Foreword: The origin of the pictures collected in this collection is documented only in a few cases. Only the information given directly on the illustrations (or on their reverse side) provides clear clues. The preservation of the documents and their collection as such is generally based on the order for the establishment of a war archive. Among other things, it was regulated here that (in addition to the files of the War Ministry to be archived and the lists of officers to be archived) documents or other documents of permanent military or war-historical value were to be taken over by authorities, military units and private individuals. In order to make it easier for private individuals to make a decision, the possibility has been expressly provided for; to be able to add conditions to levies, such as reservations of ownership, restrictions on use, etc... (1) In addition, own surveys on the history of Württemberg's military history should also be carried out. Although these regulations did not secure the data on the origin of the documents, nor any formation of an individual stock, they did secure the pieces to be collected by the staff of the new Army Archives themselves. In general, it can be assumed that not only cards, but also illustrative materials of all kinds played a major role in military training. (2) It has been demonstrated, for example, that a large amount of photographic material was available at divisional level. Unfortunately, however, there is no evidence as to which of the individual formations and how many of such documents as a whole have been included in this inventory. Nor is it possible to tell which materials have been lost. Such evidence has not been established. What is certain, however, is that the collection had to be specially formed as a collection and that it had been compiled in its present form for the first time in the Army Archives (3). The fact that Hermann Pantlen, Major a.D. (22. 10. 1887 - 10. 04. 1968), the head of the archive since 1935, Dr. rer. pol. Hermann Pantlen, attached particular importance to the processing and expansion of collections played a major role in this. A measure which, after the reallocation of responsibilities and after extensive transfers of stocks, should also serve to close the gaps that have arisen a little. (4) For this task Helmut Steinhart, who had previously been experienced in the field of libraries and the handling of private image collections, was newly hired against reservations of the NSDAP (5). He developed the division into the various series, whose signature system (inventory - series - number) was retained in the various later revisions. In this way, all editorial and extension work on holdings M 703 will enable the relatively frequently cited individual originals to be retrieved without difficulty and without detours at any time. In 1970 Karl Hofer had reinstated the inventory according to this system after various relocation-related changes, but also pointed to an urgently needed reworking, which was not possible for him at that time. This work was only continued under Bernhard Theil, who mainly included the area of image collections in his current work as part of the training of archivists. Between 1986 and 1994, new title recordings were made on index cards, structured according to the specifications of Steinhart's series and numbering system. The participants were archive referees and candidates who completed their training at the Main State Archives between 1986 and 1994. To mention only a few names, the names Ehrmann, Kresin, Schad, Zaschka are mentioned here, whose basic considerations about indexing methods and structuring possibilities are documented in the index files. (6) Not to be left unmentioned shall be the patient attendance of the trainees by Mr. Merk, who was temporarily assigned to the military archives during this period. First title recordings followed in a system derived from the Midosa/Midetit program at that time. However, the weaknesses of this database, fixed in very narrow specifications, were evident. It was not even possible to fit the sometimes quite extensive text parts into the given entry mask, and even minimal basic requirements could not be taken into account for abbreviations in the display style. The officer initially entrusted with the dissolution of the Gutenbergstrasse branch and the integration of the previously separate organisational unit into Division 1 of the Main State Archives, started recording the title recordings again as soon as possible. Due to the frequent access to these documents, however, he preferred to record the title entries using a sufficiently powerful database system. It therefore continued the project by setting up a market database for this purpose. Taking into account the existing hardware capacities and the special requirements of the inventory, he restructured the recording so that, above all, there were no more IT-related obstacles or restrictions on the input options. At the same time, the highest possible detection speed was achieved. The archive employee Gerd Mantel was finally commissioned with the actual input. Like Steinhart in 1938, Gerd Mantel was particularly suited to this task due to his previously acquired skills and interests, and in particular took care of the accuracy of detailed descriptions and conservation requirements. Before the individual index cards were entered, the individual pieces were therefore subjected to a further check and the state of preservation recorded in an appropriate section, with damage having to be noted for more than a third of the images (8). The advantages of the stock-specific recording, which had resulted in a structure of its own, did not prevent the database, which had originally not been created according to the specifications of the current Midosa version, from being converted into a form that corresponds to the Internet presentation system of the Provincial Archives Directorate based on Midosa structures. In addition to the adjustment of the structure, columns and data fields also had to be merged and converted into the corresponding database format; a job which was carried out with great care by Mr. Obst, who was also responsible for the transfer of Internet-enabled databases (PHP, MySQL). In its present form, the holdings comprise 2470 units of description and are stored or, for the most part, repackaged in a total of 23 drawers of modern standard card cabinets. The database on which this finding aid is based will be supplemented or updated with new individual items. The undersigned was responsible for the final editing, indexing and structuring into individual points of structuring that were as small as possible. Dr. Franz Moegle-Hofacker Comments: (1) See War Minister von Marchtaler's order of 03 Jan 1907 and the preface to Repertorium M 1/11, Kriegsarchiv (2) See, for example, the holdings M 700/1 ff, negatives and slides which had been created for school purposes. (3) Cf. foreword to Repertorium M 400/1, Heeresarchiv Stuttgart (4) Cf. foreword to Repertorium M 400/1, page XIII. (5) Cf. personal file Helmut Steinhart, M 400/1, Bü 56. (6) Cf. note from 20. 08. 1970 in files for indexing M 703. (7) files for indexing M 703. (8) cf. damage reports for restoration of holdings of July 2002
