Fonds BArch, R 43-II - Reich's Chancellery

2747 Aufbewahrungseinheiten

History of the Inventory Designer: <br /> The Constitution of the German Reich of 16 April 1871, as well as the Constitution of the North German Confederation of 1867, contained no more detailed provisions on the design of the Reich Administration. Only the Reich Chancellor was the only responsible minister of the German Reich with constitutional rank. How he should fulfil his duties and tasks, on the other hand, remained largely undefined and left to the concrete will of the respective office holder. Because of this constitutional indeterminacy, the Reich level of the administration of the German Empire was bound to the character of the improvised and sometimes unstable until the end of the Empire.<br /> At first it actually seemed as if Bismarck, as the only minister of the Empire, wanted to work with only one central, unified administrative authority. The Federal Chancellery, on whose organisation its later President Rudolf Delbrück had exerted considerable influence, began its work in 1867 as the office of the Federal Chancellor and was continued in the expansion of the North German Confederation into the German Reich under the name of the Reich Chancellery. The responsibilities of the Office were comprehensive and included the function of an office for the standing committees of the Federal Council, the handling of the revenues and expenditures of the Confederation and the preparation of the presidential bills. With the foundation of the German Reich, the Reichskanzleramt also took over the direct administration of the Reichland Alsace-Lorraine and the Reichseisenbahnen.<br /> Karl Hofmann, the president of the Reichskanzleramt, received the Reichskanzleramt's new administration by decree of Aug. 6, 1944. 1877 the instruction to prepare for the creation of a special office, which was to procure all those businesses of the Reich Chancellor for which he had "previously used forces of the Foreign Office for spatial reasons".<br /> Hofmann's bill of 29 Nov. 1877 then also provided for the establishment of such a central office under the designation "Special Office of the Reich Chancellor", but placed this office in the budget of the Reich Chancellery. Hofmann did not succeed in this attempt to reaffirm the position of his office, however.<br /> Bismarck agreed with Hofmann's proposals regarding the internal organisation and the salary classification of the staff of his new office, but with his own hand he changed the name of the new post to "Centralbureau" on the submission. More important than this change in the nomenclature, however, was the fact that Bismarck, by decree of 16 December 1877, called on Hofmann to draw up a special budget for an independent authority not incorporated into the Imperial Chancellery.<br /> The draft of a "Budget for the Imperial Chancellor and his Central Office for the Budget Year 1878/79" provided funds for the salaries of a presenting council, an expediting secretary, a chancellery secretary and a clerical servant.<br /> The new authority was to take its seat in the former Palais Radziwill in Wilhelmstraße 77; the Imperial Chancellor was also to move into an official residence there.<br /> Bismarck requested Wilhelm I's Immediatbericht of 16 May 1878 (Immediatbericht of 16 May 1878) to grant him permission to constitute the new office, which was to be called the Reich Chancellery, because this designation "would most accurately reflect the position and duties of the latter". The emperor corresponded to this with a cabinet ordre of 18 May 1878.<br /> Christoph von Tiedemann became head of the Reich Chancellery, who had been perhaps Bismarck's closest collaborator since 1876 and was therefore best acquainted with the habits of the Reich Chancellor. Under his leadership, the Reich Chancellery actually developed into a political relay station in the centre of the political decision-making structure, whose function was also recognised by the State Secretaries of the Reich Offices.<br /> Under constitutional law, the Reich Chancellery was never more than the office of the Reich Chancellor, which "had to mediate the official communication of the Reich Chancellery with the heads of the individual departments". The office character is expressed not least in the official rank of the head of the Reich Chancellery and the very limited staff until the end of the imperial era. It was not until 1907 that the head of the Reich Chancellery was elevated to the rank of Undersecretary of State and thus placed on an equal footing with the senior officials of the Reich Offices. Although the number of employees grew from originally four in 1878 to 19 in 1908 and continued to rise to 25 in 1918 due to the requirements of the First World War, the Reich Chancellery never even came close to the number of staff of a Reich Office.<br /> The private and representative affairs of the Reich Chancellor were handled by the special office of the Reich Chancellor, which continued to reside in the Foreign Office even after the establishment of the Reich Chancellery.