1st On the history of the Central Department: The reorganization of the Württemberg military system, which was undertaken as a result of the Military Convention of 21/25 November 1870 with the help of Prussian officers and military officials since July 1871, also extended to the War Ministry. In August 1871, it was divided into the Central Bureau, the Military Department (with three sections) and the Economics Department (with five sections), following an earlier but only internally valid division and in analogy to the division of business by the Prussian War Ministry; a "provisional" division of business, actually valid for many years, at the same time determined the competences of these departments, which were later joined by other departments. The Centralbureau (abbreviated: CB. ), which before 1871 had a forerunner in the Chancellery Directorate, was subordinate to a chief who - until the end of the First World War - was at the same time an adjutant of the War Minister (see the lists of War Ministers and Heads of Departments drawn up without a more detailed study of the sources in Appendix I and II, p. XXV ff. of the German Constitution). ) According to the above-mentioned division of responsibilities, his portfolio included the following tasks:1. the personal affairs of officers, doctors and civil servants,2. the affairs of the honorary courts and military-political affairs,3. the affairs of orders and service awards,4. the affairs of the State-Ministerial,5. the affairs of the military and the military-political affairs. Presentation of those matters on which the War Minister himself intends to make the decision,6. personal correspondence of the Minister,7. editing of the Army Gazette,8. affairs of the daily press,8. from the very beginning the Central Bureau was responsible for the Chancellery, the Library and the Printing Works of the War Ministry. Some of the tasks which the Central Bureau had to perform after the division of responsibilities of the War Ministry, first reissued in January 1907, (such as the administration of the service building, the service equipment, and the office cash register of the War Ministry) may have been tacitly assigned to it, either from the outset, or gradually as a result of the original competencies. On the other hand, other changes in competence, which cannot be fully dealt with here, were reflected in the sources. Since November 1871 the powers of the Central Bureau for personal, honorary and religious matters of officers, doctors and civil servants were repeatedly restricted, until finally in April 1896 the military department became almost completely responsible for it. From November 1872 the head of the Central Bureau had to collect the documents of all departments of the War Ministry for the oral lecture of the War Minister to the King. When, in 1874, the Prussian model of keeping personal sheets and lists of troops was introduced, the Centralbureau had to keep and administer the copies of these documents that had reached the War Ministry. After the office of the Ministry under the Centralbureau had in fact been responsible for the so-called "old registry" of the War Ministry for a long time, the care for this was officially transferred to the Centralbureau in January 1885. Further smaller tasks were added in the years after the turn of the century: in 1902 the Centralbureau began to collect newspaper clippings about military affairs, and since April 1906 obituaries and death announcements of Württemberg officers were collected here; finally the Centralbureau, which was opened on August 1, 1906 or - It. MVBl. 1906, 8. 185 - on 12. 9. 1906 was renamed in "Zentral-Abteilung" (abbreviated: Z. ), in January 1907 by the new business division of the War Ministry for Monuments Affairs responsible. The tasks of the Central Department, which were only slightly changed by the new division of business, could thus be described as follows in the Court and State Manual of the Kingdom of Württemberg of 1907 pp. 64- f.: "The Central Department, whose head is also the adjutant of the War Minister, is responsible for the distribution of the entire enema to the departments, the forwarding of drafts and drafts to the War Minister, and the clearance of the enema. The Central Department deals with the rank and file lists, the patenting of the officers and medical officers, the management of the personnel sheets, the applications for the award of nobility and the examination of the nobility, the orders to be made at ceremonies, anniversaries, court and army mourning, etc., all matters concerning the course of business and the division of business of the War Ministry and, finally, the editing of the material part of the "Military Gazette". In March 1907 the Central Department also received the administration of the so-called "Memorandum Collection", i.e. the statements and elaborations prepared by the individual departments of the War Ministry for Consultations of the Bundesrat, the Reichstag and the Württemberg Landtag. The establishment of the War Archive in January 1907, which was subordinated to the Central Department and, although it had its own staff, was in fact administered