History of the Inventor: After Adolf Hitler had been appointed Reich Chancellor of the German Reich on January 30, 1933, the NSDAP gradually undermined the democratic system of the Weimar Republic over the following months and finally eliminated it. Decisive stages were the abolition of fundamental rights after the fire of the Reichstag on 28 February 1933 and the abolition of parliamentarism by the so-called Enabling Act of 23 March 1933. The latter abolished the separation of powers and conferred all legislative powers on the government under Adolf Hitler for four years. A further step was the smashing of the parties and unions. After the KPD had been banned, the trade unions dissolved and the SPD rendered incapable of action, the other parties dissolved on their own. In the course of these measures, the six existing municipal umbrella organisations also lost their independence. On May 22, 1933, the chairmen and managing presidents of the German/Prussian Association of Cities, the Reichsstädtebund, the Deutscher Landkreistag, the Deutscher Landgemeindetag, the Preußischer Landgemeindetag West, and the Association of Prussian Provinces were forced to give their consent to the transfer of the various associations into a new unified association. From now on, this "German Community Day" was to be the sole corporate representation of all German city and community associations recognised by the NSDAP. In order to standardize the previous associations with their 80 sub-organizations, the provisional Lord Mayor of Munich, Karl Fiehler, was appointed as "Representative for the Standardization of the Municipal Central Associations". The management of the new association was taken over by Dr. Kurt Jeserich, provisional director of the Institute for Municipal Science in Berlin, and Dr. Ralf Zeitler, speaker at the Reich Employers' Association. The merger process, which lasted for months, finally came to an end in the Law on the German Community Day of 15 December 1933, which finally established the formation of the new association. As the only existing communal top organization, the German Community Day, which as a corporation under public law was fundamentally subordinate to the Reich Minister of the Interior, was forced to include all cities, rural communities, administrative districts, provinces and later also the Reichsgaue in its capacity as self-governing government units. After the integration of Austria and the Sudetenland into the German Reich in 1938, the annexation of West Prussia, Gdansk and Poznan in the following year, the sphere of influence of the German Association of Municipalities was extended to the new parts of the Reich and their Gau administrations. In principle, the association took over the municipal representation of interests for all areas placed under German sovereignty. On February 14, 1934, Karl Fiehler, the previous commissioner for unification, was appointed the first chairman of the German Association of Municipalities. Fiehler was head of the NSDAP's local government department. The personal union was intended to coordinate the orientation of the NSDAP's work in local politics with the work of the German Community Congress and thus to comply with the principle of the harmony of party and state proclaimed at the 1933 Reich Party Congress in Nuremberg. The management of the German Association of Municipalities was subject to the instructions of the chairman and Reichsleiter of municipal politics. Through this entanglement of party and state authorities, the German Community Day came under the "organizations supported by the NSDAP", which was also partly advantageous, since the technical work could be made more effective under the supremacy of the party office. The association was now much more representative of the state. However, the idea of a unitary association with clearly defined tasks and closer ties to the state was nothing new; quite a few saw in it the possibility of better asserting municipal interests. The forced standardization and the practice of the totalitarian state, however, only allowed the possible advantages of the new uniform association to recede into the background. The association was supervised by the Reich Minister of the Interior, who appointed the chairman, the members of the board and the specialist committees. The executive committee and specialist committees were only allowed to meet after being convened by the minister, who also determined the agenda. In addition, he approved the budget and he himself or a deputy had to chair the committees. In addition to the 20 specialist committees, which only had the right to advise the chairman, the state and provincial offices were the only subordinate bodies of the Berlin office. Although the association had a highly