Inventory history: "Saved for Baden" in 1995, a rare source genre in Germany, 923 so-called homage addresses, previously unknown evidence of the lively participation of the citizens of the country in the fortunes of their princely house, were saved from the New Castle Baden-Baden. They could be acquired as an almost closed collection; only a few were sold at auction in 1995 or were excluded from sale and remained in the possession of the margravial family. Most of the addresses date from the reign of Grand Duke Friedrich I (1852-1907). During this period of constitutional monarchy, the distance between the now mature subjects and their sovereign had decreased. Above all as representatives of cities, associations, professional associations, political, cultural and charitable institutions of the country or countries connected with Baden and even individually, they paid their respects to this and his wife Luise, born Princess of Prussia, especially for weddings, birthdays and other anniversaries of their house. Due to her extensive charitable activities and as the daughter of Emperor Wilhelm I, the Grand Duchess herself also received homages. The addresses of the military associations, which honour the Grand Duke in his capacity as the supreme commander of the country, are particularly numerous and magnificent, and the connection between the two houses of Baden and Prussia is reflected both in the artistic design of the addresses and in their texts. Thus, the Grand Duke's appreciation of his role as the father of the country can sometimes evoke themes from the history of the Reich, such as Baden's relationship with Prussia, the imperial unit whose patrons included the Grand Duke, colonialism or increasing militarism. A large number of the addresses united in this collection and their containers are elaborately designed and give an impression of the craftsmanship of the time, whereby the historicist style predominates. Among them are some works of the Karlsruhe professors for decorative painting at the school of arts and crafts, Hermann Götz and Karl Eyth; the portfolios are headed by the Durlach company of Eduard Scholl and his successor, and numerous old signatures bear witness to the fact that the addresses of homage also attracted attention among their recipients. They were inventoried several times and kept in the library or in the natural history cabinet. These earlier signatures are also noted in our repertory. Among the older ones are the handwritten signatures of the Hofbibliothek Karlsruhe on rhombus-shaped labels (inventory and holdings since 1995 in the Badische Landesbibliothek; our abbreviation: H). The handwritten or stamped signatures on rectangular labels can be traced back to later inventories since the 1880s by the gallery inspector Dr. Karl Kölitz (our abbreviation: K), Richter (our abbreviation: R) and probably Count Schweinitz as well as Albert Hartmann, Baden-Baden (our abbreviation: B). Lydia Filaus took over their input into the computer program Bismas. The remaining title recordings were made by Dr. Hansmartin Schwarzmaier and after preliminary work by Hiltburg Köckert the undersigned. Since the addresses are already cited in the literature with provisional signatures during the indexing, a concordance of these and the now valid signatures is added to the repertory. The current number sequence of the addresses corresponds to their storage according to formats in the magazine. Since the title entries of the addresses in the find book are structured according to their occasions, these numbers jump there. The 11 addresses remaining in the castle Salem were taken up with the designation Salem 1ff. in the repertory and described after slides taken in the new castle Baden-Baden 1995. Older "congratulations" for the margraves of Baden (18th century) can be found in the manuscript collection of the Großherzogliches Haus-Fideicommisses, others in the collection 69 Baden, collection 1995 G. Karlsruhe, March 2002Dr. Jutta Krimm-Beumann Conversion: The online finding aid for the present inventory is a result of the project "Conversion of old finding aid data" of the General State Archive Karlsruhe, which was carried out by Guido Fögler in 2006/2007. The project was supervised by Alexander Hoffmann and Hartmut Obst.Karlsruhe, in June 2007Dr. Martin Stingl
Origin and tradition: The Grand Ducal photo collection from the reign of Frederick I and his wife Luise probably originated from gifts, orders and acquisitions (e.g. while travelling). It is not yet possible to say to what extent there was a real will to collect, but the collection was carefully preserved, partly noted in inventory lists and probably moved from Karlsruhe Castle to the New Palace in Baden-Baden in 1919. There, even after the death of Grand Duchess Luise, he occasionally grew. When the castle inventory of 1995 was dissolved, the State of Baden-Württemberg was able to acquire the entire photo collection for the General State Archives; a selection of family photos and some magnificent volumes remained the property of the House of Baden. He also owns an essential part of the photo collection of the last Grand Duke, Frederick II, who fortunately was not kept in the Freiburg Palais after 1919. Content: The medium of photography was highly valued and consciously used at the Baden court as a modern form of princely representation. The distribution of portrait series to the public can be reconstructed and the long reign of Frederick I enabled the presence of the "father of the country" or the "parents of the country", as can be found among the Hohenzollern, the Wittelsbachers or the Habsburgs. Documents from these photo commissions to the court photographers make up a not insignificant part of the collection. The proportion of gifts and souvenir pictures received after anniversaries, celebrations, manoeuvres, exhibitions, inaugurations, etc. is greater; the handing over of portraits of foreign visitors also belonged to this group, especially in the context of the summer stays in Baden-Baden. One of the most important gifts are probably the works with which photographers wanted to attract attention, acquire the title of court photographer or receive further commissions; in this way, works from the early days of photography came into the Grand Duke's possession: signed prints by Charles Clifford, the Upper Italian and Southwest German series by Jakob August Lorent in 60x80 format already admired at the time of their creation (Lorent also left to the Grand Duke a detailed description of his recording and development process) or, to name regionally effective photographers, photographs by Richard/Heidelberg, Tillman-Matter/Mannheim, Th. shoe man
