History of the Inventory Designer: Introduction Stones do not speak. Much less can or must entire buildings reveal the whole historical truth. National Socialism should work. Building under National Socialism also served this purpose, either directly on behalf of the system or indirectly at least by not opposing it. The enslavement of architecture by the regime was not limited to new buildings of the NS era. National Socialism also established itself in the stock, instrumentalised old buildings everywhere for its purposes. Not even all of the important command centers of the Nazi regime or the main sites of Nazi terror were housed throughout in buildings which, in historical retrospect, could be regarded as having their origin and function at the time. In the memory of the city and in the urban space, places of the perpetrators are handed down as places of the victims, whose role is only revealed in the explanation and commentary of their historical function in the "Third Reich". Prehistory until 1937 In the Third Reich, architecture served to express power and domination. This is particularly evident in the inner city of Berlin. The monumental new buildings in the imperial capital were intended to symbolize "German world standing". Adolf Hitler wanted to see "works created for eternity" in Berlin, "only comparable with ancient Egypt, Babylon or Rome," as he said in 1936. At the 1937 Reich Party Congress, Hitler announced: "... Therefore our buildings should not be thought for the year 1940, also not for the year 2000, but should project directly into the domes of our past into the millennia of the future." Soon after the seizure of power, propagandistically effective building projects were started. These included the Reich Aviation Ministry, Tempelhof Airport, which was to be expanded into a "world airport", and the Reich Sports Field, which was to be expanded and redesigned with a view to the Olympic Games. The powerful buildings were presented to the public with great journalistic effort. At the 1936 Reich Party Congress in Nuremberg, Hitler announced the "reconstruction of Berlin as the capital of the German Reich". Hitler had initially intended to have his plans for the reorganization of the inner-city area processed by the Berlin city administration. When he realised that the local authorities were reluctant to impose his far-reaching transformation fantasies, he changed the responsibilities for planning and building in the capital. On 30 January 1937, the young architect Albert Speer was appointed general building inspector for the redevelopment of the imperial capital (GBI), reporting directly to the "Führer". Organization and history from 1937 A few days after Speer's appointment, Hitler ordered the House of the Academy of Arts at Pariser Platz No. 4, which until then had belonged to the office of the Minister of Education, to be vacated for the office of the General Building Inspector. Within a year and a half, the GBI's planning staff alone grew to eighty-seven people, while the so-called implementing body employed the same number of staff. Speer appointed a number of equally competent and reliable people to the executive positions in the three main departments into which he divided the office: the head office, which administered the budget, was taken over by the financial expert Karl Maria Hettlage, the general site manager Walter Brugmann, who had got to know Speer in Nuremberg, and for the planning office, since it was objectively most important to him, he, in addition to Hans Stephan, called on two long-standing friends, Rudolf Wolters and Willi Schelkes, who had been associated with him since days of study. The Speers offices, which had been established successively since 1937, were not divided into three main offices until mid-1940 under the central management of the GBI. After his appointment to the GBI, Speer expanded his planning staff to the "office" of the GBI. This later Main Office I, Planning Office, was responsible for all planning matters, ordered more than one hundred areas of redesign by 1942 and set the respective clearance dates. From 1938, Jewish tenants were forced to cancel their tenancy agreements on the basis of the "Verordnung über den Einsatz des jüdischen Vermögens" (Ordinance on the Use of Jewish Property); they were admitted to Jewish houses and later to concentration camps. For the "resettlement" of Jews and the reassignment of the apartments, the GBI's "Implementation Office" had been set up under the direction of Karl Maria Hettlage. In this way about 18,000 apartments were requisitioned. Areas from which the Jews were completely expelled were described as "Jew-free". The number of buildings erected during the twelve years of National Socialist rule between 1933 and 1945 is surprisingly high, especially since it must be remembered that only six years were available during the Second World War. In November 1939, a ban on new construction was imposed due to the war, which was followed half a year later by the discontinuation of all construction measures not necessary for the war. The GBI was established by the Decree of 30 January 1937. The office itself was assigned to Albert Speer, who from 1934 was "the representative for construction in the staff of the deputy of the Führer" and as such had already established some Nazi party buildings, especially in Nuremberg. At first, the GBI's competence did not extend beyond Berlin and its immediate surroundings. The "Gesetz über die Neugestaltung deutscher Städte" of 4 Oct. 1937 does not yet contain a more detailed provision on the "agency commissioned" by Hitler himself to carry out these projects. Only in this way was it possible for a special "General Building Council for the Capital of the Movement" to be appointed to Munich by decree of 21 Dec. 1938 and for this office to be occupied by the NS party architect Paul Giesler; Giesler was also commissioned with the establishment of NS party buildings in Augsburg and Weimar. It was not until the third decree on the GBI of 18 Oct 1940 that the competence of the GBI was significantly extended. The latter was expressly declared a "commissioned body" within the meaning of the Act on the Redevelopment of German Cities. In the years 1938 to 1942, a total of 32 cities in the former Reich territory were included in the new planning on the basis of the law of 4 Oct. 1937 by decrees and ordinances promulgated in the Reichsgesetzblatt. As of the end of 1942, the progress of all urban development plans of a peace-related nature was completely halted, since tasks