Contains above all: Signature Book of Commerz- und Privatbank AG, Hamburg-Berlin (Correction Sheets), Febr. 1, 1930 List of Branch Offices Signature List of Deutsche Renten-Kreditanstalt, Febr. 1, 1930 Circulars and Member Lists of Zentralverband des deutschen Bank- und Bankiergewerbes E.V. Annual Report of Darmstädter und Nationalbank, 1929 Annual Report of Kreditbank für Auslands- und Kolonialdeutsche GmbH, 1929

Contains among other things: Application for acceptance of money Application for acceptance of securities, other documents and valuables Disposal of shares in the Jewish Colonial Bank Reference to the savings bank books deposited in the Reichsarchiv Department Berlin by the former Zentralschatzkasse

1st Biographical Information on Wolfgang Kapp Wolfgang Kapp was born in New York on July 24, 1858, the son of the lawyer Friedrich Kapp, who had played an important role in the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1848 and had to emigrate to the United States because of his participation in the Baden uprising. Wolfgang Kapp's mother was Louise Engels and was the daughter of the Major General and Commander of Cologne Engels. The family was originally called d'Ange and immigrated from France to Germany in 1687 after the Edict of Nantes. In 1870 Friedrich Kapp returned to Germany with his family; he lived in Berlin and was a national liberal, later a liberal member of the Reichstag from 1872-1877 and 1881-1884; he also worked as a renowned historian. Friedrich Kapp died in 1884, his son Wolfgang studied in Tübingen and Göttingen. He completed his studies in 1880 with a doctorate. Probably in 1881 Wolfgang Kapp married Margarete Rosenow, the daughter of a landowner in Dülzen (district Preußisch Eylau). After his marriage Kapp seems to have familiarized himself with the administration of a large agricultural business on his father-in-law's estate, because it was not until 1885 that he began his actual professional career as a trainee with the government in Minden. In 1886 he joined the Ministry of Finance, Department II, Administration of Direct Taxes, as a government assistant. From 1890 to 1899 he was district administrator in Guben. In 1890, at the beginning of his time as district administrator, Kapp bought the Rittergut Pilzen estate near the Rosenov estate and thus entered the circle of the East Prussian Great Agrarians. Out of his interest for the interests of agriculture a work of agricultural policy content arose in Guben, which attracted a great deal of attention in the Ministry of Agriculture, so that an appointment as a government council followed in 1900. Kapp was appointed to the I. Dept. Administration of Agricultural and Stud Affairs, Department of Agricultural Workers' Affairs, but during the era of Reich Chancellor von Bülow as Commissioner of the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture he was primarily active in the preparation of the customs tariff of 1902 and in the initiation of the new trade agreements of 1904-1906. Kapp gained his first foreign policy experience in negotiations with representatives of foreign countries. Kapp soon gained a closer relationship with the then Reich Chancellor von Bülow, with whom he shared similar political views. During his time at the Ministry of Agriculture, Kapp seems to have had ambitious plans for his future professional and political career and at least aspired to the position of district president. That his plans went even further can be seen from the recording of a conversation between Kaiser Wilhelm II and the General Field Marshal von der Goltz, in which the possibility of Kapp's successor in the Reich Chancellery was considered. However, this conversation, whose date lies between 1909 and 1911, took place at a time when Kapp had already left the Prussian civil service. The reason for his resignation from the Ministry of Agriculture seems to have been his annoyance at not taking his person into account when appointing district presidents. On 5 April 1906, the East Prussian countryside elected the owner of the Pilzen manor as general landscape director. It is very characteristic of Kapp's personality under what circumstances he became known in East Prussia through a trial he conducted against the landscape. The landscapes of the Prussian provinces were self-governing bodies and as such primarily representations of landowners. But the landscape also served as a representative body for state fiscal policy. Its real task, of course, lay outside the political sphere in granting credit to cooperatives. However, the credit policy has had a decisive influence on the distribution of property and the social structure of the provinces and has thus had political repercussions. Through the incorporation of agricultural banks and fire societies in the 19th century, the landscapes had become efficient organisations at provincial level. Kapp took on the new tasks with his own vehemence. He continued the landscape in the specified direction, primarily by developing the branch network of the Landschaftsbank, by merging the landscape with