centralised structure, the necessary expansion to include regional working groups and county departments in order to increase the exchange of experience led to an organisational structure that was comparable in its approach to that of the old associations. The fact that the association no longer had the right to represent municipal interests before the Reich and Land authorities on its own initiative had a particularly drastic effect. Only after a request by the authorities should the association be allowed to express itself from now on. Before 1933, however, it was precisely this right of initiative that had been decisive for the active representation of interests vis-à-vis the state and the self-determination of municipal associations as part of a pluralistic social order. Despite the organisational and political changes, the German Community Day also played an important role between 1933 and 1945, above all as a community advisory centre and as a mediator of practical experience in the field of local administration. Even the exchange between municipalities and state administration was by no means discontinued, which is evidenced by the active expert activities of the German Association of Municipalities (Deutscher Gemeindetags). A certain continuity in the association's work could also be ensured by the fact that a larger number of executives from the dissolved associations transferred to the new association. The organisational structure of the German Association of Municipalities was basically very similar to that of the German/Prussian Association of Cities. Thus the German Community Day took over the coat of arms of the German/Prussian Community Day, the Holstentor, and also its registry. The annual meetings of the German Association of Municipalities also followed on from similar events of the predecessor institutions. As a result of the bombing of Berlin during the Second World War, the German Community Day moved part of its administrative offices in August 1943 from Berlin to Wels/Upper Austria. The main tasks of the departments there were Ia (civil servants, employees and workers), II (finances and taxes), III (welfare, health and social policy), V (schools), Va (culture), VI (real estate, construction and housing) and Rv (defence of the Reich). It should be noted that only Division III with all registries moved to Wels. The other departments - probably only working staffs - took only parts of their registries with them. Also the cash administration and the personnel office moved to Wels. Departments Z (Central Department: General Administration, Management), I (Constitution and Administration), IV (Economy and Transport) and the Department for the Eastern Territories remained in Berlin. After the collapse of the German Reich in 1945, the German Community Day, due to its status as a "supervised organization", was regarded by the Allies as a part of the NSDAP's outlines and, together with the other organizations of the NSDAP, banned and formally dissolved. The administrator appointed by the Berlin magistrate for the concerns of the German Association of Municipalities did not succeed in correcting this misunderstanding. It was not possible to set up a kind of municipal chamber as the successor to the German Association of Municipalities. The "German Association of Cities", which had already re-constituted itself in 1946, was granted the right to ownership of the property of the German Association of Cities, but it could not bear the financial burden of the reconstruction and repair of the building on its own. Together with the Berlin Senate, the "Verein zur Pflege kommunalwissenschaftlicher Aufgaben e.V." was finally founded and established in 1951 as an asset holder of the German Association of Municipalities. The association, which was soon renamed "Verein für Kommunalwissenschaften", took over the office building in Straße des 17. Juni and also the files stored there. The building, today known as the Ernst Reuter House, was planned by Albert Speer for the German Community Day, erected from 1938 and finally occupied by the German Community Day in 1942. The German Association of Cities, the largest municipal umbrella organisation, initially set up its headquarters in Cologne due to its special status in Berlin. It was not until 1999 that the head office was partially relocated to the Ernst-Reuter-Haus in Berlin. In addition to the German Association of Cities and Towns, the central associations at district and municipal level were also newly formed after the Second World War. The Deutscher Landkreistag and the Deutscher Städte- und Gemeindebund, together with the Deutscher Städtetag, represent the most important municipal interest groups. The Federal Association of Municipal Central Associations offers