important to the war awaited solution and Speer himself had been largely involved in them since his appointment as Reich Minister for Armament and Munitions on 15 February 1942 and on 2 September 1943 as Reich Minister for Armament and War Production. With the decree of 11 Oct. 1943 on the preparation of the reconstruction of bomb-damaged cities, Speer was entrusted with the necessary tasks in his capacity as GBI. He had to determine the framework for the future design of the cities and the right to decide on urban development issues of the reconstruction cities in place of the Reich Minister of Labour. The elimination of the Reich Labour Minister, to whom Speer had previously been bound as GBI despite his direct subordination under Hitler, was above all a consequence of Speer's present position as Reich Minister. Inventory description: Inventory history In Germany, the General Building Inspector's collection for the imperial capital is divided into three archives: the Bundesarchiv, the Landesarchiv Berlin and the Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv Munich. A total of three finding aids were available in the Federal Archives for the inventory R 4606 General Building Inspector for the Imperial Capital. The holdings were brought together from Potsdam and Koblenz at the beginning of the 1990s and have since been known as R 4606 General Building Inspector for the Imperial Capital. In the Landesarchiv Berlin there are 1016 files as well as in the planning chamber there 1,000 sheets of the GBI under the signature A Pr.Br.Rep. 107 from the years (1935) 1937 to 1945. In addition there are files of the grave commissioner active since July 1932 and last on his behalf, the former social democratic government president Ernst von Harnack. The card index of the graves of important personalities, arranged according to city districts and cemeteries, was intended to prepare the construction of an honorary cemetery "to express the spiritual significance of the imperial capital" (148 vols., 1941-1943). With the provenance indication "Baubüro Speer", the Hauptstaatsarchiv Munich contains more than 3,000 plans for buildings mainly in Berlin (including the Reich Chancellery, Reichstag, "Haus des Führers", "Große Halle"), the party congress grounds in Nuremberg and others. Furthermore, the special archive in Moscow contains a collection of 86 files of various contents from the years 1920 to 1944 under the title Fond 1409 General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital, e.g. on the use of prisoners of war at the GBI or correspondence between Speers and authorities and private individuals. Archival evaluation and processing Before 1990, the holdings were processed both in Potsdam with the inventory designation R 46.06 and in Koblenz (R 120) up to the preparation of the finding aid book. With the merging of the holdings mentioned above, the Koblenz files received new signatures. In view of the great public interest in information from this archive stock, it was decided in 2008 to retro-convert the finding aids with the aim of publishing them on the Internet. 177 files from a transfer of files from the Bamberg State Archives from the 1980s, which deal with the construction of the High Command of the Army and the Soldiers' Hall, were indexed and subsequently recorded. In 2008, the 29 files of the head of department at GBI, Schelkes' estate documents under the previous name "Kleine Erwerbungen Nr. 864" were also added. A further takeover included the "Art in the Third Reich" component, which had been incorporated into the archives, from which 38 index units of maps and plans were allocated to the holdings and listed. The archives were already taken over by the GDR Department in 1997. However, they have not been added to the portfolio due to equal signatures, but have been managed as an extra bundle without a direct reference to the portfolio. The classifications found were largely adopted and summarised in a factual manner. The development data available up to then were partly modified and series and volume sequences formed. The internal order of the files has been maintained. The inventory has already been moved from standing folders to folders. The maps are stored in specially designed folders and cabinets. Characterization of content: Office Speer 1937-1944 (111); files of leading employees (as far as not objectively assigned) 1937-1944 (59); Main Office Administration and Economy: General Administration: Administration of services 1937-1945 (99), General administration 1932-1945 (442), Land and building matters 1937-1945 (71), Procurement and inventory management 1937-1945 (4), Budget matters 1937-1945 (299), Accounting 1938-1944 (17), Secret files (chronological) 1938-1945 (34), Examination office 1940-1945 (56), Treasury 1938-1945 (91), Other financial and administrative matters 1939-1945 (11). Personnel 1938-1943 (152), Law 1937-1945 (51), Housing issues (evacuation and resettlement), 1937-1945 (50), Quota administration 1939-1945 (80); Planning office: Plankammer 1937-1943 (15), Competitions exhibitions and collections 1934-1942 (44), Area declarations 1938-1944 (64), Individual construction planning areas: General 1937-1945 (133), armament expansion 1939-1943 (43), Wehrmacht installations 1937-1944 (98), Reich Air Ministry Airports 1937-1940 (31), traffic 1934-1943 (402), buildings and installations 1935-1944 (567), Authorities and organisations 1936-1944 (428), industrial buildings 1936-1944 (402), residential buildings in individual administrative districts of Berlin and the surrounding area 1936-1944 (405), other planning projects 1938-1944 (7), construction projects outside Berlin 1936-1943 (164); Implementation office for the redesign of the imperial capital 1938-1944(19); general construction management: Supervision of the army high command: General 1939-1945 (38), individual projects (building blocks) 1939-1945 (150). Construction management 1939-1945 (10), maps plans schematics: General 1938-1942 (11), development planning of settlements and peripheral communities 1938-1942 (20), streets and squares green and open spaces 1937-1943 (50), authorities and institutions 1938-1943 (36), Wehrmacht facilities of the Reich Aviation Ministry 1937-1940 (7), University and teaching facilities 1938-1943 (11), industrial and office buildings 1939-1943 (28), residential buildings 1939-1944 (46), Reichsbahnbaudirektion Berlin 1939-1941 (18), theatre buildings 1936-1943 (260), buildings outside Berlin 1923-1948 (44). Settlement agency: 1946-1948 (1). Citation style: BArch, R 4606/...