the East Prussian Feuersozietät, by granting more loans, particularly for small property, and by increasing the landscape funds. His policy was aimed at freeing agriculture, which was in a serious crisis at the beginning of the 20th century, from its dependence on state aid and enabling it to help itself by means of credit policy measures. In the course of these efforts, Kapp tackled three major tasks. First and foremost the question of agricultural debt relief, which the Prussian state initiated in 1906 with the law on the debt limit. Kapp was the first to try to make this framework law effective from the initiative of the parties themselves without further state aid by showing different ways of debt relief. The inclusion of life insurance as a means of reducing debt proved particularly effective. Instead of debt repayment, the premium payment was made to an agricultural life insurance company. This ensured that a certain amount of capital was available for debt reduction in the event of death. The second task resulted from the former. The desire to combine public-law life insurance with debt relief necessitated the creation of a number of public-law life insurance institutions, which were merged into an association chaired by Kapp. These facilities were especially designed to prevent the outflow of premium money from the countryside to the large cities, where it had been used especially for the construction of tenements. However, the outflow of capital was only one danger, the other was the rural exodus that began in the 19th century. He tried to strengthen small agricultural holdings with a colonization and agricultural workers' bill, which was accepted by the General Landtag in 1908. This measure was based on the recognition of the untenability of the institution of instants and deputants, who were in the closest dependence on the lord of the manor and who emigrated from this situation in masses to the large cities, where they strengthened the ranks of the industrial proletariat. The organ for settlement policy should be a landscaped settlement bank. The third task that Kapp set himself was the creation of a public-law national insurance scheme following the public-law life insurance scheme. This measure was primarily directed against the Volksversicherungsanstalt "Volksfürsorge", created by the Social Democrats, and was intended to secure capital for agricultural workers to buy their own farms by means of abbreviated insurance. These plans did not lead to the hoped-for success, but ended in a bitter feud with the private insurance companies, especially the Deutsche Volksversicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft. In addition to his functions within the East Prussian landscape, Kapp was also active in various other bodies. In December 1906 he was appointed to the Stock Exchange Committee of the Reichsamt des Innern and in 1912 to the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank. The First World War gave Kapp's life and work a whole new direction. Kapp's biography is too little researched to judge how far he had buried his ambitious plans, which apparently pushed him to the top of the Reich government, or postponed them only for a better opportunity. Although Kapp had been a member of the German Conservative Party since at least 1906, he did not take the path of an existing party to make a political career. This path probably did not correspond to his personality, described as authoritarian, ambitious and independent. He made the great leap into high politics through his sensational conflict with Reich Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg. In his memo of 26 May 1916 "Die nationalen Kreise und der Reichs-Kanzler", which he sent to 300 public figures, including Bethmann Hollweg himself, he sharply criticised what he considered to be the weak policy of the Reich Chancellor, to whom he v. a. accused him of his alleged pacting with social democracy, his reluctance to America and his rejection of the unrestricted submarine war demanded by extremely militaristic circles, but also of a false war economic policy. The sharp reaction of Bethmann Hollweg, who spoke in a Reichstag session of "pirates of public opinion", among others, who abused "with the flag of the national parties", Kapp perceived as a personal affront to which he reacted with a demand for a duel. On the contrary, Kapp had to take an official reprimand and his re-election as General Landscape Director, which had taken place in March 1916 on a rotational basis, was refused confirmation by the Prussian State Ministry. Since his friends held on to Kapp in the East Prussian landscape, he was re-elected in 1917. This time - since Bethmann Hollweg had been overthrown in the meantime - he was able to take up his post as general landscape director again. At first, the events of 1916 led him even more into politics. Here he expressed solidarity with a circle of extremely reactionary and aggressive military forces around General Ludendorff and Grand Admiral von Tirpitz, who pursued a ruthless internal perseverance policy