<br /> With the beginning of the First World War, a joint branch office of the Reich Chancellery and the Foreign Office was established at the Great Headquarters under the name "Formation Reich Chancellor and Foreign Office". This branch existed until the end of the war. A permanent representative was here to represent the interests of the Reich Chancellor when he was in Berlin. In the Reich Chancellery, on the other hand, the Undersecretary of State ran the business when the Reich Chancellor was in the headquarters.<br /> In order to get a better grip on the continuing disagreements between Reich Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg and the 3rd Supreme Army Command under Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, a permanent representative of the Reich Chancellor was installed at the Supreme Army Command in February 1917. His task was to keep the Supreme Army Command constantly informed about the policy of the Reichsleitung.<br /> With the forced abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II and the resignation of Reich Chancellor Max von Baden, business was transferred to the Council of People's Representatives on 11 Nov. 1918, which temporarily exercised the function of an imperial government until the government of Philipp Scheidemann took office on 19 Feb. 1919. From 9 November 1918 to 3 March 1919, the head of the Reich Chancellery was the journalist Curt Baake. <br /> After the parliamentary democracy of Weimar had been established, the position of the Reich Chancellor changed, as did that of the Reich Chancellery. While the Imperial Chancellor was no longer the only Imperial Minister, as he was in the Empire, he, as Chairman of the Imperial Government, determined the political guidelines in accordance with Articles 55 and 56 of the Imperial Constitution, through which he was able to exert a decisive influence on the fate of the Empire. His authority to issue directives was, of course, restricted by constitutional law and political practice to a considerable extent, for it had to be brought into line politically with the powers of other organs provided for in the Reich Constitution. These were less the Reichsrat, which as a permanent conference of delegates of the state governments had only limited powers in the field of legislation and administration and whose significance cannot be compared with that of the Bundesrat of the Kaiserreich, than the other two constitutional organs: Reichstag and Reichspräsident.<br /> With the change of the position of the Reich Chancellor in the Weimar Republic, the tasks of the Reich Chancellery also increased <br /> As in the imperial period, the Reich Chancellery remained the office of the Reich Chancellor for his dealings with the constitutional organs, now the Reich President, the Reichstag, the Reich Council and the individual Reich Ministers. Since the Revolution, as an organ of the Cabinet, it has also taken care of the day-to-day business of the entire Ministry, the Reich Government < br /> The State Secretary in the Reich Chancellery took part in the Cabinet meetings and informed the Reich Chancellor about the current fundamental issues of politics as a whole, accompanied him at all important conferences at home and abroad, observed the formation of opinion in parliament, the press, coordinated legislative work with the Reich parties on his behalf, gave a lecture to the Reich Chancellor himself. The Reich Chancellery was also represented by a member in the above-mentioned intergroup meetings, in which the most important decisions of the Cabinet were discussed in advance with the party and parliamentary group leaders. It ensured that, despite constant tensions in the constantly changing coalitions, the objective work of the Reich departments continued.<br /> he preparation of the collegiate decisions and the reliable monitoring of their implementation, two of the Reich Chancellery's main tasks, was of particular importance from this point of view. In short: the Reich Chancellery was both chancellor and cabinet office, information and coordination office for government work <br /> The necessary consequence of these increased tasks was an increase in the number of departments in the Reich Chancellery from three (as of 1910) to eight (as of 1927) and in the number of civil servants from 20 before the outbreak of the First Reich Chancellery. Formally, the Reich Chancellery still had various offices attached to it, which were either directly subordinated to it, such as the Reich Headquarters for Homeland Service, or under the direct control of the Reich Chancellor.