Preliminary remark: The Reichsmusikkammer was founded as one of seven individual chambers of the Reichskulturkammer, i.e. the National Socialist compulsory organisation of the "creative artists", with the law of 22.09.1933 (additional ordinances of 01. and 09.11.1933). The Reichskulturkammer was a corporation under public law, was subordinate to the Reichspropaganda Minister as President of the Reichskulturkammer and served to monitor and direct cultural life in the "Third Reich". Every culturally active person had to be a member of the responsible individual chamber, non-inclusion or exclusion resulted in a professional ban, which was rigorously enforced. The Reichsmusikkammer was divided into individual districts. For Württemberg, Baden and Hohenzollern, from 1933 onwards, the state leadership of Southwest Germany housed in Stuttgart, Friedrichstrasse 13 (the house of the oppressed Württemberg SPD and its "Tagwacht" printing works) was initially responsible. On 01.04.1938 the Landesstelle Baden, which until then had been subordinated to the Landesleitung Südwestdeutschland, was made independent as the Landesleitung; the former Landesleitung Südwestdeutschland therefore subsequently operated as the Landesleitung Württemberg-Hohenzollern. The files of the Reichsmusikkammer - Landesleitung Südwestdeutschland and Württemberg-Hohenzollern, respectively, arrived at the Ludwigsburg State Archives in December 1964 via the Stuttgart Archive Directorate. It is no longer possible today to determine from where and under what circumstances they arrived at the Main State Archives in Stuttgart. Presumably the files were taken over in the chaotic months after the collapse in 1945. The inventory comprised about 320 standing files of about 30 m and was partly mixed with files of the inventory K 746 (Reichskammer der bildenden Künste - Landesleitung Stuttgart).Two departments were formed during the order and recording of the inventory, which began in 1971:- K 745 I Administrative files- K 745 II Personal filesThe personal files grew up in the years 1933-1944 and seem - in contrast to the administrative files - to be without larger gaps. The collection contains not only the personal files of the regular members of the Reichsmusikkammer (i.e. full-time or part-time musicians and music teachers), but also those of the persons exempted from membership of the Reichsmusikkammer (leisure musicians, music bands and associations), as well as occasional correspondence with foreign musicians and scholarship candidates.Among the 8542 individual files are the personal files of well-known musicians and composers, e.g. Hubert Deuringer, Hugo Distler, Robert Edler, Hubert Giesen, Hugo Herrmann, Eva Liedecke-Hölderlin, Karl Münchinger and Heinz Schlebusch, which in some cases, however, say very little. nevertheless, in one case or another they might be informative. In addition to the files of the soloists and ensemble musicians on the state and municipal stages and the numerous private music teachers, the frequent personal files of primary school teachers working in music and music education are of interest. The latter not only contain statements that are relevant for the respective person (which cannot usually be collected elsewhere), but often also provide information about village cultural conditions. Among the elementary school teachers, there are also the sharpest critics of the regulating and levelling activities of the Reichsmusikkammer. Judgments such as that of the main teacher W. Berner (Bü 8378): "The Reichsmusikkammer prevents music instruction in the countryside rather than promoting it" are - generally well-founded - frequently found in the correspondence between the teachers and the chamber. Finally, particular attention should be paid to the personal files in which examination papers are contained (and are consistently indicated in them), since some of these contain extensive assessments by the examiners. Hugo Distler, for example, whose own personal file is almost insignificant, has made numerous handwritten judgments on the pianistic abilities of the candidates in numerous examination procedures.1971-1972 The inventory was recorded under the direction of the undersigned by A. Berwanger, G. Zöllner and R. Vahle.Ludwigsburg, March 1973Dr. Wolfgang Schmierer[NACHTRAG:]In 2000, the card index was processed for conservation reasons as part of the retroconversion of older finding aids. Several temporary staff were involved in the computer recording, in particular Andrea Mahler and Sabine Dörlich. Inge Nesper was in charge of the incorporation of corrections, and the alphabetical order was retained for the EDP recording. Civil names and artist names were recorded in separate data records and displayed in the comments field. An examination of the numbering revealed that individual personnel files were not recorded in the index and that seven order numbers were not assigned. Ludwigsburg, December 2000Dr. Barbara Hoen