entirely by it, gained greater importance. On the one hand, the Kriegsarchiv was to secure the archival documents of Württemberg's military provenance, thus prompting the Central Department to also deal with questions of cassation and preservation of such documents; on the other hand, it developed into an independent department during the World War 1914 - 1918, which the Central Department handed over the newspaper clipping collection in January 1916 and the administration of the library of the War Ministry in November 1916. While the World War 1914 - 1918 otherwise had no major impact on the organization and competencies of the Central Department, this changed towards and after the end of the war. In addition to the Central Department, which was the direct organ of the War Minister, in July 1918 the latter created another post which was directly subordinate to him, but which was assigned to the Central Department in organizational terms until October 1918. It was named after its director, Lieutenant Colonel Hummel, "Dienststelle H " and was commissioned by the Minister of War "to collect and inspect for me all documents which I need to communicate with the legislative bodies or individual members thereof. For this purpose, H shall address directly the competent departments of the Ministry of War or other relevant departments, etc.". On 7"10. 1918 it was completely dissolved by the Central Department and made independent under the name "Ministerial Department" (abbreviated: M). As the originally intended designation "Press and Secret Department" (abbreviated: P.G. ) suggests, it was primarily concerned with questions of "enlightenment" of the civilian population, war propaganda, the press, censorship and the fight against rumours. As early as January 1919, the ministerial department was absorbed into the war archive. The establishment and independence of the ministerial department obviously had as little effect on the organization and tasks of the central department as its renaming into the "main office" (abbreviated: H. ) between 18 and 25 November 1918 and the turmoil to which the War Ministry was exposed after the November Revolution of 1918. On the other hand, they were drastically changed by the reorganization decreed by the War Minister Herrmann on 14 March 1919. The main office was dissolved and established in its place: 1. the ministerial office (MB), 2. the main office (HK), 3. the print regulations administration (Dv) and the office cash register (BK), 4. the main registry (HR). While the tasks of the last three departments, which were subordinated to the Deputy Minister of War, Hauptmann (since March 15, 1919: Undersecretary of State) Krais, essentially resulted from their designations, the Ministerial Office directly subordinated to the Minister of War was in charge of marking the entire entrance, handling special assignments and personal correspondence of the Minister of War, and registering and dispatching visitors of the Minister. The processing of affairs of the National Assembly and the Württemberg State Parliament was completely abandoned, and instead of the previous main office, the "Reconnaissance and Press Office of the War Ministry", newly created in February 1919, was now responsible for them. After the resignation of the War Minister Herrmann (on 28. 6. 1919) and his deputy Krais, who had been frequently and fiercely opposed by military circles in particular, this division was reversed as early as 7*7. 1919: the ministerial office was dissolved and its personnel taken over into the "Central Department" (abbreviated: Z. ), newly formed from the other departments (HK, HR, BK), whose competencies were not described in more detail, but which was probably essentially given the previous tasks of these departments. Nothing seems to have changed when the Württemberg War Ministry had the tasks and the designation of a "Reichswehrbefehlsstelle Württemberg" from 28 August 1919 to 30 September 1919, converted from 1 October 1919 to the "Abwicklungsamt des früheren Württembergischen Kriegsministeriums" and as such united with the "Abwicklungsamt des früheren XIII. A. K." to the "Heersabwicklungsamt Württemberg". The reorganisation entailed a change in the registered office. This was originally located in the building of the War Ministry, Charlottenstr. 6, then since June 1914- in the new office building of the War Ministry, Olgastr. 13; in October 1919 the liquidation office of the War Ministry was moved into the office building of the former Commanding General, Kriegsbergstr. 13. 32, from where the Central Department or Department K (see below) in connection with the reorganization of the Army Processing Office Württemberg probably moved in September 1920 to the former secondary artillery depot in Gutenbergstr. 