Curriculum vitae Karl Fritz: Karl Fritz, born on 29 November 1914 in Pfullendorf as the son of a plasterer and a part-time farmer, was made possible by a scholarship to attend the grammar school in Constance. Immediately after graduating from high school, he completed his work service, which was followed by military service with the infantry regiment 114 in Konstanz and with the military district command in Ehingen an der Donau. From November 1, 1938, the day he joined the NSDAP, until October 31, 1941, he was an administrative candidate for the "upper middle administrative service" (including Überlingen, Konstanz, and Stockach), and from November 1, 1942 he was employed as a government inspector in various positions (including Karlsruhe and Sinsheim). From the summer of 1943 until the end of the war, he had joined the Wehrmacht and served in southern France. Based in Freiburg since October 1945, Karl Fritz resumed his administrative duties at the Ministry of the Interior. In 1952 he was transferred to the Transport Department of the South Baden Regional Council, where he retired in 1977 as a senior civil servant. Karl Fritz died on 29 November 1990 in Freiburg. Inventory history: According to family tradition, Karl Fritz, possibly inspired by the example of an uncle, began to "collect" contemporary historical material at an early age. He was employed by the authorities in which he was employed, and the main focus was on posters and brochures with duplicates. Its content is enhanced by the collection of banknotes, especially emergency money, which has been collected from all over the German Reich. The "Karl Fritz" collection, which had grown to a height of 40 m, was donated to the Freiburg State Archives in 1993. An initial inspection revealed that not all the documents were worthy of archiving. In addition, the collection contained material that was difficult to include in the documentation profile of the State Archives. Extensive order work followed. First, the newspaper collection and the literature on contemporary history were transferred to the service library of the State Archives and - in the case of documents on military history - to the Federal Archives and Military Archives; then the posters were separated and the W 113 collection of Karl Fritz posters was formed. A number of posters of East Prussian origin were handed over to the Geheime Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, some pieces of Berlin origin to the Landesarchiv Berlin. The same happened with the picture material, from which the stock W 145/2 - picture collection Karl Fritz was created. The documents remaining in the remaining stock W 307 were subjected to a further examination in October 1998 and were roughly sorted after the non-archival documents (law and official gazettes, newspaper cuttings, duplicates of printed material and banknotes as well as newspaper series, which are available in the Freiburg UB) had been sorted out. Around 11 metres of shelving were fed into the cassation and the remaining nine metres were listed in order to obtain an initial overview of the available material and to allow provisional access. The collection consists of various contemporary materials on German history since the foundation of the German Reich in 1871 with a clear focus on the period of National Socialism as well as on the post-war period. 2004-2005, as part of an ABM measure, this provisional indexing of the W 307 - Karl Fritz Collection was replaced by a more in-depth indexing. The intention was to generally improve the accessibility of this collection. In addition, preparatory work should also be carried out to enable the digital presentation of the banknotes on the Internet. The archive employee Martin Schittny took over the task of cataloguing and digitising the collection. As the first result the archive find book for the stock W 307 - Collection Karl Fritz can now be presented. It will be followed as an online application by the approximately 5,500 digitalised Karl Fritz image database, which now comprises 1531 numbers (numbers 265, 512, 609 and 706 are not documented) in 6.5 lfd.m.Freiburg, in January 2006 Kurt Hochstuhl.
Curriculum vitae of Karl Fritz: Karl Fritz, born on 29 November 1914 in Pfullendorf as the son of a plasterer and a part-time farmer, was made possible by a scholarship to attend the grammar school in Constance. Immediately after graduating from high school, he completed his work service, which was followed by military service with the infantry regiment 114 in Konstanz and with the military district command in Ehingen an der Donau. From November 1, 1938, the day he joined the NSDAP, until October 31, 1941, he was an administrative candidate for the "upper middle administrative service" (including Überlingen, Konstanz, and Stockach), and from November 1, 1942 he was employed as a government inspector in various positions (including Karlsruhe and Sinsheim). From the summer of 1943 until the end of the war, he had joined the Wehrmacht and served in southern France. Based in Freiburg since October 1945, Karl Fritz resumed his administrative duties at the Ministry of the Interior. In 1952, he was transferred to the Transport Department of the South Baden Regional Council, where he retired in 1977 as a senior civil servant. Karl Fritz died on 29 November 1990 in Freiburg. Inventory history: According to family tradition, Karl Fritz, possibly inspired by the example of an uncle, began to "collect" contemporary historical material at an early age. Posters from the authorities in which he was employed were completed, and duplicates of posters and brochures were the main focus of his collection. This is enhanced in terms of content by the collection of banknotes, above all emergency money, which has been collected from all over the German Reich. The "Karl Fritz" collection (stock W 307), which had grown to 40 m, was donated to the Freiburg State Archives in 1993. An initial inspection revealed that not all the documents were worthy of archiving. In addition, the collection contained material that was difficult to include in the documentation profile of the State Archives. Extensive order work followed. First, the newspaper collection and the literature on contemporary history were transferred to the service library of the State Archives and - in the case of documents on military history - to the Federal Archives and Military Archives; then the posters were separated and the W 113 collection of Karl Fritz posters was formed. A number of posters of East Prussian origin were handed over to the Geheime Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, some pieces of Berlin origin to the Landesarchiv Berlin. The same happened with the picture material, from which the present collection W 145/2 - Bildsammlung Karl Fritz arose, which was catalogued and digitised by Annika Scheumann and Martin Schittny. The collection now comprises 938 numbers in 0.4 lfd.m.Freiburg, in September 2010Kurt Hochstuhl