1st Biographical Information on Wolfgang Kapp Wolfgang Kapp was born in New York on July 24, 1858, the son of the lawyer Friedrich Kapp, who had played an important role in the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1848 and had to emigrate to the United States because of his participation in the Baden uprising. Wolfgang Kapp's mother was Louise Engels and was the daughter of the Major General and Commander of Cologne Engels. The family was originally called d'Ange and immigrated from France to Germany in 1687 after the Edict of Nantes. In 1870 Friedrich Kapp returned to Germany with his family; he lived in Berlin and was a national liberal, later a liberal member of the Reichstag from 1872-1877 and 1881-1884; he also worked as a renowned historian. Friedrich Kapp died in 1884, his son Wolfgang studied in Tübingen and Göttingen. He completed his studies in 1880 with a doctorate. Probably in 1881 Wolfgang Kapp married Margarete Rosenow, the daughter of a landowner in Dülzen (district Preußisch Eylau). After his marriage Kapp seems to have familiarized himself with the administration of a large agricultural business on his father-in-law's estate, because it was not until 1885 that he began his actual professional career as a trainee with the government in Minden. In 1886 he joined the Ministry of Finance, Department II, Administration of Direct Taxes, as a government assistant. From 1890 to 1899 he was district administrator in Guben. In 1890, at the beginning of his time as district administrator, Kapp bought the Rittergut Pilzen estate near the Rosenov estate and thus entered the circle of the East Prussian Great Agrarians. Out of his interest for the interests of agriculture a work of agricultural policy content arose in Guben, which attracted a great deal of attention in the Ministry of Agriculture, so that an appointment as a government council followed in 1900. Kapp was appointed to the I. Dept. Administration of Agricultural and Stud Affairs, Department of Agricultural Workers' Affairs, but during the era of Reich Chancellor von Bülow as Commissioner of the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture he was primarily active in the preparation of the customs tariff of 1902 and in the initiation of the new trade agreements of 1904-1906. Kapp gained his first foreign policy experience in negotiations with representatives of foreign countries. Kapp soon gained a closer relationship with the then Reich Chancellor von Bülow, with whom he shared similar political views. During his time at the Ministry of Agriculture, Kapp seems to have had ambitious plans for his future professional and political career and at least aspired to the position of district president. That his plans went even further can be seen from the recording of a conversation between Kaiser Wilhelm II and the General Field Marshal von der Goltz, in which the possibility of Kapp's successor in the Reich Chancellery was considered. However, this conversation, whose date lies between 1909 and 1911, took place at a time when Kapp had already left the Prussian civil service. The reason for his resignation from the Ministry of Agriculture seems to have been his annoyance at not taking his person into account when appointing district presidents. On 5 April 1906, the East Prussian countryside elected the owner of the Pilzen manor as general landscape director. It is very characteristic of Kapp's personality under what circumstances he became known in East Prussia through a trial he conducted against the landscape. The landscapes of the Prussian provinces were self-governing bodies and as such primarily representations of landowners. But the landscape also served as a representative body for state fiscal policy. Its real task, of course, lay outside the political sphere in granting credit to cooperatives. However, the credit policy has had a decisive influence on the distribution of property and the social structure of the provinces and has thus had political repercussions. Through the incorporation of agricultural banks and fire societies in the 19th century, the landscapes had become efficient organisations at provincial level. Kapp took on the new tasks with his own vehemence. He continued the landscape in the specified direction, primarily by developing the branch network of the Landschaftsbank, by merging the landscape with the East Prussian Feuersozietät, by granting more loans, particularly for small property, and by increasing the landscape funds. His policy was aimed at freeing agriculture, which was in a serious crisis at the beginning of the 20th century, from its dependence on state aid and enabling it to help itself by means of credit policy measures. In the course of these efforts, Kapp tackled three major tasks. First and foremost the question of agricultural debt relief, which the Prussian state initiated in 1906 with the law on the debt limit. Kapp was the first to try to make this framework law effective from the initiative of the parties themselves without further state aid by showing different ways of debt relief. The inclusion of life insurance as a means of reducing debt proved particularly effective. Instead of debt repayment, the premium payment was made to an agricultural life insurance company. This ensured that a certain amount of capital was available for debt reduction in the event of death. The second task resulted from the former. The desire to combine public-law life insurance with debt relief necessitated the creation of a number of public-law life insurance institutions, which were merged into an association