111. As far as the sources show, the Central Department survived these external changes essentially unchanged "however, as a result of the handling of the army, in particular the reorganization of October 1919, it increasingly lost tasks. Together with the Departments A, R, W, ZV, Auskunft and Kr. A. of the Processing Office of the former Württemberg War Ministry, it was therefore united in August 1920 to the Department K (i.e. War Ministry) of the Army Processing Office Württemberg. However, organisational changes in the following month further reduced this Department K, so that from 1 October 1920 it consisted essentially of the former Central Department again. However, its only tasks were now to process the "remaining receipts of the former War Ministry", to forward them to the competent authorities, to apply for support and to handle all employee matters of the Army Processing Office Württemberg. In addition, the subdivision W (weapons department) was subordinated to it, while the office cash register was transferred to the cash register of the Army Processing Office Württemberg as of September 20, 1920, and the war archive united with the department K in August and October 1920 was affiliated to the Reichsarchiv branch in Stuttgart in December 1920. With the dissolution of the Army Processing Office Württemberg on 31. 3. 1921 finally also the department K found its end. 2. the history and order of the holdings: When the War Ministry was reorganized in July 1871, its chancellery was converted to the new conditions by November 1871 with the help of a registrar from the Prussian War Ministry. The previously currrent files were closed except for a few fascicles, which can also be found in the present holdings (Büschel 4, 6-9, 16, 17, 66 - 68, 88, 118, 475); the individual departments of the War Ministry received new, systematic "file plans with associated repertories", and, as with the troops and the remaining military administration, the Prussian file stapling, which was not usual in Württemberg, was introduced instead of the previous loose file filing.§ 4 of the organizational regulations of the War Ministry of 16. 8. 1871 determined: "The registry of the War Ministry is a uniform one, but it is to be formed in such a way that each department has its own files and is at the disposal of the same for the keeping of the journal, for the procurement of the procedures, for the completion of the files etc. 1 registrar official". For the Central Department, as for the other departments of the Ministry, this meant that, as competences increased, the department's file plan was supplemented by newly created files or by files taken over from other departments and appropriately re-signed, while the loss of competences entailed the transfer of files to other departments. Accordingly, the majority of the files of the Zen-tral Department concerning personal, honorary court and order matters of officers, military doctors and civil servants were mainly transferred to the registry of the Military Department (today stock M 1/4 and from there partly to the registry of the Department for Personal Affairs newly formed in 1917 (today stock M 1/5), while pure personnel files today were transferred to the stocks M 430/1 (personnel files I), M 430/2 (personnel files II) and M 430/5 (personnel files V) in the stocks M 430/1 (personnel files I), M 430/2 (personnel files II) and M 430/5 (personnel files V). A special group within the departmental registry were the files kept by the head of the central department as an adjutant of the Minister of War. They were usually marked with the suffix "A" (=djutantur) or "Secret" and mainly comprised secret and personnel files, so-called "officer registries". Among them were the secret files Büschel 47, 199 and 469, the tufts 172, 173, 189-191, 193-196, 199, 200, 202, 203, 207-458, 468 and 469 of the present holdings marked with "A" as well as the entire holdings M 1/2 (special files of the Minister of War and his adjutant), the formation and separation of which from the remaining documents of the Central Department probably mainly goes back to the army archive Stuttgart. While the files were essentially classified in the systematic file plan of the Central Department, there were also special registries and special file groups of the Central Department that were not included in this plan. In the first place, these included the Allerhöchste Ordres, which decided on the application lists (Büschel 209-458) presented to the king by the Minister of War; from 1 January 1873 they were kept in a special registry and today form the holdings M 1/1(Allerhöchste Ordres). The copies of the personnel sheets of officers, military doctors and military officials introduced in 1874 and destined for the War Ministry were also kept as special registries; today they are classified - together with the above-mentioned personnel files - in the holdings M 430/1, M 430/2 M 430/3 and 430/5. In addition, the systematic file plan did not include the lists of troop units (today stock M 1/11), which were also introduced in 1874, the collections of newspaper cuttings (today stock M 730), the so-called necrologist (today stock M 744) and the so-called memorials (today stock M 731). Finally, the so-called "war files" were also treated as special groups, i.e. those files which grew during the World War 1914 - 1918 in addition to the other, continued registry files and which concern especially the matters of warfare and its effects on the homeland; only a small part of them has survived and, moreover, some