<br /> When the Reich Chancellor, after the death of the Reich President von Hindenburg by the Law of August 1, 1934, on the Head of State of the German Reich, took over his powers and rights - including the supreme command of the Wehrmacht - and thus united the office of Reich President with the office of Reich Chancellor in his person, this also had an effect on his relationship with the Reich government. As head of state, Hitler had the right to appoint and dismiss the Reich Ministers without having to wait for the proposal of the Reich Chancellor, as the Reich President had done. The Reichsminister were therefore completely dependent on him. According to the Reich Law of 16 October 1934 on the Oath of the Reich Ministers and Members of the State Governments, the formula of which was later also incorporated into the German Civil Servants Law of 26 January 1937, they were obliged to loyalty and obedience to him. The Führer principle of the NSDAP now also applied to the Reich government, whose members the "Führer und Reichskanzler," as Hitler was called after the decree to the Reich Minister of the Interior of August 2, 1934, only had to advise in inner-German dealings, but were now also legally obliged to submit to his will in case of a dissenting opinion. This meant that the Reichskabinett was no longer a decision-making body in which the Reich Chancellor could possibly have been majorized, but rather a "Führerrat", which only had to advise the head of government. It was planned to fix this changed position of the Reich Chancellor vis-à-vis the Reich government by law, an intention which, at Hitler's request, was postponed in the cabinet meeting of 26 January 1937 until the creation of a new Basic Law for the State, especially with regard to foreign countries.<br /> The concentration of state tasks on the Führer and Reich Chancellor described above naturally also affected the responsibilities of the Reich Chancellery. Thus, for example, the Enabling Act already brought about a certain increase in tasks for them, because the laws passed by the Reich government were no longer to be drawn up and promulgated by the Reich President, but by the Reich Chancellor, and the fewest laws were still passed in the ordinary legislative process, through the Reichstag, but went the second legislative process described above, or were passed as Führer decrees or ordinances - without the participation of the Cabinet.<br /> The strengthened position of the head of the Reich Chancellery was conspicuous to the outside world in the fact that the documents of government laws signed by Hitler and co-signed by the participating Reich Minister now always also bore the co-signature of the Reich Minister and head of the Reich Chancellery, who thus assumed responsibility for the proper course of the legislative process. After the establishment of the Council of Ministers for the Defence of the Reich at the end of August 1939, the signature of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers for the Defence of the Reich was also necessary in second place behind that of Hitler. Furthermore, all decrees enacted by the Führer and, if necessary, the Reichstag Acts and the laws enacted on the basis of the "People's Legislation" were signed by the head of the Reich Chancellery.<br /> Hitler's increasing workload, which in addition to the powers of the Reich Chancellor and the Reich President also exercised the supreme command over the Wehrmacht, led to the cabinet meetings gradually ceasing. The last meeting of the cabinet minutes of the Reich Chancellery took place on February 5, 1938. In addition, the Reich Chancellor, who could no longer be informed by the Reich Ministers united in the cabinet about the accomplishment of individual tasks in the departments, was increasingly dependent on the information of the head of the Reich Chancellery. The task of selecting from the wealth of information supplied and processed those suitable for presentation to the Reich Chancellor and of deciding whether Hitler's intervention in certain matters appeared necessary was therefore the responsibility of the head of the Reich Chancellery, who granted him another key position in the leadership apparatus of the state civilian sector. The Reichsminister also had the opportunity to give individual lectures directly to the Reich Chancellor. But Hitler also made less and less use of this, so that the head of the Reich Chancellery virtually advised him alone, which strengthened his position vis-à-vis the specialist ministers, who tried in vain, especially towards the end of the war, to reach certain agreements among themselves through private meetings.<br /> The Reich Chancellery also experienced a new expansion of its area of responsibility through the Act of the Head of State of the First Reichstag of 1 January 1946. The office of the Reich President, renamed "Präsidialkanzlei" and "Präsidialkanzlei des Führers und Reichskanzlers" by decree of the Führer and Reich Chancellor of 1 December 1937 and renamed "Präsidialkanzlei des Führers und Reichskanzlers" (Presidential Chancellery of the Führer and Reich Chancellor) on 1 December 1937, remained responsible for the handling of all matters concerning the head of state even after the merger of the offices of the Reich President and the Reich Chancellor, such as the "Presidential Chancellery of the Reich" and the "Presidential Chancellor of the Reich".B. the preparation of ceremonial receptions of foreign heads of state, princes and statesmen, the receipt of letters of attestation and recall from foreign diplomats, congratulations and condolences from the head of state, the processing of petitions in matters of grace and the entire title and religious order system.