chaired by Kapp. These facilities were especially designed to prevent the outflow of premium money from the countryside to the large cities, where it had been used especially for the construction of tenements. However, the outflow of capital was only one danger, the other was the rural exodus that began in the 19th century. He tried to strengthen small agricultural holdings with a colonization and agricultural workers' bill, which was accepted by the General Landtag in 1908. This measure was based on the recognition of the untenability of the institution of instants and deputants, who were in the closest dependence on the lord of the manor and who emigrated from this situation in masses to the large cities, where they strengthened the ranks of the industrial proletariat. The organ for settlement policy should be a landscaped settlement bank. The third task that Kapp set himself was the creation of a public-law national insurance scheme following the public-law life insurance scheme. This measure was primarily directed against the Volksversicherungsanstalt "Volksfürsorge", created by the Social Democrats, and was intended to secure capital for agricultural workers to buy their own farms by means of abbreviated insurance. These plans did not lead to the hoped-for success, but ended in a bitter feud with the private insurance companies, especially the Deutsche Volksversicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft. In addition to his functions within the East Prussian landscape, Kapp was also active in various other bodies. In December 1906 he was appointed to the Stock Exchange Committee of the Reichsamt des Innern and in 1912 to the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank. The First World War gave Kapp's life and work a whole new direction. Kapp's biography is too little researched to judge how far he had buried his ambitious plans, which apparently pushed him to the top of the Reich government, or postponed them only for a better opportunity. Although Kapp had been a member of the German Conservative Party since at least 1906, he did not take the path of an existing party to make a political career. This path probably did not correspond to his personality, described as authoritarian, ambitious and independent. He made the great leap into high politics through his sensational conflict with Reich Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg. In his memo of 26 May 1916 "Die nationalen Kreise und der Reichs-Kanzler", which he sent to 300 public figures, including Bethmann Hollweg himself, he sharply criticised what he considered to be the weak policy of the Reich Chancellor, to whom he v. a. accused him of his alleged pacting with social democracy, his reluctance to America and his rejection of the unrestricted submarine war demanded by extremely militaristic circles, but also of a false war economic policy. The sharp reaction of Bethmann Hollweg, who spoke in a Reichstag session of "pirates of public opinion", among others, who abused "with the flag of the national parties", Kapp perceived as a personal affront to which he reacted with a demand for a duel. On the contrary, Kapp had to take an official reprimand and his re-election as General Landscape Director, which had taken place in March 1916 on a rotational basis, was refused confirmation by the Prussian State Ministry. Since his friends held on to Kapp in the East Prussian landscape, he was re-elected in 1917. This time - since Bethmann Hollweg had been overthrown in the meantime - he was able to take up his post as general landscape director again. At first, the events of 1916 led him even more into politics. Here he expressed solidarity with a circle of extremely reactionary and aggressive military forces around General Ludendorff and Grand Admiral von Tirpitz, who pursued a ruthless internal perseverance policy that tightened up all the forces of the people and a policy of unrestrained annexation and total warfare towards the outside world. Emperor Wilhelm II, who in principle sympathized with this extreme direction, had to refrain from supporting this group out of various considerations of public opinion and the negative attitude of the party majorities in the Reichstag. Kapp and his comrades-in-arms assumed in their political ambitions the complete certainty of the German final victory. They closed their eyes to the already looming possibility of defeat for Germany, especially after America entered the war. The war and peace goals they represented, especially the annexation plans at the expense of Russia and Poland, which were later only surpassed by Hitler, were marked by uncontrolled wishful thinking that in no way corresponded to objective reality. His extreme attitude drove Kapp into a blind hatred against any social and democratic movement; his fierce opposition against social democracy was mainly based on the legend of the dagger thrust against the imperialist Germany struggling to win. This military and National Socialist sharpening, for which Kapp found moral and financial support in certain circles of military leadership, but also among a number of university professors, writers, local politicians, agriculturalists, industrialists and bankers, culminated in the founding of the German National Party, which took place on 2 September 1917 (the "Sedan Day") in the Yorksaal of the East Prussian landscape. Although Kapp was clearly the spiritus rector of this "collection party", two other persons were pushed into the foreground, intended for the eyes of the public: These were the Grand Admiral von Tirpitz as 1st chairman and Duke