Preliminary remark: With the foundation of the German Reich in January 1871 and the establishment of the Foreign Office as an imperial institution, the powers of the Württemberg Ministry of Foreign Affairs were severely restricted and most Württemberg missions abroad were dissolved in the following years. However, through official correspondence with various institutions of the North German Confederation and later of the German Reich, numerous documents were gathered from which the present holdings were formed. This consists of the following parts:E 36 Verz. F (only one file)E 46 "B[andes] A[ngelegenheiten]", formerly Bü 251 - 590 und 1265 - 1266 (m. L.)E 49 Verz. 3 "B[andes] A[ngelegenheiten]"E 49 Verz. 22, rubrics "Bundesr[at]" and "Reich "A detailed history of the ministry can be found in the preface to fonds E 40/10, to which reference is made here.Since the North German Federation, like the Second German Reich, was already dominated by Prussia, the year 1866, in which the German Federation was finally dissolved and Austria's supremacy in Germany ended, appeared as a suitable border year for the General Acts on General Foreign Policy. In the end, the collection reaches back to the time of the early Weimar Republic, since a border year of 1918 became superfluous due to the dissolution of the ministry in 1920. The documents cover all general matters concerning the North German Federation (from 1867) and the German Reich (from 1871). This also includes the files concerning the imperial legations and consulates, which partially replaced the Württemberg missions abroad (cf. holdings E 50/00 - E 50/61 as well as E 65 - E 75). However, the documents concerning relations with the individual German federal states are not included in the inventory. Since here a considerable number of files chronologically exceed the "cut-off year" 1866/67 on both sides, a separation did not seem to make sense here. Questions of territory with the neighbouring states of Württemberg for the period of the early Kingdom of Württemberg are to be found in inventory E 40/11 (acquisitions of territory from 1806 onwards), later smaller border clearings and general foreign policy relations with the other German federal states in inventory E 40/14. The section "German Affairs 1866 - 1871", in which the ministerial tradition of the emergence of the Second German Empire and in particular the wars waged in the run-up to it (German War 1866 and Franco-German War 1870/71) is located, was again completely added to inventory E 40/72 (war matters and military matters), since here the political and military aspects are extremely closely interlinked. Numerous other documents on Württemberg's relations with Prussia, the North German Federation, its position as the federal state of the German Reich and its involvement in federal affairs within the framework of the Bundesrat are kept in inventory E 74 (Württemberg Embassy in Berlin), since the respective Württemberg envoy in Berlin was at the same time also authorized representative to the Bundesrat. In these cases, it is therefore possible to speak in part of a counter tradition to the existing stock, which now comprises 841 tufts or 16.30 linear metres of shelving. Most of the title recordings were made by Dr. Kurt Hochstuhl at the end of the 1990s. The final editorial office was provided by the undersigned. Stuttgart, February 2011Johannes Renz b) nationality mark: [A]Austria [AUS]Australia [B]Belgium [BR]Brazil [CH]Switzerland [CHN]People's Republic of China [CZ]Czech Republic [DZ]Algeria [F]France [GB]Great Britain and Northern Ireland [GR]Greece [I]Italy [IND]India [J]Japan [LT]Lithuania [MD]Moldova [N]Norway [NL]Netherlands [PL]Poland [RA]Argentina [RO]Romania [RUS]Russia [S]Sweden [TN]Tunisia [USA]United States of America [ZA]South Africa