of them are in fonds M 1/11 (Kriegsarchiv). It is very probable that the Central Department kept the two war rolls with their corresponding lists of names, which are now classified as M 457 (war rolls of the War Ministry, Höchster Kommandobehörden, etc.) Until the outbreak of war in August 1914, the registry, apart from the effects of the various changes in competence, had essentially existed as it had been set up in 1871. On the other hand, changes began with the outbreak of war, which intensified especially towards and after the end of the war and finally led to the complete redesign of the registry. As early as August 1914, a new, additional war business diary was begun, which continued to run until November 1914 and then became the department's sole journal. At the same time, the creation of so-called war files began, which no longer contained signatures but were marked in the business diaries only with abbreviated file titles. The dissolution of the uniformity and the internal and external order of the registry began with this, but the development intensified towards and after the end of the war. It was favoured by the increase in the volume of business, by the increasing fluctuation of the less and less trained office staff, by the decreasing paper quality, by the renunciation of file stitching, possibly by the twofold relocation of the office after the end of the war and above all by the repeated organisational changes. The latter began with the establishment of Office H, which separated itself from the registry of the Central Department since it became independent as the "Ministerial Department" in October 1918, created its own journal, filed its files in folders, and no longer arranged these files systematically but only numerically and signed them accordingly. In addition, when the central department was renamed "head office", some of the previous files were no longer maintained and new files were created for them. This was repeated more frequently in March 1919, when the main office was divided into the departments ministerial office, main office, administration of printing regulations and office cash as well as main registry. Again, some of the previous files have been discontinued. Other parts of the registry, however, continued to grow at the main office and registry, the files of which appear to have been kept jointly, and at the ministerial office. Like the main office and the main registry, this office also created new files that received signatures without a system in numerical order only. The reunification of these departments into the Central Department in July 1919, the transformation of the War Ministry into the Winding-up Office of the former War Ministry in October 1919, and the formation of Department K of the Army Winding-up Office in Württemberg in October 1920 all followed the same procedure. The fact that one was able to find one's way around the registry, although it became more and more confusing, was certainly also due to the fact that as the Württemberg army progressed, older files became less and less needed and the volume of business became smaller and smaller. When the Heeresabwicklungsamt Württemberg was completely dissolved on 31. 3. 1921, the entire registry of the Central Department or its successor offices was immediately transferred to the Reichsarchiv branch in Stuttgart, which was housed in the same office building. In 1937 the remaining holdings were transferred to the Heeresarchiv Stuttgart and in 194-5 to the Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart. In its present form, the holdings comprise M 1/3 written records that have grown up at the Centralbureau and its successor offices, including Department K of the Army Administration Office Württemberg. Although it would have made sense to assign the files of this Section K to the holdings M 390 (Heeresabwicklungsamt Württemberg) as well, analogous to the holdings of the other departments of the War Ministry, which also contain files continued at the Heeresabwicklungsamt Württemberg, they were, however, left with the existing holdings. Apart from the fact that some of the material has been transferred to other M stands mentioned above and has now been left there, some extensive cassations were probably carried out in earlier years. The loss of business diaries from before 1910, which were collected at an unknown time, should be highlighted. After the turmoil of the November Revolution of 1918 had apparently passed without any loss of documents for the central department, the greater part of the so-called war files was probably handed over to the garrison administration in Stuttgart in September 1919 and probably destroyed there. Large-scale cassations, on which Büschel 107 of the holdings (with details of the respective file signatures) provides information, were carried out - probably in 1932 - by the Stuttgart branch of the Reich Archives when the holdings were recorded; in the process, some files were lost which would today be preserved as worthy of archiving. Some worthless files - above all cash documents of the office cash (0, 5 running m) - were cashed with the current distortion. In