<br /> On the other hand, the political affairs, in which not only the decision of the Reich Government but also that of the Reich Head was necessary, were now dealt with by the Reich Chancellery, as was the preparation of political decisions, which until then had to be made by the Head of State, such as the enactment of organizational ordinances, which were now the sole responsibility of the Reich Chancellery. Although the documents of appointment and dismissal for the higher Reich officials were still to be submitted to Hitler for execution by the office of the head of state, i.e. now by the head of the presidential chancellery, the responsible ministers and the Reich Chancellery were responsible for the factual and political preparation.<br /> <br /><br /> Description of the holdings: <br /> History of the holdings<br /> On the day after the establishment of the Reich Chancellery, on the 19th day after the foundation of the Reich Chancellery. In May 1878, the expediting secretary in the Foreign Office, Hans Rudolf Sachse, who shortly afterwards began his service as a registrar in the new Reichsbehörde, submitted the draft of a registry order for the Reich Chancellery to the lecturing council Tiedemann. His "Basic features for the book and file keeping at the Reich Chancellery" were obviously based on the experiences from the records administration of the A u s w ä r t i g e s A m t . <br /> The records were initially stored loosely in shelves in the registry, probably from the beginning lying in the intended and already inscribed file covers. If a file unit had reached a thickness of 2 - 3 cm, it was provided with a linen back and a further dust jacket and formed into a band by means of thread stitching.<br /> This document organisation proved to be sufficient and practicable for a long series of years. With the gradual further development of the functions and activities of the Reich Chancellery, and as a result of the development of constitutional law and administrative organization in the Reich and in the federal states, however, it had to appear in need of change over time. At the turn of the century it was therefore decided to introduce a more differentiated file system, which came into force on January 1, 1900.<br /> The new beginning of the state on February 13, 1919, the day on which the Scheidemann cabinet took office, brought a continuous cut in the records of the Reich Chancellery. The entire file inventory was transferred to the old file and new files were created.<br /> January 30 meant a noticeable, but not sharp cut in the records administration of the Reich Chancellery. In order to start a new filing layer on this day, numerous files were removed from the current filing system, stapled and repositioned in the old filing system. They were replaced by new volumes. However, this only happened if the running band was filled to some extent anyway; if this was not the case, it was continued. In any case, the band counting began again with the number 1, although the series from the Weimar period continued seamlessly. In addition to the files kept in the registry, other records were handed down as a result of the fact that the Reich Chancellors and senior officials of the Reich Chancellery did not have files, personal records, personal papers, and a large part of their private correspondence filed in the registry, but as a rule kept them in their offices. It was not uncommon for such documents to be taken along when leaving office. Thus the estates of the Reich Chancellors Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Bülow, Hertling and Luther as well as of the chiefs of the Reich Chancellery Rottenburg and Pünder, which are kept in the Federal Archives, almost regularly contain official or semi-official documents in addition to private records, which have arisen from the exercise of official functions. The fact that the files of the Lammers Minister's Office have remained in the inventory is a consequence of their joint outsourcing with the inventory towards the end of the Second World War.<br /> In other cases, files of Imperial Chancellors and senior officials with material on certain issues, with documents for conferences, meetings, etc., were handed over to the registry for safekeeping as soon as they were no longer needed, and assigned there to the corresponding subject series as supplements. As a result, such reference files are scattered over the holdings, e.g. the reference files for the series "Execution of the Peace Treaty, Reparations" in the group "Foreign Affairs".<br /> The secret files of the Reich Chancellery, the content, scope and structure of which are unfortunately not known in detail, formed another complex of documents separate from the registry holdings. According to the information available in the Federal Archives, they were probably burned by members of the Reich Chancellery before the end of the war in accordance with the decree of the Reich Minister of the Interior to the Reich Defence Commissioners of 12 October 1944 concerning "Behaviour of the Authorities in the Event of Enemy Occupation".85] Individual fragments of secret files, which probably accidentally escaped destruction and were in the inventory, were listed in the present find book at the end of the section "Files of the Minister's Office".