these three associations the opportunity to present their interests in a bundled manner and to jointly express their views on overarching problems. Inventory description: Inventory history The inventory R 36 consists entirely of the files of the administrative offices relocated to Wels during the war. Apart from the cash documents and personnel files, the whereabouts of which could not be clarified, the Wels stockpiles have survived the war and the turmoil of the post-war period without any losses. They were taken by a member of the German Association of Communities via Linz/Donau, Offenburg, Frankfurt/Main to Siegburg, where the files were first kept at the newly founded German Association of Counties. With the approval of the Federal Association of Municipal Central Associations, the latter handed them over to the Federal Archives in 1953. The records in the Federal Archives represent only a small part of the total records. An estimated three-quarters of the total holdings, which consisted of the non-displaced registry parts of the German Association of Municipalities and the old registries of the dissolved umbrella organisations, remained in Berlin. After the Second World War, the files were stored at the Verein für Kommunalwissenschaften, which handed them over to the Landesarchiv Berlin as a deposit in 1968. There the German Community Day is registered today with 8600 file units. The second largest part of the collection is the legacy of the German and Prussian Association of Cities with 4286 files, whereby its war economy files from the years 1914 to 1918 form a separate collection with 1279 file units. Furthermore, the tradition of the Reichsstädtebund, the Association of Prussian Provinces, the German and Prussian Landkreistag, the German and Prussian Landgemeindetag and other associations that were absorbed into the German Gemeindetag in 1933 can be found in the Berlin State Archives. The German Association of Cities also handed over its old registrations to the Landesarchiv Berlin until 1985. Already in 1937/38 a small part of the files of the predecessor institutions of the German Community Day had been transferred to the Prussian Secret State Archives - today the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage. These holdings had been moved to Stassfurt during the war and then to the German Central Archive of the GDR, Merseburg Department. Today the tradition of the German and Prussian Association of Cities and Towns, the Association of Prussian Provinces, the Prussian County Council and the Prussian West Community Council is again in the Secret State Archives in Berlin-Dahlem. Documents of the German and Prussian Association of Cities, the Reichsstädtebund and the German and Prussian Landkreistag amounting to some 2600 file units, which had been transferred to the Reichsarchiv Potsdam in 1938, were lost in the fire at the archive building in April 1945. Archive evaluation and processing The present finding aid book represents a revision of the finding aid book produced in Koblenz in 1957. Volume counts, as far as they had been specified in the file numbers, were taken over for the volume sequences. In addition, further tape sequences were created for archiving purposes. The transactions contained in individual volumes ("booklets") were included in the titles. For the illustration of the volume and issue divisions, the file numbers are displayed in the index. Furthermore, the titles and the classification, which were based entirely on the file plan of the German Association of Municipalities, were slightly changed. For example, file plan items have been grouped together and the names of individual subgroups have been standardized. The changes were made carefully in order to reproduce as faithfully as possible the traditional registry order, as far as it has been preserved. There were no cassations. Furthermore, it should be pointed out that a large part of the files had been created by the predecessor institutions and then continued by the German Association of Municipalities after 1933. Content characterization: Administration of departments, committees, personnel and salary matters 1926-1945 (24), personnel files 1927-1944 (25), budget, cash and accounting 1939-1943 (2), course of business and management 1936-1945 (10), Publishing affairs 1933-1945 (16), constitutional and administrative affairs 1926-1944 (10), civil service affairs 1916-1945 (350), employee affairs 1932-1944 (41), worker affairs 1932-1944 (55), labor law 1934-1944 (32), Hospital staff 1926-1945 (26), four-year plan 1936-1944 (8), general financial matters, financial equalisation 1920-1945 (40), budget, cash and accounting of municipalities 1923-1944 (37), taxation and tax law 1918-1945 (81), Contributions and fees 1932-1944 (6), wealth and debt management 1922-1944 (24), savings banks, banking 1928-1944 (17), welfare 1915-1945 (354), economic welfare 1914-1945 (126), health 1912-1944 (60), health 1909-1945 (108), Youth welfare 1913-1945 (68), unemployment assistance 1925-1945 (93), social insurance 1921-1945 (62), accident insurance 1925-1945 (100), hospitals 1920-1944 (12), institutions 1912-1945 (177), work service 1924-1944 (41), welfare education 1928-1945 (59), Youth education 1921-1945 (35), Sport 1906-1945 (49), Cemetery and Funeral 1917-1944 (31), Economy and Transport 1935-1939 (3), Education 1913-1945 (167), Vocational and Continuing Education 1920-1944 (26), Technical and Higher Education 1920-1945 (25), Popular education 1933-1945 (8), art, monument conservation, nature conservation 1926-1945 (123), religious affairs 1931-1943 (9), tourism 1934-1944 (3), urban development, roads 1931-1945 (29), road construction, road traffic 1925-1945 (39), agriculture, Forestry and Water Management 1927-1945 (23), General Affairs of the Reich Defence 1939-1944 (4), War Welfare 1937-1945 (18), War Food Economy 1919-1944 (79), Air Protection 1926-1945 (53) State of Development: Online-Findbuch (2007) Citation method: BArch, R 36/...
History of the Inventory Designer: Grand Admiral Alfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz Life data March 19, 1849 born in Küstrin/Oder as son of the Court of Appeal Rudolf Tirpitz March 6, 1930 died in Munich Career (1) April 24, 1865 Entry as a cadet in the Prussian Navy 15. May 1865 Corvette "Arkona" Mid June 1865 Sail training ship Frigate "Niobe" 24 June 1866 Nautical cadet July-September 1866 Frigate "Gazelle" October 1866 - April 1867 Sail training ship Brig "Musquito" Spring 1867 Main Division Baltic Sea July-August Frigate "Gefion" August 1867 - June 1868 Frigate "Thetis" 3 August 1868 -1 -1. July 1869 Naval school Kiel 22 September 1869 Lieutenant at sea Cannon ship "Barbarossa" October 1869 Regular Division Baltic Sea May 1870 - January 1871 Armour frigate "King Wilhelm" July 1871 - September 1872 First officer on cannon boat "Blitz" 25. May 1872 Lieutenant at sea October 1872 - April 1874 Officer on watch on the brig "Musquito" June - October 1874 Corvette "Nymph" October 1874 - May 1876 Naval academy and exercises as artillery officer 18. November 1875 Captain Lieutenant May - August 1876 Artillery officer on the "Kronprinz" armoured frigate September 1876 Artillery officer on the "Kaiser" armoured frigate December 18, 1877 Transfer to the Admiral Staff from January 1, 1877 Repeatedly commands to service the Admiralty/Decernate T/Torpedoangelegenheiten Commanded 17. September 1881 Corvette Captain 1884 - 1887 (summer months) Chief of the Torpedo Boat Flotilla (16 March) 1886 Inspector of Torpedo Navy 24 November 1888 Captain at sea 12 March 1889 Commander of the armoured ship "Prussia" 10. March 1890 commander of the armoured ship "Württemberg" 10 September 1890 with decommissioning of the "Württemberg" (30 November 1890) chief of the staff of the command of the naval station of the Baltic Sea 20 January 1892 chief of the staff of the supreme command of the navy 13 May 1895 Rear Admiral 31. March 1896 Head of the Kreuzerdivision 31 March 1897 Representative of the State Secretary of the Reichsmarineamt on leave 15 June 1897 State Secretary of the Reichsmarineamt 25 June 1897 Plenipotentiary to the Bundesrat 28 March 1898 State Minister and Member of the State Ministry 5. December 1899 Vice Admiral 14 November 1903 Admiral 5 April 1908 Appointment to the manor house of the Prussian Parliament for life 27 January 1911 Grand Admiral 15. March 1916 Resignation as State Secretary of the Reich Navy Office September 1917 First Chairman of the German Fatherland Party 1924 Member of the Reichstag of the German National People's Party 1928 Farewell from the Reichstag and withdrawal from political work ---------- (1) see also copy of the personal sheet in No. 10. The personal file has not been handed down. Orden und Ehrenzeichen 31. December 1871 War Memorial Coin for Combatants 2. December 1879 Royal Prussian Red Eagle Order 4. Class 26. April 1881 Cross 2. Class of the Royal Spanish Order for Merits at Sea 16. March 1886 Royal Prussian Crown Order 3. Class 9. June 1888 Service Award Cross 9. November 1889 Royal Prussian Red Eagle Order 3. Class with Ribbon 17 December 1889 Commander's Cross of the Royal Greek Order of Redeemer 2 July 1890 Commander's Cross 2 Class of the Royal Swedish Order of the Redeemer 3 September 1892 Royal Prussian Crown Order 2 Class 15 September 1893 Grand Officer's Cross of the Order of the Italian Crown 21 September 1894 Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern 3 July 1895 Grand Cross of the Royal Swedish Order of the Redeemer 3 July 1890 Austrian