Johann Albrecht von Mecklenburg as honorary chairman of this party. The German Fatherland Party did not seek seats in the Reichstag, but saw itself as a pool of national forces to bring about Germany's final victory. The statute provided for the immediate dissolution of the party once its purpose had been achieved. In addition to mobilising all forces to achieve military victory, Kapp's founding of the party also had another purpose that was not made so public. Tirpitz, then 68 years old, was to be launched as a "strong man" to replace the "weak" chancellors Bethmann Hollweg and Michaelis. It was obvious that in this case Kapp would join the leadership of the imperial government as advisor to the politically ultimately inexperienced Grand Admiral. The November Revolution of 1918 and the immediate surrender of Germany put an abrupt end to these lofty plans. But Kapp and his friends did not admit defeat. Although the German Fatherland Party was dissolved in December 1918, it was immediately replaced by a new party, the German National People's Party, which developed into a bourgeois mass party during the Weimar Republic, but no longer under Kapp's leadership. After the fall of the Hohenzollern monarchy, Kapp immediately opposed the revolution and the Weimar Republic. He could not or did not want to accept the social and political conditions that had arisen in the meantime; his goal was clearly the restoration of pre-war conditions. The sources, which were only incomplete at that time, do not show when the idea of a coup d'état was born and how the conspiracy developed in all its branches. A close associate of Kapp's, Reichswehrhauptmann Pabst, had already attempted a failed coup in July 1919. Together with Kapp, Pabst created the "National Unification" as a pool of all counter-revolutionary forces and associations. This Reich organisation was to coordinate the preparations for the coup in Prussia and Bavaria, while Kapp was to develop East Prussia into the decisive base of counterrevolution. From here, with the help of the Freikorps operating in the Baltic States, the Reichswehr and the East Prussian Heimatbund, whose chairman was Kapp, the survey was to be carried to Berlin with the immediate aim of preventing the signing of the Versailles Treaty. The approval of the Versailles Treaty by the parliamentary majority has created a new situation. Now Ludendorff, one of the co-conspirators, proposed to carry out the coup directly in Berlin, whereby the Baltic people, who were disguised as work detachments on the large Eastern Elbe goods, were to take over the military support. Meanwhile, the conspirators, headed by Kapp and Reichswehr General Lüttwitz, tried to gain the mass base absolutely necessary for the execution of the coup d'état through a broad-based nationalist smear campaign. The company was already at risk before it could even begin. Kapp had demanded that his military allies inform him at least 14 days before the strike so that he could make the necessary political preparations. That the coup d'état had just begun on 13 March 1920 depended not so much on carefully considered planning, but on coincidences that were not predictable. One of the reasons for the premature strike was the dissolution of the Freikorps, especially the Ehrhardt Brigade, decided by the Reich government. This revealed the fact that, in the absence of a party of their own, the conspirators were unable to avoid relying on the loose organization of the resident defence forces, which to a certain extent were also influenced by social democracy. The whole weakness of the company was evident in the question on which forces the new government should actually be based. While the military saw an arrangement with the strongest party, social democracy, as unavoidable, Kapp categorically rejected pacting with social democracy. He wanted to put the Social Democrat-led government as a whole into protective custody. But now the government was warned; for its part, it issued protective arrest warrants against the heads of the conspirators and left Berlin on March 12. In the early morning of March 13, the Navy Brigade Ehrhardt marched into Berlin without encountering armed resistance, as would have been the duty of the Reichswehr. Kapp proclaimed himself Chancellor of the Reich and began with the reorganisation of the government. The order of the new rulers to arrest the escaped imperial government and to remove the state government if they did not stand on the side of the putschists was only partially executed by the local commanders. The proclamation of the general strike on 13 March and the reports arriving from the most important cities and industrial centres about joint actions of the working class prompted the indirect supporters of Kapp, the large industrialists and the Reichswehr generals, to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. Kapp had to see the hopelessness of his company. Eyewitnesses reported that Kapp had spent almost 3 days of his time as Chancellor of the Reich "with gossip". On March 15, the "adventure" was over. Kapp apparently stayed hidden with friends near Berlin for some time after the failed coup and then flew to Sweden in a provided plane. Here he initially lived under different false names in different places, at last in a pension in Robäck, but was soon recognized and temporarily taken into custody. The Swedish government granted asylum to the refugee, but he had to commit himself to refrain from all political activities. When the high treason trial against the heads of the March company in Leipzig began, Kapp was moved by