<br /> With minor exceptions, those old files of the Reich Chancellery from the period 1878 - 1919, which had been removed from the current registry in mid-February 1919 and deposited in an old file file, are located in Potsdam. The Reichsarchiv had only been able to take it over in 1937 or 1938, after earlier efforts in vain. Only the old files of the office administration including the personnel files remained in the authority.<br /> During the Second World War the holdings of the Reich Archives together with other archival records were moved to the Staßfurt salt mine near Magdeburg and fell into the hands of the Red Army in 1945. It was taken to the Soviet Union and 10 years later, in July 1955, handed over to the German Central Archive (renamed the "Central State Archive of the GDR" in 1973) in Potsdam. There it formed the stock 07. 01. The stock division into four departments was maintained.<br /> Beside the former Reichsarchiv stock, the Zentrale Staatsarchiv also kept approx. 800 individual registrations from the years 1933 - 1945, which were presumably found in the Wilhelmstraße office building.<br /> The majority of the Reichskanzleiakten from the years 1919 - 1945 as well as the old files of the office administration had been in Berlin only until the last phase of the war. As the situation in and around Berlin became increasingly acute, they were relocated to southern Germany, where they were confiscated by American troops in 1945.<br /> Via the Ministerial Collecting Center in Hessisch-Lichtenau and Fürstenhagen near Kassel, the central collection point for all material found by the Americans in their occupation zone[90], they arrived at the Berlin Documents Unit at the beginning of 1946. Here they - like other German files stored there - were evaluated for the investigation of leading personalities from the state, the party, and other areas of public life in preparation for war crimes trials.<br /> During the Berlin blockade of the summer of 1948, the files combined in the Documents Unit were transferred to Whaddon Hall near Bletchley in the southern English county of Buckinghamshire. The files of the Reich Chancellery were stored there until 1958 and were provisionally arranged, recorded and selected for filming. In addition to the Federal Foreign Office's primarily relevant tradition, they also served as the basis for the edition of files on German foreign policy, which were initially processed exclusively by Anglo-Saxon and French historians.<br /> These files finally reached the Federal Archives in two transports in December 1958 and January 1959, a remainder at the end of April 1959. Here they form the listed holdings R 43 I, II.<br /> Archivische Bearbeitung<br /> In the provisional arrangement and indexing of the files of the Reich Chancellery from the years 1919 - 1945 in Whaddon Hall, the editors proceeded from two partial holdings. One of them essentially covered the tradition of the Weimar period, the other mainly the files from the period after 30 January 1933; they were briefly referred to as the "Old" and "New" Reich Chancelleries. As already mentioned, this division had already been carried out in January/February 1933 in the Reich Chancellery and had been maintained during the removal of the files during the war and after their confiscation.<br /> During the processing, the same arrangement of the groups of files, e.g. according to the alphabet of the group titles as they had existed in the registry of the Reich Chancellery, was refrained from being restored in both partial holdings. Only the registry connections within the groups that were presumably largely lost due to frequent relocations of the holdings were taken into account, whereby errors and mistakes were often made due to a lack of familiarity with the registry relationships and the file management of the Reich Chancellery. Nevertheless, it was possible to restore the mass of files to their original order with the help of the old signatures and tape numbers. Less satisfactorily, the classification of the not insignificant remnant of the tradition was resolved, which consisted of files of the minister's office, hand files of officials, secret file fragments, volumes with collections of circulars, circulars and press cuttings, registration aids, etc. Materials of this kind came to various places, especially at the end of both parts of the stock. The volumes were numbered consecutively in each sub-content.