Franz Joseph Order 10 July 1895 Commander Cross of the French Legion of Honour 22 October 1895 Grand Commander Cross of the Royal Bavarian Order of Military Merit 1895 Cross of Honour 1st Class of the Princely Schaumburg-Lippe House Order 18. January 1897 Royal Prussian Red Eagle Order 2nd class with oak leaves 18 January 1898 Star to Royal Prussian Crown Order 2nd class 14 October 1898 Grand Cross of the Royal Württemberg Frederick's Order ca. 1898 Ksl. Commemorative steel coin for services to the expedition in China 11 January 1899 Grand Cross of the Royal Bavarian Military Order 27 January 1899 Star of the Royal Prussian Red Eagle Order 2nd Class with oak leaves 20 May 1899 Grand Cross of the Royal Spanish Military Order 9. June 1899 Grand Cross with oak leaves of the Grand Ducal Baden Order of the Zähringer Lion July 7, 1899 Grand Cross of the Royal Saxon Albrecht Order October 9, 1899 1st Class of the 2nd Class of the Chinese Order of the Double Dragon January 27, 1900 Royal Prussian Red Eagle Order 1st Class with oak leaves February 1900 Ksl. Russian White Eagle Order 18 April 1900 Grand Cross of the Grand Duke of Hesse Order of Merit of Philip the Magnanimous 23 May 1900 Grand Cross of Ksl. Austrian Order of Leopold August 1900 Grand Cross of Honour of the Grand Duke of Oldenburg House and Order of Merit of Duke Peter Ludwig Friedrich June 20, 1901 Golden Chain to the Grand Cross of the Grand Duke of Baden Order of the Zähringer Lion September 13, 1901 Commander's Cross and Star of the Royal King House Order of Hohenzollern 9 November 1901 Grand Cross of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerinischer Greifenordens 27 October 1902 Grand Cross of the Royal Spanish Order for Merits at Sea 20 December 1902 Grand Cross of the Duke of Brunswick Order of Henry the Lion December 1902 Ksl. Russian Alexander Nevsky Order 31 January 1903 Grand Cross of the Royal Italian Order of St Mauritius and Lazarus, Royal Order 1903 Grand Cross of the Royal Prussian Crown Order with Crown 1 July 1904 Grand Cross of the Royal British Victoria Order December 1905 Grand Cross of the Royal Greek Order of the Redeemer 27 Febrauar 1906 Commemorative Signs on the occasion of the Silver Wedding of Emperor Wilhelm II. September 1906 Memorial Medal on the occasion of the inauguration of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin November 13, 1906 Grand Cross of the Royal Spanish Order of Charles III December 15, 1906 Grand Cross of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav December 31, 1906 Grand Cross of the Royal Danish Order of Danubia January 27, 1907 Royal Prussian Black Eagle Order November 2, 1907 Ksl. Commemorative steel coin for services rendered on the occasion of the uprising in South West Africa 6 June 1908 Grand Cross of the Royal Swedish Wasa Order 1908 Ksl. Russian Alexander Nevsky Order with Brilliants April 16, 1909 Grand Cross of the Star of Romania November 21, 1909 Grand Cross of the Grand Ducal Saxon-Weimar House Order of Vigilance or of the White Falcon 1909 Ks. Japanese Paullownia Order 24 December 1910 Grand Cross of the Order of the Wüttembergische Krone 1910 Grand Cross of the Duke of Saxony-Ernestine House Order 30 August 1911 Grand Cross of the Royal Hungarian Order of St. Stephen 22 May 1912 Diamonds to the Royal Prussian Black Eagle Order 18 September 1912 Chilean Order of Merit 1st Class 1912 Grand Cross of the Royal Bulgarian Order of St. Alexander 1912 Ksl. Turkish Osmanié Order 1st Class 4th June 1913 Grand Ducal Baden House Order of Faithfulness 16th June 1913 Grand Commander Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern 16th June 1913 Honorary Doctorate of the Georg August University Göttingen 24th April 1915 Swords to the Grand Commander Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern 10th August 1915 Order pour le mérite 3. October 1915 Austro-Hungarian Military Service Cross 1st Class with War Decoration 19 October 1915 Hamburg Hanseatic Cross 2nd November 1915 Lübeck Hanseatic Cross 10th November 1915 Bremen Hanseatic Cross 15th December 1915 Grand Cross with Star in Gold and Silver Crown and Swords of the Royal King Saxon Albrecht Order 15 March 1916 Star of the Grand Commander with Swords of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern 15. January 1917 Honorary citizen of the city of Frankfurt/Oder Description of the holdings: The estate of the officer and politician Alfred von Tirpitz contains rich sources on seven decades of German history: from the entry of the sixteen-year-old into the Royal Prussian Navy in 1865 to his service in the Imperial Navy as founder of fleet building and as long-standing State Secretary of the Reichsmarinemat, from his political service in the World War II as Chairman of the German Fatherland