accordance with the provenance principle, some fascicles which had previously formed part of the holdings have now also been assigned to the holdings M 1/4 and M 660 (estate of the Minister of War v. Marchtaler); the holdings M 390 were assigned those files which had not grown up in the Central Department or Department K of this authority. Against better knowledge, the Heeresarchiv Stuttgart had added 50 books to the holdings as appendices, which it had received in 1938 from the so-called war collection of the former court library of Stuttgart. These books had been published during the World War 1914-1918, placed under censorship and probably destroyed in their remaining edition. Since the relevant files, to which they belong as annexes, are kept in fonds M 77/1 (Deputy General Command XIII. A. K. ), they were now added to this fonds; their index, which was attached to the previously valid repertory of the present fonds, was added to the repertory M 77/1. Conversely, fonds M 1/3 now contains some archival records which were previously kept in other fonds. The tufts 90, 102, 104, 110, 176, 586 - 589 and 591 were taken over from inventory E 271 (War Ministry), volumes 25, 26 and 94- from inventory E 279 (registration books of the highest military authorities), tufts 204 from inventory M 4-00/2 (Heeresarchiv Stuttgart - Abteilung Zentralnachweisamt), tufts 512 from inventory M 430/2 as well as 109 from the unsigned inventory "Aufbau und Organisation" tufts of the present inventory.At an unknown time, but presumably soon after their transfer to the archive, the files of the Central Department were recorded in the Reichsarchiv branch in Stuttgart. This was done by resorting to a summary list of the files available in the systematic records registry, which was probably drawn up in the Central Department after the outbreak of war, and which was not quite accurately referred to as "peace files". This list (Büschel 107) lists the files in sequence of their signatures and with short titles and is more complete than a similar list (Büschel 55) created by the former War Ministry's Winding-up Office. The list of peace records (Büschel 107) was initially supplemented in the Reichsarchiv branch by equally summary lists of the business diaries and the records of the ministerial department, the ministerial office and the office box office. It was only later, probably in 1932, that information about the duration, cassations carried out and package counting, which had only just been introduced, was added and the revised finding aid was written in 1932. Although this repertory, supplemented by later supplements, could not satisfy much, it was still in use. With the current new indexing and order of the stock M 1/3 it was tried to do justice to the numerous organizational changes reflected in the file formation. The largest part of the collection is made up of files grown up between 1871 and 1918. They are arranged according to the signatures of the old, systematic file plan, which, however, has not yet been found, but could only be reconstructed on the basis of these signatures. With the exception of the business diaries and the so-called war records, several unsigned items have also been placed in this plan in a suitable place. Corrections to the plan were necessary in individual lallen identified by references. Reference is also made at the appropriate points in the file plan to files which were continued after November 1918 at the head office or another successor department of the central department and which therefore had to be assigned to another file group of the present stock, as well as to files of the central department which are kept in the stocks M 1/4, M 1/5 and M 390. On the other hand, reference can only be made here in general to the records of the Central Department in the aforementioned inventories M 1/1, M 1/2, M 1/11, M 430/1, M 430/2, M 430/3, M 430/5, M 457, M 730 and M 731. Because of the unclear separation of the registries, a divorce of the files that had grown up after October 1918, March 1919, July 1919, October 1919, and October 1920 respectively in the main office, ministerial office, main office, main registry, central department, and department K would only have been possible very imperfectly and would not have been profitable for the use of the repertory. These documents could therefore only be divorced into two groups justified by the history of the authorities, which, if necessary, were interlinked by references: in files which were current until October 1919, and in files which were continued or newly created after that date; as far as possible, the first group was based on the file regulations of the ministerial office, while the structure of the second group had to be completely revised. The files of the cash office and the ministerial department, which were merely affiliated to the central department or separated from it as independent departments, form separate groups; these files were not or only loosely connected to the registry of the central department. None of these file groups were able to classify the hand files of officers and officials of the Central Department; they were