<br /> The indexing also differentiated between the two sub-continuances. The sequential number, the old signature and the runtime were included as formal specifications. In order to identify the contents of the file, the serial title was taken from the inscription of the file as the subject of the thread-stitched volumes, i.e. above all the files of the older part. In the case of standing folders, on the other hand, the titles of the individual transactions were entered in the list, as far as Rotuli was available with the corresponding information, and the subject series title was usually dispensed with. As a result, two very different lists were drawn up in terms of their degree of resolution. In the Federal Archives, these directories served for a long time as exclusive finding aids. This meant that the division into two parts, R 43 I (Old Reich Chancellery) and R 43 II (New Reich Chancellery), was retained. The consecutive numbering carried out in Waddon Hall also remained unchanged, since the files had already frequently been quoted in scientific publications afterwards. For conservation reasons, however, the documents stored in standing files and folders had to be transferred to archive folders; as a rule, two or three or sometimes more volumes were formed from the contents of one folder. This was necessary in order to separate files from various subject series that had been united in the Reich Chancellery and to form handy, not too extensive volumes. The volumes formed from the documents of a standing file, however, retained its serial number and were distinguished by the addition of letters (a, b, c, etc.). Within the volumes, the delimitation of the processes from each other, which had previously been recognizable by filing them in hanging binders, was marked by inserting separator sheets.<br /> On the other hand, it turned out that a total of 84 volumes from R 43 I and 205 volumes from R 43 II could be discarded and destroyed as not worthy of archiving. The largest part (125 volumes) concerned the administration of the Aid Fund and the Disposition Fund of the Reich Chancellor; it consisted of individual files on the acceptance and use of donations from private sources, on the granting or refusal of support, other donations or gifts of honour to private individuals, associations and federations in emergencies, birthdays, anniversaries, events and on the occasion of the assumption of honorary sponsorships by the Reich Chancellor. The corresponding activity of the Reich Chancellery is already documented by several series in the groups "Reich Chancellor" and "Welfare" as well as by a number of files of the minister's office. The second largest group of documents collected (about 120 volumes) were files of the service administration. They mainly contained cash documents, invoices and receipts, company offers, correspondence with individual companies about deliveries and services for the Reich Chancellery as well as irrelevant documents about various house matters. The rest of the non-archival material consisted of volumes with multiple traditions and collections of official printed matter, and in a few cases of volumes containing only individual letters of transmission.<br /> Finally, 44 volumes of written material of foreign provenance were removed from the holdings and assigned to other holdings, and in some cases also handed over to places outside the house. The majority of the documents are from the Community of Student Associations, which Reichsminister Dr. Lammers managed and whose business he had led through his office. The maps and plans, which were taken from the files for conservation reasons, were combined in the map archive into an independent group "Plan R 43 II". These are in particular planning breaks for the new building from the years 1943 ff. The holdings of the Central State Archives (07.01) and the Federal Archives (R 43) were merged into holdings R 43 following the merger of the two archives in 1990.<br /> Since 1984, a publication directory has been available for the files of the Reich Chancellery from 1919 to 1945, which also takes into account the files of this epoch kept in the Central State Archives until 1990. For the files of the "Old Reich Chancellery" (1878-1919), the Central State Archives had a finding aid book that had already been compiled in the Reich Archives.<br /> <br /><br /> State of development: <br /> finding aids: Publication find book (1984); Online find book<br /> <br /><br /> Citation method: <br /> BArch, R 43-II/...

Reichskanzlei, 1878-1945

Federal Archives (Archivtektonik) >> North German Confederation and German Reich (1867/1871-1945) >> Supreme Organs

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https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/basys2-invenio/direktlink/7eb357f1-edb6-4af8-b5f5-a6e4081d5ea8/

Literatur: <br /> Gregor Verlande, Wolfram Werner: Reichskanzlei (Bestand R 43). Analytisches Inventar, 4 Teilbände (Findbücher zu Beständen des Bundesarchivs Bd. 13), Koblenz 1984.<br /> Akten der Reichskanzlei. Weimarer Republik. Hrsg. für die Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften v. Karl Dietrich Erdmann [u.a.], für das Bundesarchiv v. Wolfgang Mommsen [u.a.]. 14 Bde. Boppard 1968-1990.<br /> Akten der Reichskanzlei. Regierung Hitler 1933-1945. Hrsg. für die Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften v. Konrad Repgen [u.a.], für das Bundesarchiv v. Hans Booms [u.a.]. Bd. 1 ff. Boppard 1983, München 1999 ff.<br /> Inventar archivalischer Quellen des NS-Staates, hrsg. von Heinz Boberach, München 1991/1995, Teil 1, S. 2-6, Teil 2, S. 1.

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