that tightened up all the forces of the people and a policy of unrestrained annexation and total warfare towards the outside world. Emperor Wilhelm II, who in principle sympathized with this extreme direction, had to refrain from supporting this group out of various considerations of public opinion and the negative attitude of the party majorities in the Reichstag. Kapp and his comrades-in-arms assumed in their political ambitions the complete certainty of the German final victory. They closed their eyes to the already looming possibility of defeat for Germany, especially after America entered the war. The war and peace goals they represented, especially the annexation plans at the expense of Russia and Poland, which were later only surpassed by Hitler, were marked by uncontrolled wishful thinking that in no way corresponded to objective reality. His extreme attitude drove Kapp into a blind hatred against any social and democratic movement; his fierce opposition against social democracy was mainly based on the legend of the dagger thrust against the imperialist Germany struggling to win. This military and National Socialist sharpening, for which Kapp found moral and financial support in certain circles of military leadership, but also among a number of university professors, writers, local politicians, agriculturalists, industrialists and bankers, culminated in the founding of the German National Party, which took place on 2 September 1917 (the "Sedan Day") in the Yorksaal of the East Prussian landscape. Although Kapp was clearly the spiritus rector of this "collection party", two other persons were pushed into the foreground, intended for the eyes of the public: These were the Grand Admiral von Tirpitz as 1st chairman and Duke Johann Albrecht von Mecklenburg as honorary chairman of this party. The German Fatherland Party did not seek seats in the Reichstag, but saw itself as a pool of national forces to bring about Germany's final victory. The statute provided for the immediate dissolution of the party once its purpose had been achieved. In addition to mobilising all forces to achieve military victory, Kapp's founding of the party also had another purpose that was not made so public. Tirpitz, then 68 years old, was to be launched as a "strong man" to replace the "weak" chancellors Bethmann Hollweg and Michaelis. It was obvious that in this case Kapp would join the leadership of the imperial government as advisor to the politically ultimately inexperienced Grand Admiral. The November Revolution of 1918 and the immediate surrender of Germany put an abrupt end to these lofty plans. But Kapp and his friends did not admit defeat. Although the German Fatherland Party was dissolved in December 1918, it was immediately replaced by a new party, the German National People's Party, which developed into a bourgeois mass party during the Weimar Republic, but no longer under Kapp's leadership. After the fall of the Hohenzollern monarchy, Kapp immediately opposed the revolution and the Weimar Republic. He could not or did not want to accept the social and political conditions that had arisen in the meantime; his goal was clearly the restoration of pre-war conditions. The sources, which were only incomplete at that time, do not show when the idea of a coup d'état was born and how the conspiracy developed in all its branches. A close associate of Kapp's, Reichswehrhauptmann Pabst, had already attempted a failed coup in July 1919. Together with Kapp, Pabst created the "National Unification" as a pool of all counter-revolutionary forces and associations. This Reich organisation was to coordinate the preparations for the coup in Prussia and Bavaria, while Kapp was to develop East Prussia into the decisive base of counterrevolution. From here, with the help of the Freikorps operating in the Baltic States, the Reichswehr and the East Prussian Heimatbund, whose chairman was Kapp, the survey was to be carried to Berlin with the immediate aim of preventing the signing of the Versailles Treaty. The approval of the Versailles Treaty by the parliamentary majority has created a new situation. Now Ludendorff, one of the co-conspirators, proposed to carry out the coup directly in Berlin, whereby the Baltic people, who were disguised as work detachments on the large Eastern Elbe goods, were to take over the military support. Meanwhile, the conspirators, headed by Kapp and Reichswehr General Lüttwitz, tried to gain the mass base absolutely necessary for the execution of the coup d'état through a broad-based nationalist smear campaign. The company was already at risk before it could even begin. Kapp had demanded that his military allies inform him at least 14 days before the strike so that he could make the necessary political preparations. That the coup d'état had just begun on 13 March 1920 depended not so much on carefully considered planning, but on coincidences that were not predictable. One of the reasons for the premature strike was the dissolution of the Freikorps, especially the Ehrhardt Brigade, decided by the Reich government. This revealed