and Weimar. It was not until the third decree on the GBI of 18 Oct 1940 that the competence of the GBI was significantly extended. The latter was expressly declared a "commissioned body" within the meaning of the Act on the Redevelopment of German Cities. In the years 1938 to 1942, a total of 32 cities in the former Reich territory were included in the new planning on the basis of the law of 4 Oct. 1937 by decrees and ordinances promulgated in the Reichsgesetzblatt. As of the end of 1942, the progress of all urban development plans of a peace-related nature was completely halted, since tasks important to the war awaited solution and Speer himself had been largely involved in them since his appointment as Reich Minister for Armament and Munitions on 15 February 1942 and on 2 September 1943 as Reich Minister for Armament and War Production. With the decree of 11 Oct. 1943 on the preparation of the reconstruction of bomb-damaged cities, Speer was entrusted with the necessary tasks in his capacity as GBI. He had to determine the framework for the future design of the cities and the right to decide on urban development issues of the reconstruction cities in place of the Reich Minister of Labour. The elimination of the Reich Labour Minister, to whom Speer had previously been bound as GBI despite his direct subordination under Hitler, was above all a consequence of Speer's present position as Reich Minister. Inventory description: Inventory history In Germany, the General Building Inspector's collection for the imperial capital is divided into three archives: the Bundesarchiv, the Landesarchiv Berlin and the Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv Munich. A total of three finding aids were available in the Federal Archives for the inventory R 4606 General Building Inspector for the Imperial Capital. The holdings were brought together from Potsdam and Koblenz at the beginning of the 1990s and have since been known as R 4606 General Building Inspector for the Imperial Capital. In the Landesarchiv Berlin there are 1016 files as well as in the planning chamber there 1,000 sheets of the GBI under the signature A Pr.Br.Rep. 107 from the years (1935) 1937 to 1945. In addition there are files of the grave commissioner active since July 1932 and last on his behalf, the former social democratic government president Ernst von Harnack. The card index of the graves of important personalities, arranged according to city districts and cemeteries, was intended to prepare the construction of an honorary cemetery "to express the spiritual significance of the imperial capital" (148 vols., 1941-1943). With the provenance indication "Baubüro Speer", the Hauptstaatsarchiv Munich contains more than 3,000 plans for buildings mainly in Berlin (including the Reich Chancellery, Reichstag, "Haus des Führers", "Große Halle"), the party congress grounds in Nuremberg and others. Furthermore, the special archive in Moscow contains a collection of 86 files of various contents from the years 1920 to 1944 under the title Fond 1409 General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital, e.g. on the use of prisoners of war at the GBI or correspondence between Speers and authorities and private individuals. Archival evaluation and processing Before 1990, the holdings were processed both in Potsdam with the inventory designation R 46.06 and in Koblenz (R 120) up to the preparation of the finding aid book. With the merging of the holdings mentioned above, the Koblenz files received new signatures. In view of the great public interest in information from this archive stock, it was decided in 2008 to retro-convert the finding aids with the aim of publishing them on the Internet. 177 files from a transfer of files from the Bamberg State Archives from the 1980s, which deal with the construction of the High Command of the Army and the Soldiers' Hall, were indexed and subsequently recorded. In 2008, the 29 files of the head of department at GBI, Schelkes' estate documents under the previous name "Kleine Erwerbungen Nr. 864" were also added. A further takeover included the "Art in the Third Reich" component, which had been incorporated into the archives, from which 38 index units of maps and plans were allocated to the holdings and listed. The archives were already taken over by the GDR Department in 1997. However, they have not been added to the portfolio due to equal signatures, but have been managed as an extra bundle without a direct reference to the portfolio. The classifications found were largely adopted and summarised in a factual manner. The development data available up to then were partly modified and series and volume sequences formed. The internal order of the files has been maintained. The inventory has already been moved from standing folders to folders. The maps are stored in specially designed folders and cabinets. Characterization of content: Office Speer 1937-1944 (111); files of leading employees (as far as not objectively assigned) 1937-1944 (59); Main Office Administration and Economy: General Administration: Administration of services 1937-1945 (99), General administration 1932-1945 (442), Land and building matters 1937-1945 (71), Procurement and inventory management 1937-1945 (4), Budget matters 1937-1945 (299), Accounting 1938-1944 (17), Secret files (chronological) 1938-1945 (34), Examination office 1940-1945 (56), Treasury 1938-1945 (91), Other financial and administrative matters 1939-1945 (11). Personnel 1938-1943 (152), Law 1937-1945 (51), Housing issues (evacuation and resettlement), 1937-1945 (50), Quota administration 1939-1945 (80); Planning office: Plankammer 1937-1943 (15), Competitions exhibitions and collections 1934-1942 (44), Area declarations 1938-1944 (64), Individual construction planning areas: General 1937-1945 (133), armament expansion 1939-1943 (43), Wehrmacht installations 1937-1944 (98), Reich Air Ministry Airports 1937-1940 (31), traffic 1934-1943 (402), buildings and installations 1935-1944 (567), Authorities and organisations 1936-1944 (428), industrial buildings 1936-1944 (402), residential buildings in individual administrative districts of Berlin and the surrounding area 1936-1944 (405), other planning projects 1938-1944 (7), construction projects outside Berlin 1936-1943 (164); Implementation office for the redesign of the imperial capital 1938-1944(19); general construction management: Supervision of the army high command: General 1939-1945 (38), individual projects (building blocks) 1939-1945 (150). Construction management 1939-1945 (10), maps plans schematics: General 1938-1942 (11), development planning of settlements and peripheral communities 1938-1942 (20), streets and squares green and open spaces 1937-1943 (50), authorities and institutions 1938-1943 (36), Wehrmacht facilities of the Reich Aviation Ministry 1937-1940 (7), University and teaching facilities 1938-1943 (11), industrial and office buildings 1939-1943 (28), residential buildings 1939-1944 (46), Reichsbahnbaudirektion Berlin 1939-1941 (18), theatre buildings 1936-1943 (260), buildings outside Berlin 1923-1948 (44). Settlement agency: 1946-1948 (1). Citation style: BArch, R 4606/...
History of the Inventor: The Reich Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda is instructed and authorized to combine the members of the branches of activity that concern his sphere of duties into public corporations"[1] With this clear sentence, the Reichskulturkammergesetz of September 22, 1933 was introduced and the nationalization and supervision of German culture began, namely the forced unification of all those active in the field of culture in an association, the Reichskulturkammer. In addition to its headquarters, the Reichskulturkammer consisted of the following individual chambers: 1st Reichsschrifttumskammer (Bundesarchiv Bestand R 56-V) 2nd Reichspressekammer (R 56-IV) 3rd Reichsrundfunkkammer 4th Reichstheaterkammer (R 56-III) 5. Reichsmusikkammer (R 56-II) 6th Reichskammer der bildenden Künste 7th Reichsfilmkammer (R 56-VI) The Reichsfilmkammer was established before the foundation of the Reichskulturkammer, on 14 July 1933[2] as a "temporary film chamber". The Reichsrundfunkkammer was dissolved again on 28 October 1939 and the members distributed among the other individual chambers.[3] The tasks and organization of the individual chambers can be found in the introductions to the corresponding finding aids. With the First Decree on the Implementation of the Reichskulturkammergesetz of 1 November 1933[4], the individual chambers were given the status of public corporations, which in turn were merged into a single public corporation, namely the Reichskulturkammer. Provisions which the individual chambers were allowed to enact had the rank of indirect imperial law, but were limited to the area of chamber membership. Paragraph 10 of that first regulation stated that admission to an individual chamber could be refused "if facts exist from which it follows that the person in question does not possess the reliability and aptitude necessary for the performance of his duties"[5] The President of the individual chamber concerned decided on the aptitude and aptitude. A rejection meant a ban on the profession, because the cultural practice of the profession outside the chambers was not permitted. When the Reich Chamber of Culture and its individual chambers were established, however, there were no rejections or prohibitions at first, as the individual chambers automatically took over all those involved in culture who were organised in the professional associations responsible for their area. These professional associations formed part of the chamber as professional associations (e.g. Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnenangehöriger in der Reichstheaterkammer or Deutscher Sängerbund in der Reichsmusikkammer). Thus the members of the professional associations acquired the membership in the single chambers, without examination of the "reliability or suitability". Thus, at the beginning, "non-Aryans" or other groups of people who did not correspond to the "ideal image" of the National Socialists were also in the chambers. For Propaganda Minister Goebbels this was a problem which he tried to solve with the appointment of Hans Hinkels as Third Managing Director of the Reich Chamber of Culture on 1 May 1935. State Commissioner Hinkel was entrusted with dealing with personnel issues in the individual chambers. This meant nothing less than the expulsion of the Jews and other groups of people from the chambers