Party to his work for the German National People's Party. Since Tirpitz's research concentrated for a long time on fleet construction and fleet policy in Wilhelmine Germany, the part of the estate on this topic that had been developed until 1991 was intensively evaluated. The hand files and correspondence from the period of service as State Secretary of the R e i c h s m a r i n e a m t , which form a focal point of the collection, were particularly used for this purpose. The value of these documents is only marginally diminished by the publication of Tirpitzen's "Political Documents", since the texts published here are sometimes incomplete. Even more than the hand files, some of which had been compiled from copies and multiple copies of the official records, the letters from those years supplement the tradition of the R e i c h s m a r i n e a m t . Contrary to the papers of the politician Tirpitz, the openly and impartially written letters of the young Tirpitz to his parents from the decade around the foundation of the Reich - from 1865 to 1878 -, filling several volumes, convey a vivid picture of everyday life in the Prussian, then the North German, and finally the Imperial Navy. They also give an impression of the young Tirpitz's view of history and of the national ideas of the time when the Reich was founded. In addition, the estate documents the career of an officer in the Imperial Navy, but also the private ties within the officer corps. In the history of naval affairs, the sources on the development of the torpedo system deserve special mention; in foreign policy, the letters and documents on the representation of German interests in East Asia deserve special mention, as do the sources on the development of German-English relations against the background of German fleet building. After all, the collection is also rich in cultural history, as it reflects something of the lifestyle of a state secretary in Wilhelmine Germany. Tirpitz's activities after his resignation as State Secretary were focused both on the past and on the current political problems. Both have been reflected in the estate. The justification of fleet policy is documented, among other things, in the fragmentarily preserved drafts of the "Memories" and "Political Documents" as well as in the correspondence on these publications. The rich materials on the submarine war refer both to the policy of State Secretary Tirpitz and to his evaluation of the submarine war after his resignation; they form a bracket between the work in the civil service and the work afterwards. A not inconsiderable part of the collection comes from the party political commitment after 1916, first for the German Vaterlandspartei, of which he was first chairman, then for the Deutschnationale Volkspartei, whose Reichstag fraction he belonged to from 1924 until his age-related withdrawal from politics in 1928. The extensive correspondence from the work of the party politician Tirpitz, his speeches, essays and notes on his work as a member of the Reichstag, equally informative sources on the foreign and domestic policy of the Weimar Republic, only attracted the interest of research in recent years. Reference is made to Hagenlücke's monograph on the German Fatherland Party published in 1997 and Scheck's work on Tirpitz as a politician of the right wing 1914-1930 published in 1993 (see bibliography). For research into the activities of the Imperial Navy, the tradition from the period of service, including the related materials from the last phase of life, forms a comprehensive and far from exhausted fund. The rich private correspondence opens the way to further sources: since part of the correspondence is a recipient tradition and the drafts or copies of Tirpitz letters are only partially available and rather from his last decade of life, the determination of his letters in the estates of the correspondence partners is still a worthwhile object of research. References to other stocks 1. Bundesarchiv Abteilung B N 1275 Nachlass Oskar Messter N 1549 Nachlass Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg Siegfried Graf von Eulenburg-Wicken Walter von Keudell Abteilung R, Berlin R 43 Reichskanzlei R 301 Bundesrat/Reichsrat R 8048 Alldeutscher Verband Abteilung Militärarchiv, Freiburg RM 3 Reichsmarineamt RM 5 Admiralstab der Marine RM 27 III Inspection of Torpedoes RM 31 Marinestation der Ostsee RM 43 Dienst- und Kommandostellen der Kaiserlichen Marine im Heimtbereich N 170 Eduard von Capelle N 156 Wilhelm Souchon N 568 Johann-Bernhard Mann 2. Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage (GStA), Berlin I. HA, Rep. 169 A Mansion of the Prussian Parliament I. HA, Rep. 90 Ministry of State HA VI Family of Bissing Citation method: BArch, N 253/...
Tirpitz, Alfred von