the question of his position in court. At first, he justified his non-appearance with the incompetence of the Ebert government and with the constitution, which in his opinion did not exist. Kapp said that there was no high treason in the legal sense against the "high treason" of social democracy. When in December 1921 one of the co-conspirators, the former district president of Jagow, was sentenced to a fortress sentence by the Imperial Court, Kapp changed his mind. Still in Sweden he worked out a justification for the process ahead of him, in which he denied any guilt in both an objective and a subjective sense. On the contrary, he intended to appear before the court with a charge against the then government. It didn't come to that anymore. Kapp had already fallen ill in Sweden. At the beginning of 1922 he returned to Germany and was remanded in custody. On 24 April 1922, he underwent surgery in Leipzig to remove a malignant tumour from the left eye. Kapp died on 12 June 1922; he was buried on 22 June at the village churchyard in Klein Dexen near his estate Pilzen. 2. inventory history The inventory, which had been formed in its essential parts by Kapp himself, was transferred by the family to the Prussian Secret State Archives as a deposit in 1935. Here the archivist Dr. Weise started already in the year of submission with the archival processing, which could not be completed, however. In the course of the repatriation of the holdings of the Secret State Archives, which had been removed during the Second World War, the Kapp estate was transferred to the Central State Archives, Merseburg Office. In 1951, Irmela Weiland, a trainee, classified and listed the stock here. As a result of the processing a find-book was created, which was until the new processing in the year 1984 the kurrente find-auxiliary. 1984 the stock was to be prepared for the backup filming. It turned out that the processing carried out in 1951 did not meet today's archival requirements, so that a general revision was considered necessary. The graduate archivists Renate Endler and Dr. Elisabeth Schwarze rearranged and simply listed the holdings according to the principles of order and indexing for the state archives of the German Democratic Republic, Potsdam 1964. The found file units were essentially retained, in individual cases they were dissolved and new indexing units were formed. In addition, 0.50 m of unprocessed documents were incorporated into the estate. The old regulatory scheme, which was essentially broken down chronologically, was replaced by a new regulatory scheme based on Kapp's areas of activity. In the course of the revision, the portfolio was re-signed. The relationship between the old and the new signatures was established through a concordance. The new find book replaces the previously valid find book from 1951. The stock is to be quoted: GStA PK, VI. HA Family Archives and Bequests, Nl Wolfgang Kapp, No... 3) Some remarks on the content of the holdings The Kapp estate contains 7.50 running metres of archival material from the period from 1885 to 1922, including some earlier and later individual pieces. The holdings mainly contain documents from Kapp's official and political activities, to a lesser extent also correspondence within the family and documents from the administration of the Knights' Manor Pilzen. The density of transmission to the individual sections of Kapp's professional and political development is quite different. While his activities with the Minden government, in the Prussian Ministry of Finance and as district administrator in Guben are relatively poorly documented, there is a rather dense tradition about his activities as director of the general landscape and as chairman of the German Fatherland Party. The documentation on the preparation and implementation of the coup shows gaps which can be explained, among other things, by the fact that important agreements were only reached orally at the stage of preparing the coup. Moreover, Kapp, who had to flee hastily to Sweden after the coup d'état failed, was no longer able to give this part of his estate the same care as the former one. Overall, however, it is a legacy of great political importance and significance. Merseburg, 2. 10.1984 signed Dr. Elisabeth Schwarze Diplomarchivar Compiled and slightly shortened: Berlin, April 1997 (Ute Dietsch) The clean copy of the find book was made by Britta Baumgarten. Note After the reunification of the two German states, the Merseburg office was closed, the archival records and thus also the Kapp estate were returned to the Secret State Archives in Berlin (1993). From the inventory maps, this reference book was created after maps that no longer existed were replaced (post-distortion of files). XIII Bibliography (selection) Bauer, Max : March 13, 1920 Berlin 1920 Bernstein, Richard : Der Kapp-Putsch und seine Lehren. Berlin 1920 Brammer, Karl : Five days of military dictatorship. Berlin 1920 Documents on the Counterrevolution using official material: The same: Constitutional Foundations and High Treason. According to stenographic reports and official documents of the Jagow trial. Berlin 1922 Erger, Johannes : The Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch. Düsseldorf 1967 Falkenhausen, Fri. from : Wolfgang Kapp. In: Conservative Monthly July/August 1922 Kern, Fritz : Das Kappsche Abenteuer. Impressions and findings. Leipzig/Berlin 1920 Könnemann, Erwin : Residents' Weirs and Time Volunteer Associations. Berlin 1971 Noske, Gustav : From Kiel to Kapp. Berlin 1920 Rothfels, Hans : Article "Wolfgang Kapp" in: Deutsches biogra- phisches Jahrbuch Bd 4 (1922) Berlin/Leipzig 1929, correspondence. 