who were undesirable to the National Socialists. Hinkel was responsible for the "cleansing" of the chambers as the "commissioner for the supervision of the intellectual and artistic non-Aryans in German Reich territory". The presidents of the individual chambers were not spared either. Only Max Amann remained president of the Reichspressekammer. It was also Hinkel who took over the transformation of the professional associations into student councils, which was completed in 1935. § 15 of the First Ordinance on the Implementation of the Reichskulturkammergesetz already provided for a division into "professional associations or student councils". What at first glance hardly seemed to be a difference had considerable legal consequences. While the professional associations were still independent corporations with private assets, the newly founded professional associations were only regarded as administrative offices of the chambers without their own legal personality. The former professional associations were thus gradually nationalised and expropriated as a result of this transformation. A particular problem with the presentation of the tasks of the Reich Chamber of Culture was the interdependence with the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. The president of the RKK, Joseph Goebbels, was at the same time Reich Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, his deputy (vice-president) the acting state secretary in the Ministry of Propaganda, at the beginning Reich Press Head Walter Funk. The organisational supervision of the individual chambers was carried out by the RKK headquarters, with its seat in the Ministry of Propaganda. Hans Schmidt-Leonhardt, head of the IC (Legal) department, was initially appointed as its managing director. As a counterpart to the individual chambers, individual specialist departments (press, literature, music, visual arts, theatre, film and radio) were created in the Ministry of Propaganda, whereby the heads of department were at the same time the respective chamber presidents in personal union. The linkages also existed at the lowest Gau level. There was already the usual interweaving of state and party in the Third Reich by the union of the head of the regional office of the Ministry of Propaganda and the head of the NSDAP's main propaganda department in one person. These functionaries now still held the post of Provincial Cultural Administrator and thus the supervision of the local offices of the individual chambers. In support of the Presidents, a Presidential Council was set up in each Chamber. The Presidential Council consisted of seven representatives of the corresponding cultural sector. The persons were appointed by Goebbels himself and the respective chamber president had to appoint a managing director from this circle who was directly entrusted with administrative tasks. On 15 November 1935, Hinkel announced the establishment of the Reich Cultural Senate, in which particularly deserving persons of cultural life would come together and serve as a cultural-political source of ideas for Goebbels. In reality, this Senate was only representative. In it were all chamber presidents, the respective presidential councils, the vice-presidents and the three managing directors of the RKK, who carried the title Reichskulturwalter. But only 3 years later, with Goebbels order of 05 April 1938 (Az. I B 1000)[6], the office of the Reichskulturwalter was abolished again. Only one management remained in the Reich Chamber of Culture with the tasks of "training and propaganda" and supervision of the regional divisions of the individual chambers. The specialist supervision of the individual chambers was now carried out by the specialist departments in the RMVP, the organisational supervision by the responsible administrative departments. The personal union of the offices of Head of Department of the Ministry and President of the Chamber was also abolished. Hinkel himself had been head of the Department IIA (Cultural Activities of Nonarians) since 01 April 1938. After the beginning of the Second World War, the focus was on troop support as an "important task of the war". The troop support consisted essentially of organising performances on front stages and supplying the troops themselves with parlour games, musical instruments, etc. The troops were then given the opportunity to play on the front stages. Organizationally, the RMVP first installed its own "Troop Support" department, which moved to the new "BeKa" department (Special Cultural Tasks)[7] in 1940. The department BeKA was the successor of the department IIA, its head remained Hans Hinkel. By decree of 30 April 1941[8] the "Hauptgeschäftsführung der RKK" was founded. Hinkel received the position of "Secretary General of the RKK" in this main management, which was divided into five departments: Department A (Heinz Tackmann): Administration (Personnel, Budget and Legal Affairs) Department B (Walter Owens): Professional tasks (aptitude test and support of young people, orientation and supervision of career guidance, job creation and social affairs of cultural professions) Department C (Erich Kochanowski): Propaganda (liaison with the departments of party and state, representation of the RKK in film and