the fact that, in the absence of a party of their own, the conspirators were unable to avoid relying on the loose organization of the resident defence forces, which to a certain extent were also influenced by social democracy. The whole weakness of the company was evident in the question on which forces the new government should actually be based. While the military saw an arrangement with the strongest party, social democracy, as unavoidable, Kapp categorically rejected pacting with social democracy. He wanted to put the Social Democrat-led government as a whole into protective custody. But now the government was warned; for its part, it issued protective arrest warrants against the heads of the conspirators and left Berlin on March 12. In the early morning of March 13, the Navy Brigade Ehrhardt marched into Berlin without encountering armed resistance, as would have been the duty of the Reichswehr. Kapp proclaimed himself Chancellor of the Reich and began with the reorganisation of the government. The order of the new rulers to arrest the escaped imperial government and to remove the state government if they did not stand on the side of the putschists was only partially executed by the local commanders. The proclamation of the general strike on 13 March and the reports arriving from the most important cities and industrial centres about joint actions of the working class prompted the indirect supporters of Kapp, the large industrialists and the Reichswehr generals, to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. Kapp had to see the hopelessness of his company. Eyewitnesses reported that Kapp had spent almost 3 days of his time as Chancellor of the Reich "with gossip". On March 15, the "adventure" was over. Kapp apparently stayed hidden with friends near Berlin for some time after the failed coup and then flew to Sweden in a provided plane. Here he initially lived under different false names in different places, at last in a pension in Robäck, but was soon recognized and temporarily taken into custody. The Swedish government granted asylum to the refugee, but he had to commit himself to refrain from all political activities. When the high treason trial against the heads of the March company in Leipzig began, Kapp was moved by the question of his position in court. At first, he justified his non-appearance with the incompetence of the Ebert government and with the constitution, which in his opinion did not exist. Kapp said that there was no high treason in the legal sense against the "high treason" of social democracy. When in December 1921 one of the co-conspirators, the former district president of Jagow, was sentenced to a fortress sentence by the Imperial Court, Kapp changed his mind. Still in Sweden he worked out a justification for the process ahead of him, in which he denied any guilt in both an objective and a subjective sense. On the contrary, he intended to appear before the court with a charge against the then government. It didn't come to that anymore. Kapp had already fallen ill in Sweden. At the beginning of 1922 he returned to Germany and was remanded in custody. On 24 April 1922, he underwent surgery in Leipzig to remove a malignant tumour from the left eye. Kapp died on 12 June 1922; he was buried on 22 June at the village churchyard in Klein Dexen near his estate Pilzen. 2. inventory history The inventory, which had been formed in its essential parts by Kapp himself, was transferred by the family to the Prussian Secret State Archives as a deposit in 1935. Here the archivist Dr. Weise started already in the year of submission with the archival processing, which could not be completed, however. In the course of the repatriation of the holdings of the Secret State Archives, which had been removed during the Second World War, the Kapp estate was transferred to the Central State Archives, Merseburg Office. In 1951, Irmela Weiland, a trainee, classified and listed the stock here. As a result of the processing a find-book was created, which was until the new processing in the year 1984 the kurrente find-auxiliary. 1984 the stock was to be prepared for the backup filming. It turned out that the processing carried out in 1951 did not meet today's archival requirements, so that a general revision was considered necessary. The graduate archivists Renate Endler and Dr. Elisabeth Schwarze rearranged and simply listed the holdings according to the principles of order and indexing for the state archives of the German Democratic Republic, Potsdam 1964. The found file units were essentially retained, in individual cases they were dissolved and new indexing units were formed. In addition, 0.50 m of unprocessed documents were incorporated into the estate. The old regulatory scheme, which was essentially broken down chronologically, was replaced by a new regulatory scheme based on Kapp's areas of activity. In the course of the revision, the portfolio was re-signed. The relationship between the old and the new signatures was established through a concordance. The new find book replaces the previously valid