therefore combined into a separate file group. By the end of 1918, all files of the holdings had generally grown up in the registry of the Central Department. Therefore, provenance data were only necessary for the title recordings for files which deviated from this rule and which grew up after October/November 1918; unless otherwise stated, only departments of the War Ministry could be considered as provenances until the establishment of the Reichswehr Command Post Württemberg in August 1919. the holdings were recorded by Oberstaatsarchivrat Dr. Fischer in the summer of 1971 - after preparatory work by the contractual employee Westenfelder; however, only since spring 1975 was it possible for him to revise the title recordings and complete the repertory. The collection comprises 27 volumes (1 m running) and 602 tufts (13 m running). Stuttgart, September 1975Fischer 3rd Appendix I: Minister of War or head of the War Ministry and its settlement office after 1870: 23.3.1870 - 13.9-1874Albert v. Suckow, General of the Infantry, Minister of War (23-3.1870 head of the War Department; 19.7.1870 Minister of War)13.9.1874 - 22.7.1883Theodor v. Wundt, Lieutenant General , War Minister (13.9.1874 in charge of the War Ministry; 5.3.1875 Head of Department; 14.6.1879 War Minister)28.7.1883 - 10.5.1892Gustav v. Steinheil, General der Infanterie "War Minister (28.7-1883 Head of Department; 28.2.1885 War Minister)10.5.1892 - 13.4.1901Max Freiherr Schott v. Schottenstein, General of the Infantry, War Minister13.4.1901 - 10.6.1906Albert v. Schnürlen, General of the Infantry, War Minister10.3.1906 - 8.11.1918Otto v. Marchtaler, Colonel General, War Minister9.11.1918 - 15.11.1918Carpenter, Deputy Officer, Head of Warfare16.11.1918 - 14.1.1919Ulrich Fischer, Deputy Sergeant, Head of Warfare15.1.1919 - 28.6.1919Immanuel Herrmann, Lieutenant of the Landwehr II and Professor at the Technical University of Stuttgart, War Minister30.6.1919 - 28.8.1919Erich Wöllwarth, Lieutenant Colonel, in charge of the War Ministry28.8.1919 - 30.9.1919Erich Wöllwarth, Lieutenant Colonel, Chief of the Reichswehr Command Post1.10.1919 - 31.3.1921Erich Scupin, Major, Chief of the Processing Office of the former Württemberg War Ministry or (since 1.10.1920) of Department K of the Army Processing Office Württemberg 4. Appendix; II: Heads of the Central Department: 28.3.1870 - 30.12.1872Gustav v. Steinheil, Major30.12.1872 - 25.9-1874Reinhard v. Fischer, Hauptmann23c 9.1874 - 26.9.1879Karl Freiherr v. Reitzenstein, Lieutenant Colonel or Captain30.9.1879 - 9.10.1899Paul v. Bilfinger, Captain or Major9.10.1889 - 19.3.1896Albert v. Funk, Major resp. Lieutenant Colonel19.3.1896 - 24.2.1899Gustav v. Steinhardt, Hauptmann24.2.1899 - 18.7.1902Heinrich v. Maur, Hauptmann18.7.1902 - 18.8.1903Ernst v. Schroeder, Hauptmann18.8.1903 - 19.11.1909Hermann v. Haldenwang, Hauptmann resp. Major19.11.1909 - 21.4.1911Max Holland, Hauptmann resp. Major21c 4.1911 - 25.2.1914Richard v. Haldenwang, Major22.4.1914 - 28.3.1915Wilhelm Freiherr v. Neurath, Captain or Major28.3.1913 - 10.6.1918August Graf v. Reischach, Major11.6.1918 - 27.3.1919Erwin Tritschler, Major 5. Special preliminary remark for classification point D: In addition to its main registry, the Central Department of the Ministry of War kept a number of special registries and collections. These included the Allerhöchsten königlichen Ordres and the special files of the War Minister and his adjutant, i.e. today's stocks M 1/1 and M 1/2, then the rankings and the personal sheets of the officers, since 1906 a collection of necrologists, the 1874 established regulars of the troops, the general collection of printing regulations, the collection of newspaper clippings kept since 1902, and the collection of memoranda established in 1907. The Imperial Archives branch and the Army Archives combined the personal documents with other, comparable material from today's holdings M 430 - M 433 and continued the necrologist, now holdings M 744, and the printing regulations, now holdings M 635/1, as archival collections. Only the self-contained or reconstructed series of the lists of collectors, memorandums and newspaper cuttings could be integrated into the holdings of the Central Department in accordance with the provenance (1). These should each include "the entire period of the unit from the year of foundation" and be supplemented annually by November 1 with regard to "garrison and changes thereof, supplementation, uniform and armament, as well as changes thereto, trunk and formation changes, campaigns and battles, awards, chiefs, commanders". The central department of the Ministry then collected its own notes, incoming reports, printed matter, etc. in folders created separately for each unit, which, carefully managed, soon developed into an excellent source of information on the aforementioned areas until the information was broken off in 1912. At an indefinite time, the lists were bound and assigned to the later holdings of M 1/11 Kriegsarchiv, which was reorganized in 1985 and removed again and inserted here. By order of the War Ministry of March 9, 1907, the departments of the Ministry had to take up such military matters