History of the club: The Badische Schwesternschaft vom Roten Kreuz is the oldest Red Cross sisterhood in Germany. Its beginnings lie in the Baden Women's Association founded in 1859 at the suggestion of Grand Duchess Luise von Baden. Its foundation was caused by the so-called "Italian War", the statutes also formulate the purpose of the association as "support of those in consequence of the threat of war or a war in emergency Gerathenen, as well as care for wounded and sick military personnel". Under the protectorate of Grand Duchess Luise, however, the association continued to exist and quickly spread throughout the Grand Duchy. Gradually, new tasks were added, such as the promotion of women's earning capacity, their domestic education, care for the poor, girls, prisoners, workers, children and health, especially tuberculosis control and infant care. The focus remained on nursing care and staff training. During the following wars, the care of wounded soldiers seemed to be in need of improvement. Systematic training in Karlsruhe, later also in Pforzheim, Mannheim and Heidelberg hospitals and the employment of nurses in peacetime ensured that sufficient trained nurses were also available in the field in the event of war, e.g. in 1870/71 and in the First World War. In 1866, at the instigation of Grand Duchess Luise, the Baden Women's Association was subordinated to the principles of the Red Cross as a department of the Geneva National Aid Association. In the same year he received his first own club clinic, since 1890 the Ludwig-Wilhelm-Krankenheim on Kaiserallee. This also served as the mother house of the sisters. The political, economic and social upheavals at the end of the First World War could not leave their mark on the Badischer Frauenverein and its nursing department, as the strong connection to the Grand-Ducal-Badischer Haus was fundamental for the association. The political turnaround made a reorientation necessary. In 1923, for example, the founding of the Pensionsversicherungsverein (Pension Insurance Association) made independent asset management possible. At the same time, Department III of the Badischer Frauenverein, which is responsible for nursing care, was given its own organisational structure as the "Motherhouse of the Sisters of the Badischer Frauenverein vom Roten Kreuz". A certain connection to the Badischer Frauenverein remained, however, as a representative of the women's association always sat on the board of the mother house. The reorganization also provided for greater participation rights for the sisters. Economic difficulties led to the lease of the maternity home to the state of Baden as a state midwife institution. The new building now required for the Sisterhood and the extension of the Luisenheim to accommodate and train the Sisters were inaugurated in 1930, the anniversary year. During the centralization of the German Red Cross in 1934, the sisters of the Baden Women's Association were also integrated into the new organization, and after the dissolution of all Red Cross associations in 1937, the Karlsruhe Sisterhood was placed under the presidency of the German Red Cross. During the Second World War it was used in various military hospitals on the western and eastern fronts. The Luisenheim, but above all the Ludwig-Wilhelm-Krankenheim and with it the mother house were badly damaged during the war and could only partly be rebuilt. After the war the future of the sisterhood was uncertain at first. Despite the dissolution of the German Red Cross by the Allies, she tried to continue the association's work as well as possible. Many areas of work in the hospitals had remained with the association and were again occupied by sisters. The nursing schools were recognised again in 1946. In 1949 the association finally received its own statutes again and was recognised as a public corporation under the name "Badische Schwesternschaft vom Roten Kreuz (Luisenschwestern) e.V.". The first priority was the reconstruction of the destroyed Luisenheim or the construction of a new mother house for the sisterhood. The Luisenheim could be occupied again until 1951. The building of the mother house, inaugurated in 1957, served as an administrative building, but also for accommodation and lessons for schoolgirls. The fields of work of the former Baden Women's Association in hospitals are still occupied today by sisters of the Baden Sisterhood. She also runs the Luisenheim as an old people's home for the sisters. To this day, the training of the new generation, the support of the active sisters in their often difficult service as well as the provision of the retired sisters belong to the main tasks of the sisterhood. History and tradition of the archive: The archive of the Baden Sisterhood of the Red Cross has a tradition that is almost as old as the Red Cross itself, since written and pictorial documents on the activities of the Baden Women's Association and its successor organisations have been kept since the association was founded. In the 70s of the 20th century, the then superior Elisabeth Leist began to sift through the traditions of her sisterhood, to separate them and to sort them out. Two collections were created, which were housed as an "archive" and a "museum" in separate rooms of the mother house. The "Archive" mainly comprised administration files compiled by Oberin Leist, as well as personal documents of individual sisters, such as testimonies or diaries, but also photographs, individual building plans and some association documents. The "Museum" of the Sisterhood essentially contained a collection of objects, mainly brooches, orders, decorations, medals, but also surgical instruments, especially wardrobe cases of individual sisters from war missions, sisterly costumes and other association documents and photographs, which were marked by the personal interests of the superior Leist and supplement files and account books of the Badischer Frauenverein as well as specifically archived files of the old registry of the Sisterhood, including personal files of the sisters. A folder with construction plans of the mother house and the Luisenheim was added to the inventory. These very different genres of archival and museum material convey a comprehensive picture of the diverse tasks of the Baden Sisterhood and its history. Order and indexing: In the summer of 2004, the archive of the Baden Sisterhood was deposited in the General State Archive in Karlsruhe, with the exception of the wardrobe trunks and sister costumes as well as some pictures that remained in the mother house of the sisterhood. With the help of a project sponsored by the Stiftung Kulturgut Baden-Württemberg, the undersigned