132-143 (Here also a drawing of the works Kapps) Schemann, Ludwig : Wolfgang Kapp and the March company. A word of atonement. Munich/Berlin 1937 Taube, Max : Causes and course of the coup of 13 March 1920 and his teachings for the working class and the middle classes. Munich 1920 Wauer, W. : Behind the scenes of the Kapp government. Berlin 1920 Wortmann, K. Geschichte der Deutschen Vaterlandspartei In: Hallische Forschungen zur neueren Geschichte. Volume 3, Hall 1926 Contents I. Introduction Page II 1 Biographical Information on Wolfgang Kapp Page II 2 History of the Collection Page X 3 Some Remarks on the Content of the Collection Page XI 4 Literature in Selection Page XIII II Structure of the Collection Page XIV III Collection Page XVII (Order Numbers, Title, Duration Page 1-106)) XVII III. holdings (order numbers, file title, duration) Description of holdings: Lebenssdaten: 1858 - 1921 Finds: database; find book, 1 vol.
Contains: a.o.: Cabinet order of Friedrich Wilhelm IV. of 29.04.1852 concerning mobilization; correspondence about equipment of the servants Wilhelm Küper and Skabovius; use of Prussian subjects for military service and tax in the canton of Schaffhausen; military punitive measures against naval soldiers; proceedings concerning the mobilization of the German army; the use of Prussian subjects for military service and tax in the canton of Schaffhausen; and the death of the German army. Unteroffiziersschulen Jülich und Potsdam 1858-1866; use of prisoners of war in agriculture and in state railway construction; cancellation of an execution sentence against the servant Wiesemann; use of Prussians abroad for military service, in particular in St. Petersburg. Petersburg; issuance of hiking passes for craftsmen not yet engaged in military service; termination of lease contracts for drill grounds in Wiedenbrück and Minden and termination of a contract for a shooting range at Spellen (community of Voerde); deployment of the Order of St John in military medicine in 1857; measures against Dutch advertising for colonial troops in India; dealing with foreigners called up for military service in their home countries and living in Prussia
History of the Inventory Designer: The "Gesetz zur Vorbereitung des organischen Aufbaus der deutschen Wirtschaft" of 27 Feb. 1934 "Wiederaufbaugesetz" (RGBl I 1934 p. 185f) created the legal basis for the reorganisation of the previous free association system. § 1 of the law authorized the Reich Minister of Economics: 1. to recognize trade associations as sole representatives of their branch of industry 2. to establish, dissolve or unite trade associations 3. to amend and supplement statutes and articles of association of trade associations, in particular to introduce the Führergrundsatz 4. to appoint and dismiss the leaders of trade associations and 5. to connect entrepreneurs and enterprises to trade associations. The organisational structure of the Organisation of Trade and Commerce (OGW), announced by Reich Economics Minister Schmitt on 13 March 1934, provided for a division of the economy into twelve main groups, seven of which were for the various branches of industry: I Mining, iron and metal extraction II Mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, optics, precision engineering III Iron, sheet metal and metal goods industry IV Stones and earths, wood, construction, glass and ceramics industry V Chemical, paper and paper processing industry VI Leather, textile and clothing industry VII Food industry. The First Regulation for the Implementation of the Law of Feb. 1934 (RGBl I 1934 p. 1194) issued by the Reich Minister of Economics on 27 Nov. 1934 eliminated this fragmentation of industry by combining the seven groups in the Reich Group Industry, into which the Reichsstand/Reichsverband der Deutschen Industrie was transferred by order of the Reich Minister of Economics on 12 Jan. 1935. The other main groups VIII Handwerk, IX Handel, X Banken and XI Versicherungen also became empire groups. The Reich Group Industry was at the same time part of the organization of the commercial economy, which was subordinate to the Reich Ministry of Economics. Together with the other groups of the Empire - crafts, commerce, banks, insurance companies, the energy industry, tourism (technical) and the chambers of commerce (regional) - it formed the subdivision of the Reich Economic Chamber. It was subdivided according to districts into 26 industrial departments, which established the link between the Reich Group Industry and the industrial enterprises. The individual specialist substructure of the Reich's industrial group was formed by the economic groups, which were recognised by an order of the Reich Minister of Economics as the sole representatives of their branch of industry. The companies operating in their respective fields were members of these groups, and the Reichsgruppe Industrie itself had no individual members. In 1941 the management of the Reich Group consisted of the following 13 departments under the direction of the Chief Executive Officer Dr. Karl Guth Abt. I Organisation and Law Abt. II Internal Administration, Transportation, Trade, Water and Administrative Law, Jewish Legislation Abt. III Taxes Abt. IV Foreign Trade Abt. V Sales Promotion, Patents, Samples and Symbols Abt. VI Defense Economics, Raw Materials Management, Industrial Development Division VII Air Security, Industrial Security and Industrial Protection, Colonial Affairs Division VIII Market Organisation and Business Administration Division IX