that might be discussed in the Bundesrat, the Reichstag, or the Landtag, and to submit corresponding elaborations together with relevant printed matter, journal articles, etc. The Ministry's departments were also responsible for the preparation of the lists. After the individual cases had been concluded, the central department kept these so-called memorandums of understanding so that they could be sent back quarterly to the responsible departments for updating. The portfolios were sorted and counted according to the alphabet of the keywords; in 1911 the keywords and the subsequent numbering were renewed and compiled in a printed directory (see Annex). Some of the tufts also included events from earlier years until, after the outbreak of war in 1914, the collection was only continued in individual cases and finally handed over to the War Archive Department of the Ministry at the beginning of 1919. But none of these measures has ever covered the whole stock, nor has it been fully preserved or restored. After a number of tufts had been mixed together in the army archives, while others had been separated and newly compiled, the numbers 15 (or 16), 19, 26, 49, 51, 56, 79, 80, 93, and 113 of the Order of the Year 1911 are now missing. In 1939/50, government inspector Alfons Beiermeister united the present material with further general printed memoranda, among others, which had arisen during file excretions, to the later holdings M 730 "memoranda". When it was dissolved in 1985, the memorandums of the central department could be reintegrated according to the provenance. Since 1902, the Central Department for the Military Administration had been collecting important news from several daily newspapers, which differed according to their attitude and orientation, such as Berliner Tagblatt, Frankfurter Zeitung, Der Beobachter, Deutsches Volksblatt, Schwäbischer Merkur, Schwäbische Tagwacht, Stuttgarter Neues Tagblatt, Württemberger Zeitung, etc. The excerpts were pasted in chronological order into subsequently bound issues, most of which were accompanied by a detailed table of contents. After the collecting activity had been interrupted in 1913 with a special volume on the occasion of the government anniversary of Kaiser Wilhelm II, it was resumed at the beginning of the war in 1914 in a considerably expanded framework: In addition to excerpts from official decrees published in the State Gazette, there were now series on topics such as "Theatre of War", "Parliament", "War Nursing". At the beginning of 1916, however, this collection was transferred to the War Archive Department of the Ministry and then continued there. However, the group "Statements of the Political Parties on the War", which was mainly composed of party newspapers and was also originally to be published, initially remained with the Central Department, which also opened a new group "Omissions of the Press on Civilian Service" towards the end of 1916. In July 1918, the remaining thematic collection - i.e. without the aforementioned extracts from official decrees - was to be transferred to the newly created "Dienststelle H", the later "Ministerialabteilung", abbreviated to M, of the Ministry. The extent to which this was achieved must be left open, as the collection was not continued in either of the two departments in its previous form. Kurt Hiller, retired Colonel of the Archives, combined all the relevant documents from the War Ministry with further newspapers, excerpts, memoranda, etc. from the "Zeitungsausschnittsammlung des Württembergischen Kriegsministeriums" (newspaper excerpt collection of the Württemberg War Ministry), later to become M 731, in the Army Archives with further documents dating back to 1938, and created a tape repertory of them, which remained unfinished around 1940. When this stock was divided up in 1985, the newspaper clippings, which had been selected by the central department and not, as mentioned, handed over to the war archives in 1916, were once again classified in the stock of the central department. 1974 already, the work contract employee of Westerfelder recorded the lists of the regulars, in spring 1985, the archive employee Werner Urban recorded the memoranda; in addition, he produced the associated index of places, persons and subjects. For the newspaper clippings, the title recordings of the finding aid book of 1940 were taken over to a large extent, for the place, person and subject index arranged again by Werner Urban in addition the 1950 to the fonds M 731 of Beiermeister created register was also used. The selection of keywords contained in the title recordings as well as in Beiermeister's indexes is limited and could be supplemented on the basis of the above-mentioned tables of contents for the individual volumes, but such, in itself desirable, extensive expansion has been postponed for the time being.The lists of collectors, memorandums and newspaper clippings of the Central Department of the Ministry of War now include the volumes and tufts 603 - 821 in 3.3 meters of shelves. Stuttgart, October 1985(Cordes)(1) In this respect the information in volume 1 of the Repertory, p. XVIII, must now be corrected.