radio, press affairs, as well as political training and orientation of cultural workers) Department D (Helmuth von Loebell): Cultural personal data (political assessment of cultural workers, exclusion procedures and decisions on complaints, special permits for "non-Aryans", examination of cultural enterprises for Jewish influence, cultural activities of foreigners) Department E (Hans Erich Schrade): Special tasks (troop support, cultural support of the returned ethnic Germans and foreign workers, supervision of the mentally and culturally active Jews in the Reich territory) The BeKA department, which had been de facto dissolved with the founding of the RKK's main management, was renamed "Generalreferat Reichskulturkammersachen"[9] in the RMVP in August 1941. At the same time, the department heads of the main management of the RKK remained in personal union speakers of this general department. The above tasks did not change until the end of the war. On 1 May 1944, Hans Hinkel's key position in the Reich Chamber of Culture became clear once again. On this day, Goebbels appointed Hinkel as Vice President of the RKK, and Hans Erich Schrade assumed the duties of Secretary General. Before that Hinkel had already been appointed "Special Trustee of the Work for the Professions Creating Culture", "Reichsfilmintendanten" and Head of the Film Department in the RMVP. He was also given overall responsibility for the broadcasting entertainment programme. Notes [1] Reichsgesetzblatt 1933 I, p. 661. [2] Reichsgesetzblatt 1933 I, p. 483. [3] 5th VO on the implementation of the Reichskulturkammergesetz. 4]Reichsgesetzblatt 1933 I, p. 797 [5] Reichsgesetzblatt 1933 I, p. 797 [6] Newsletter of the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda No. 5 of 9 April 1938 (R 55/20617). 7] GVPL of 01 Nov 1940 (R 55/20776). [8] R 55/163. [9] GVPL of Nov. 1, 1942 (R 55/20621). Hans Hinkel - Career in the Reich Chamber of Culture 1933 Prussian State Director in Alfred Rosenberg's "Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur" State Commissioner in the Prussian Ministry of Culture Head of the Prussian Theatre Committee 1 May 1935 3. Managing Director in the RKK Headquarters Commissioner for the Supervision of Intellectually and Artistically Active Non-Aryans in the German Reich (as a separate department in the Propaganda Department of the RMVP) 15. Nov. 1935 Reichskulturwalter im Reichssenat 1936 Head of Department II at the headquarters of the RKK 5 April 1938 Head of Department IIA (Supervision of Cultural Activities of Nonarians) in the RMVP July 1940 Chief Executive of the RKK 30. April 1941 General Secretary in the General Management of the RKK August 1941 Head of the General Department for Reich Culture Chamber Matters in the RMVP until 1945 Special trustee of the work for the culture-creating professions Overall responsible for the entertainment programme in the Rundfunk Reichsfilmintendant Head of the Film Department in the RMVP Vice-President of the RKK (from 1. April 1941 onward) May 1944) Inventory description: Inventory history A part of the files (R 56-I/1-147) transferred from the Berlin Document Center to the Federal Archives between 1959 and 1962 has already been recorded by Dr. Wolfram Werner. For a more detailed history of their transmission, see the introduction to the corresponding finding aid book (finding aid books on the holdings of the Federal Archives, volume 31). These are mainly files from the Hinkel office. Newly added were the material files from the "Reichskulturkammer" collections of the former BDC. The contents were as follows: 1. manuscripts of films, novels and plays 2. household matters with the Landeskulturwaltern 3. files of a private service nature (i.e. requests for jobs and petitions, as well as congratulations, mostly from private persons, to Hinkel) Archival processing The titles of the files available in the Koblenz part of the stock are recorded in the present online find book edited by Mr Tim Storch. The signatures assigned at that time were retained. The classification was based on the order already created by Dr. Werner. Due to the new situation of traditions it had to be extended by the item "budget". The classification point "Goebbels-Stiftung für Bühnenschaffende" (Goebbels Foundation for Stage Designers) still existing in the old find book has been removed and is now to be found in the holdings R 56-III (Reichstheaterkammer). It remains to be mentioned that part of the tradition from the former BDC was not recorded in the holdings of the Reichskulturkammer and its individual chambers, but was included in holdings R 55 (Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda) due to the determination of provenance (R 55/21300-21564). This can be explained by the organisational link between the RKK and the RMVP. Foreign provenances were handed over to the responsible archive (Landesarchiv Berlin). These were files of the Reichspropagandaamt Berlin, the NSDAP-Gauleitung Berlin and the Landeskulturwalters Berlin. Publications, in particular circulars of the DAF and newsletters of the RMVP, have also been sorted out and handed over to the library. Citation BArch R 56 I/... State of development: publication index (1987), online index (2006). Citation style: BArch, R 56-I/...