ordered, catalogued and inventoried the entire archive over the next two years in order to make it accessible for use by third parties. A thematic order was therefore established, which is essentially oriented towards the history and organisation of the sisterhood and its predecessor organisations. Due to the large size of the archive, this could not be carried out physically, but had to be limited to the finding aid. Any still recognisable connections between traditions have been preserved as far as possible. Required separations are proven with the respective title recordings. Numerous loose leaf collections, the compilation and creation of which in many cases was no longer comprehensible, or even completely unrelated individual leaves were arranged as far as possible according to subject and combined into archive units, or already existing, suitable contexts were assigned. In the files occasionally handed down notes with handwritten comments usually originate from the superior Elisabeth Leist. If they contribute to the understanding of the documents, they were left in the files. The extensive photo collections of the holdings can be divided into four main types: pictures taken from the rooms of the mother house or framed for exhibitions, photos compiled by Oberin Leist in guide files (69 Bad. Sisterhood No. 570-614), photo albums presumably left behind by sisters (69 Bad. Sisterhood No. 615-643) and loose, predominantly disordered photographs. While the framed pictures were listed individually, the folder or album was considered the unit of distortion for the photo collections. The disordered individual photos, as far as they could not be assigned to the possession of individual sisters, were arranged thematically and indexed in groups (69 Bad. Schwesternschaft Nos. 650-655, 657-682, 684-688). Many of these photographs document the sisters' personal experiences, including those during the Second World War. The publications of the Badischer Frauenverein, the sisterhood or other Red Cross institutions contained in the archive are registered as "Verbandsschriften" according to the rules of German libraries. This chapter also contains the statutes of the Baden Sisterhood and other Red Cross institutions (such as the Association of German Motherhouses or the Sister Insurance Association). Of the large number of brooches, badges of service, orders and decorations of the sisters that still exist, only a few copies of each type could be preserved for reasons of space. Numerous commemorative medals and coins, mostly on anniversaries of the Red Cross, came as gifts, in exchange or in rare cases by purchase to the sisterhood. Their title records also contain short descriptions of the objects based on current order literature. The Depositum can be used in accordance with the rules of use of the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg. However, legal protection periods still have to be observed for some documents, especially for the younger personnel files of the sisterhood, which are indexed in a separate volume. Parallel transmission inside and outside the General State Archives: The archive of the Baden Sisterhood of the Red Cross complements the transmission of the Red Cross and Karlsruhe Hospitals already existing in the General State Archives. The Badische Frauenverein, which continued to exist after 1923 without a nursing department, had already handed over a large part of its files to the General State Archive in the 1930s (fonds 443: Red Cross, Badischer Frauenverein). Further information can be found in the archive of the Secret Cabinet of Grand Duchess Luise (69 Baden, Luise Cabinet), such as sources on the Federation of Red Cross Helpers. While this is represented in the tradition of the Baden Sisterhood only with a file volume, the files of the Secret Cabinet and the Baden Red Cross provide very good information about the work of the Federation until its dissolution in 1935.Further photos about the activities of the Badischer Frauenverein, many hospitals, as well as the activities of the Grand Duchess Luise, especially her visits to military hospitals during the First World War, can be found in the inventory 69 Baden, Collection 1995 F I. Also among the addresses of homage (69 Baden, Collection 1995 D) are some, partly very elaborately designed copies, which the Badischer Frauenverein with its branch associations dedicated to the Grand Ducal Baden House on various occasions. The collection 69 Baden, Collection 1995 A contains, among others, a large organigram of the Women's Association. For the development of the State Women's Hospital, which has been housed since 1923 in the building of the Wöchnerinnenheim of the Vereinsklinik Ludwig-Wilhelm-Krankenheim, see the accesses to stock 523 (State Women's Hospital Karlsruhe). Further plans of the buildings of the sisterhood can be found in the collection of the State Building Administration (424 K), which also contains archives of the Grand Ducal Court Building Office, including eleven floor plans and views of the Luisenheim built in 1902 (424 K Karlsruhe 240/1.001-1.011). These are also in 69 bath. Sisterhood no. 721 are included, but are marked here later. In 424 K there are also 218 plans of the Ludwig-Wilhelm-Krankenheim, its outbuildings and the buildings of the Städtisches Krankenhaus (Municipal Hospital) from the years 1887-1980 (under the building number 424 K Karlsruhe 078), which were built on the same area later, which show the further development. The holdings 69 Baden, Collection 1995 B, No. 55-66, finally offer eleven building plans and drafts for the Friedrichsbau building at the Ludwig-Wilhelm-Krankenheim, while the archive of the Baden Sisterhood offers only a few, above all no building plans. Stock 233 (Staatsministerium) also contains files on the Women's Association and its officials, 48 No. 6470 the Baden copy of the Geneva Convention, 48 The archives of the German Red Cross in Bonn also contain archives of the Association of Red Cross Sisterhoods, including records of the Oberinnenvereinigung, including minutes of board meetings, Oberinnentagungen, correspondence with other Oberinnen. For its part, the Archive of the Sisterhood should supplement the tradition of the DRK Archive, especially for the years in which Oberin Anna Odenwald was Chairman of the Board of the Oberinnenvereinigung. A copy of the finding aid book for the "Verband der Schwesternschaften vom Deutschen Roten Kreuz" was gratefully made available by the DRK archive for the indexing work and for further use. Timetable (possibly for technical reasons in the appendix of the index): [...] Literature (possibly for technical reasons in the appendix of the index): [...]