Anti-Trust Supervision Division X Social Economy Division XI Industrial Quality Work Division XII Banking, Credit and Financial Affairs, Community Aid, Private Insurance Division XIII Statistics and Economic Observation Affiliated Services: Export Community for War Equipment (AGK) From January 6, 1944, the following new structure applied: General Department for Industrial Departments Department Z Internal Administration, Budget, Community Aid, Insurance Issues Department I Organization and Law Department II Internal Economy (Raw Materials Management, General Production, Defense Economics, Water and Energy, Transport, Eastern European Economy, Technical Department Department Department Department). III Market Organization and Business Administration Abt. IV Taxes and Financial Matters Abt. V Social Economy, War Damage Abt. VI Foreign Trade Abt. VI Industrial Carriages, Trade Fairs and Exhibitions, Advertising Abt. VII Aircraft Safety Abt. VIII Statistics and Economic Observation Affiliated: Until Dec. 1934: Gustav Krupp von Bohlen-Halbach from Dec. 1934: Ewald Hecker, Head of the Reich Economic Chamber 1935: Ernst Trendelenburg, Chairman of the Supervisory Boards of Vereinigte Industrie-Unternehmnungen AG and Reichskreditgesellschaft AG from Dec. 1934: Ewald Hecker, Head of the Reich Economic Chamber 1935: Ernst Trendelenburg, Chairman of the Supervisory Boards of Vereinigte Industrie-Unternehmnungen AG and Reichskreditgesellschaft AG from Dec. 1934: Gustav Krupp von Bohlen-Halbach from Dec. 1934: Ewald Hecker, Head of the Reich Economic Chamber 1935: Ernst Trendelenburg, Chairman of the Supervisory Boards of Vereinigte Industrie-Unternehmnungen AG and Reichskreditgesellschaft AG from Dec. 1934: Ernst Trendelenburg, Chairman of the Supervisory Boards of Vereinigte Industrie-Unternehmnungen AG and Reichskreditgesellschaft AG. 1936: Gottfried Dierig, Christian Dierig AG and Head of the Industry Economic Group from Nov. 1938: Wilhem Zangen, General Director of Mannesmann-Röhrenwerke In addition to the advisory board provided for by law, the so-called Great Advisory Board and numerous committees acted as advisory bodies for the Reich Group. In addition to the members of the advisory council, the heads of the economic groups and industrial departments as well as the chairmen of the 24 (1941) committees belonged to the Grand Advisory Board. The management of the committees was the responsibility of the relevant departments. Inventory description: Inventory history The largest part of the files of the inventory R 12 I Reichsgruppe Industrie originates from a complex of documents which was created after 1945 by the American occupation authorities in the Ministerial Collecting Center (MCC) in Hessisch-Lichtenau and Fürstenhagen. On behalf of the Americans, the files collected there were opened up and processed by German officials and employees in so-called working groups or sections. In this way, the working group XIX Economic Organization (Section Economics Organization) dealt with files of the Reich Economic Chamber and the Reich Industry Group. Via the Administrative Office for Economics in Minden and later the Administrative Office for Economics in Frankfurt/M., the documents finally came into the jurisdiction of the Federal Ministry of Economics in Duisdorf in 1951 in a strongly decimated form, and were then handed over to the Federal Archives in June 1952 after an initial inspection, pre-arrangement and separation of non-archival documents. In 1962 a further 128 volumes were taken over from the Berlin Document Center. Archival evaluation and processing The documents taken over from the Federal Ministry of Economics in 1952 were examined in 1966 and 1968 respectively by Archive Inspector A. Wagener (part 1) and Archivinspektor A. Loos (part 2), and provisional archive directories have been drawn up. Part 1 mainly contained documents from Divisions V Social Economy, VIII Statistics and Economic Observation and Z Community Aid to Enterprises. Part 2 was a collection of reference files of the deputy head of department of Abt. V Sozialwirtschaft and head of the war damages department Dr. Wilhelm Reuss. The files taken over from the Berlin Document Center in 1962 were processed in 1977 and listed as Part 3. Since the files were largely disorganized and often several subjects were in one volume without any factual connection, a complete reorganization and reshaping of volumes/volume sequences was necessary. In terms of content, these files also mainly concerned the Dept. V Social Economy. The revision of the holdings in 2009 using the Bundesarchiv's Basys-S directory database primarily involved the dissolution of the three existing partial holdings and the classification of the holdings as a whole. The hand files of Dr. Reuss, previously summarized as Part 2, now form, with a few exceptions, the War Material Damage Settlement Classification Group. The listing information from the previous provisional lists was largely taken over without further examination of individual files. In individual cases, however, adjustments had to be made to excessively long file titles and confusing content notes. Content characterisation: Mainly documents of the departments V Social Economy, VIII Statistics and Economic Observation, Z Community Assistance to the Economy and a collection of reference files of the deputy head of the department V Social Economy and head of the war damage department Dr. Wilhelm Reuss are available. State of development: Online-Findbuch (2009) Citation method: BArch, R 12-I/...
