History of the Inventor: By order of 7 Sept. 1929, the Federal Foreign Office and the Reich Economic Ministry merged the Central Office for the Foreign Economic Intelligence Service, the Customs Office in the Reich Economic Ministry and the German Economic Service GmbH for the tasks assigned to them in the field of foreign trade promotion with immediate effect under the common name of the Central Office for Foreign Trade (ZFA). The ZFA is structured as follows: - Intelligence service - Trade information service - Customs service. The legal basis was enshrined in the Law on Measures to Promote Foreign Trade of 18 Oct 1933. The previous ZFA had proved its worth in practice and was now legally recognised as the Reichsstelle für den Außenhandel (RFA), which was a joint department of the Foreign Office and the Reich Economic Ministry. It was empowered to issue instructions to the regional (most recently 22) foreign trade offices under its supervision. In the course of the reorganisation of the commercial economy, the previous branch offices were closed or integrated into the Gauwirtschaftskammern. Their activities have now been carried out by departments established at the Gauwirtschaftskammern for the promotion of economic relations with foreign countries (foreign trade departments). The RFA existed until its collapse in 1945. Inventory description: Inventory history The documents arrived in September 1955 as part of a Custodian's levy for the Reich offices, economic groups and other state economic offices in the American, British and French sectors of Berlin without a delivery list and in disorder in the Federal Archives. Apart from the fact that the inventory is only one part of the registry, it has also been seized by the British occupying power, which confiscated it in 1945 and examined it at the beginning of 1948. At the end of 1949, the files were released to the custodian, who took over the files himself at the beginning of 1951. Another extensive part of the registry is still in US hands. Among them several card indexes, which could be the Jewish card indexes and the card index of insecure foreign companies, which survived the bombing of the RFA (to 50 in Nov. 1943 demonstrably without loss). Archival evaluation and processing The holdings, which entered the Federal Archives without a list of deliveries and in disorder, consisted mainly of standing files, whose state of preservation was generally good. An exception to this is the specialist archive of Department III A, which contained almost exclusively loose items. In the course of its existence, this collection has undergone a number of recognizable changes, which are reflected in changing signatures according to false criteria. The entire material of the subject archives is listed by country in the find book. In principle, the country names used in the collection itself and valid at the time are used, i.e. Croatia, Serbia instead of Yugoslavia, etc., which are used at that time. All country names, whether they concern a single country, a group of countries (such as Scandinavia) or parts of countries (such as Scotland), are in alphabetical order. Only the possessions of the European colonial states are listed under their respective names (British possessions, Dutch possessions, etc.). Documents from foreign trade offices were handed over to the regionally responsible state archives. Characterization of content: The main focus of the transmission is on correspondence with the foreign trade offices (Gauwirtschaftskammern) A-Z: Information on foreign representative and trading companies 1940-1945 (510) Letter and telegram switching 1940-1945 Administrative matters, including personnel procedures A-Z, business distribution plans, budget questions 1922-1945 General matters of foreign trade promotion, legal and organizational questions of the RfA and its predecessor institutions 1934-1945 Collection of material on all countries of the world (newspaper clippings, brochures, mission reports, official announcements, company and private letters, etc.).a.) within the countries or country groups according to subject areas (economic situation, industry, trade, banking, social situation, foreign trade, legal system, press etc.) State of development: Findbuch (2014) Citation method: BArch, R 9-I/...