History of the Inventory Designer: 1872 Establishment of the Imperial Statistical Office by the Imperial Chancellor with the issue of a business instruction by the Imperial Chancellor, first subordinated to the Imperial Chancellery, since 1879 to the Imperial Office of the Interior and since 1918 with simultaneous renaming into the Imperial Statistical Office to the Imperial Ministry of Economics, 1934 Merger with the Prussian Statistical Office The task of the Office was the collection of material for Imperial Statistics, its technical and scientific examination, processing and publication, expert reporting on statistical issues. Inventory description: Inventory history Due to the effects of war and the collapse of the German Reich, the records of the Reich Statistical Office suffered heavy losses. At the Berlin headquarters in the Neue Königstraße, parts of the statistical material were destroyed during bomb attacks in May 1945. During the demolition of the building in 1945, the central registry was completely destroyed and approximately 10 of the 200,000 volumes of the library were lost. In the years 1943/44 several departments or departments with their written material had been moved to alternative locations. Much of the material that remained in the territories later occupied by Soviet troops was destroyed, while others were sent to the then Central State Archive in Potsdam. In April, the Dargun and Weimar branches were able to bring important material to Schwerin, from where the staff of the Reich Statistical Office there were able to flee to Hamburg at the end of April with parts of the documents in Schwerin. In Schwerin the original material of industrial production statistics and the mass of price statistics documents fell into Russian hands. The parts of the tax statistics that had been moved to Wernigerode were transported to Derenburg in Hesse before the retreat of the American troops. The stocks brought to Würzburg suffered losses due to bomb damage; the remaining documents were preserved. After 1945, the stock that had been relocated to the western occupation zones and the fragments of the traditions rescued from the Soviet occupation zone were concentrated in three places: 1. in the British occupation zone in the Statistical Office in Hamburg and Minden 2. and in the American occupation zone in the Ministerial Collecting Center in Fürstenhagen near Kassel; from there larger parts were brought to the USA 3. in the French occupation zone in the Office for Statistics and Economic Development in Baden-Baden. Essentially, the documents that fell into the hands of the Western occupying powers at the time were sent to the Federal Archives via the American Document Center in Berlin, the Federal Statistical Office or the USA. Archival evaluation and processing The successive transfer of parts of the collection from the Reich Statistical Office to the Federal Archives has led to a gradual recording of the holdings. The documents on the excise tax statistics, which came to the Federal Archives in 1952 with written documents from other American departments, were indexed in a finding aid book. The material returned from Alexandria in 1958 was provisionally developed in 1959. After a return of the files from the Berlin Document Center in 1962 and further splinter deliveries, a provisional completion of the indexing could be achieved in 1968. All the documents of the Statistical Office of the Reich that had entered the Federal Archives were indexed by a index of finds, whereby parts of the material recorded in the index of consumption statistics were re-signed. The publications of the Statistisches Reichsamt available in the Budnesarchiv at that time were recorded in a second index. Later, the Federal Statistical Office, in particular, was able to adopt further documents from agricultural statistics, industrial production statistics and the Reich Office for Defense Economic Planning and social statistics. Further exhibitor provenances were incorporated from the traditions of the Reichsnährstand and the Reichsstelle für Raumordnung which had been passed on to the Federal Archives. In addition, the Imperial War Museum in London handed over to the Federal Archives some relevant documents of small volume. In the winter of 1975, these additions were also incorporated into the inventory. Characterization of content: The following groups of written documents are to be named as the main focus of the collection: - Social statistics - Industry - Financial and tax statistics - Transport and communications - Abroad - Money and loans, insurance Part 1 (formerly: ZStA 31.02): Organisation and business operations 1922-1945 (186); Population and area 1925, 1933-1943 (28); Cross-sectoral economic activities 1910-1944 (533); Armament and war economy 1933-1947 (312); Industry 1910-1946 (542); Agriculture and forestry, fishing 1913, 1924-1945 (93); Transport and transportation 1924-1945 (475); Post and telegraph 1913-1944 (12); Crafts 1895, 1936-1944 (8); Arts and culture 1930-1944 (88); Medicine and sport 1928-1945 (72); Social services 1909-1945 (164); Education 1937, 1939-1944 (4); Finance and taxes 1913-1945 (177); Money and credit, insurance 1876-1946 (223); Justice and crime statistics 1937-1941 (3); Foreign countries 1904-1944 (640). Part 2 (formerly: BArch R 24): Administration 1923-1945 (16); Trade and transport statistics 1927-1944 (11); Social statistics 1927-1945 (1633); Population, business and cultural statistics 1910-1944 (5); Financial and tax statistics 1913-1945 (527); Summary economic statistics 1934-1945 (53); industrial production statistics 1936-1945 (35); general foreign statistics 1927-1945 (107); statistical communications - Memel 1932-1934 (2). State of development: Findbuch für Teil 1 (1982) Findbuch für Teil 2 (1975) Citation method: BArch, R 3102/...
History of the Inventory Designer: 1861 Constitution of the Deutscher Handelstag as a political and professional association of merchants; 1918 Change of name to Deutscher Industrie- und Handelstag, the umbrella organisation of the Chambers of Industry and Commerce; January 1935 Transfer of the branch office of the Deutscher Industrie- und Handelstag to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Industrie und Handelskammern (Act on the Preparation of the Organic Structure of the German Economy of 27 February 1934, Ordinance on the Transfer of 24 July 1935 to the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce).1935); association with the office of the Führer der Wirtschaft and affiliation to the Reichswirtschaftskammer, the umbrella organization of the "Organisation der gewerblichen Wirtschaft", and transfer of the public-law representation of the commercial economy to the Reichswirtschaftskammer, which is subordinated to the Reich Ministry of Economics; September 1943, assumption of the control of the war and armaments economy by the Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Economics, thus abolishing the mediating function between the state and the individual enterprise (decree of the Führer on the concentration of the war economy of 2 September 1943).09.1943; Decree on the allocation of tasks in the war economy of 29.10.1943). Inventory description: Inventory history The remains of the files of the German Industrial and Commercial Conference and the Reich Economic Chamber, which were rescued beyond the events of the war and the post-war period, originate from a complex of documents that was laid out after 1945 by the American occupying authorities in the Ministerial Collecting Center (MCC) in Hessisch-Lichtenau and Fürstenhagen. On behalf of the Americans, the files collected there were opened up and processed by German officials and employees in so-called working groups or sections. Via the Administrative Office for Economics in Minden and later the Administrative Office for Economics in Frankfurt/M., the documents finally came into the jurisdiction of the Federal Ministry of Economics in Duisdorf in 1951 in a strongly decimated form, and were then handed over to the Federal Archives in June 1952 after an initial inspection, pre-arrangement and separation of non-archival documents. It was not uncommon for these documents to be continued in the Reichswirtschaftskammer (Reich Chamber of Commerce) as part of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (Deutscher Industrie- und Handelstag), and it would have been difficult to divide them up between the two provenance sites when it came to establishing and delimiting the holdings. As a result of this strong continuity in the records, the archives of both provenance sites were integrated into a collection which was given the designation "Reichswirtschaftskammer" because of its final provenance. The stock was supplemented by US returns 1962-1966, 1965 and 1973. Characterisation of the content: Only fragments of the formerly extensive registries of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (1861-1934), the successor organisations of the Association of Chambers of Industry and Commerce in the Reichswirtschaftskammer (1935-1943) and the Reichswirtschaftskammer itself have survived today. The collection contains about 200 files of the until 1934 mainly on money, banking, stock exchange and credit affairs. About 3/4 of the c.a. 2200 files are files whose term extends beyond 1934 or begins only in 1935. The focus is on files of the file plan groups B III - Education, teaching and examination and D I - Foreign Chambers of Commerce, Foreign Trade, Economic Foreign Trade Intelligence Service as well as the test centre for the area of the organisation of trade and industry in the Reich Economic Chamber equipped with special powers. In detail, files have been handed down on the following subjects: Organisation, distribution of business, activities, budget, cash management, office building, business operations 1926-1945, industrial and economic reporting, economic research 1936-1945, circulars of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce, the Association of Chambers of Industry and Commerce, the Reich Economic Chamber (incomplete collection) 1925-1945, German Chambers of Industry and Commerce: Management, human resources 1922-1923, honorary commercial courts, professional development of the economy 1932-1936, education, teaching and examination 1921-1945, pricing and management 1925-1927,1930-1945, trade law, cartel law, market surveillance, Work assignment (including foreign workers and prisoners of war) 1935-1945, associations, federations, chambers of commerce abroad, foreign economic intelligence service 1924-1944, customs duties, processing traffic, trade agreements, International Chamber of Commerce 1922-1937,1942-1944, taxes, money and credit, stock exchange, socialisation 1917-1933, 1935-1942, railway transport, tariffs, freight forwarders 1923-1943, shipping, waterways and air transport 1924-1944, transport, tourism, energy 1929-1942, Court of Honour and Courts of Honour 1937-1943, Management of the German National Group of the International Society for Commercial Education 1938, 1941-1944, Testing Laboratories for the Organization of Trade and Commerce 1932-1945 State of Development: Publication Findbuch (1976) Citation method: BArch, R 11/...