find book from 1951. The stock is to be quoted: GStA PK, VI. HA Family Archives and Bequests, Nl Wolfgang Kapp, No... 3) Some remarks on the content of the holdings The Kapp estate contains 7.50 running metres of archival material from the period from 1885 to 1922, including some earlier and later individual pieces. The holdings mainly contain documents from Kapp's official and political activities, to a lesser extent also correspondence within the family and documents from the administration of the Knights' Manor Pilzen. The density of transmission to the individual sections of Kapp's professional and political development is quite different. While his activities with the Minden government, in the Prussian Ministry of Finance and as district administrator in Guben are relatively poorly documented, there is a rather dense tradition about his activities as director of the general landscape and as chairman of the German Fatherland Party. The documentation on the preparation and implementation of the coup shows gaps which can be explained, among other things, by the fact that important agreements were only reached orally at the stage of preparing the coup. Moreover, Kapp, who had to flee hastily to Sweden after the coup d'état failed, was no longer able to give this part of his estate the same care as the former one. Overall, however, it is a legacy of great political importance and significance. Merseburg, 2. 10.1984 signed Dr. Elisabeth Schwarze Diplomarchivar Compiled and slightly shortened: Berlin, April 1997 (Ute Dietsch) The clean copy of the find book was made by Britta Baumgarten. Note After the reunification of the two German states, the Merseburg office was closed, the archival records and thus also the Kapp estate were returned to the Secret State Archives in Berlin (1993). From the inventory maps, this reference book was created after maps that no longer existed were replaced (post-distortion of files). XIII Bibliography (selection) Bauer, Max : March 13, 1920 Berlin 1920 Bernstein, Richard : Der Kapp-Putsch und seine Lehren. Berlin 1920 Brammer, Karl : Five days of military dictatorship. Berlin 1920 Documents on the Counterrevolution using official material: The same: Constitutional Foundations and High Treason. According to stenographic reports and official documents of the Jagow trial. Berlin 1922 Erger, Johannes : The Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch. Düsseldorf 1967 Falkenhausen, Fri. from : Wolfgang Kapp. In: Conservative Monthly July/August 1922 Kern, Fritz : Das Kappsche Abenteuer. Impressions and findings. Leipzig/Berlin 1920 Könnemann, Erwin : Residents' Weirs and Time Volunteer Associations. Berlin 1971 Noske, Gustav : From Kiel to Kapp. Berlin 1920 Rothfels, Hans : Article "Wolfgang Kapp" in: Deutsches biogra- phisches Jahrbuch Bd 4 (1922) Berlin/Leipzig 1929, correspondence. 132-143 (Here also a drawing of the works Kapps) Schemann, Ludwig : Wolfgang Kapp and the March company. A word of atonement. Munich/Berlin 1937 Taube, Max : Causes and course of the coup of 13 March 1920 and his teachings for the working class and the middle classes. Munich 1920 Wauer, W. : Behind the scenes of the Kapp government. Berlin 1920 Wortmann, K. Geschichte der Deutschen Vaterlandspartei In: Hallische Forschungen zur neueren Geschichte. Volume 3, Hall 1926 Contents I. Introduction Page II 1 Biographical Information on Wolfgang Kapp Page II 2 History of the Collection Page X 3 Some Remarks on the Content of the Collection Page XI 4 Literature in Selection Page XIII II Structure of the Collection Page XIV III Collection Page XVII (Order Numbers, Title, Duration Page 1-106)) XVII III. holdings (order numbers, file title, duration) Description of holdings: Lebenssdaten: 1858 - 1921 Finds: database; find book, 1 vol.

Contains: - Three letters from Max M. and Fritz Warburg, concerning the formulation of principles for the League of Nations, the Reich government's public relations work, a possible armistice, the list of proposals for the Peace Council and various persons, Sept. - Dec.Dec. 1918 - Two letters from lawyer and district judge Meisner, concerning the appointment of Prince Max von Baden as Reich Chancellor and the prospects of a favorable peace, together with a letter from former Reichsgerichtsrat H. Dietz, concerning the policies of Reich Chancellors Bethmann-Hollweg, Max von Baden and the State Secretary for the Colonies, Dr. Solf, Oct. 1918 - copy of a letter from Wilhelm Cohnstaedt of the "Frankfurter Zeitung" to the Deputy Reich Chancellor, Friedrich von Payer, re. the impairment of the prospect of an armistice if it is offered in the name of the Kaiser, with accompanying letter to Haußmann, Oct. 8, 1918 - Letter from Otto Schwarz, regarding the assessment of Turkey, Oct. 9, 1918 - Letter of thanks from Friedrich Haux, MdL, for Haußmann's participation on the occasion of Haux's private misfortunes, Oct. 9, 1918 Okt. 1918 - Request from the news department of the Foreign Office, concerning a speech by Haußmann, with stenographic notes, Oct. 9, 1918 - Anonymous letter, concerning the alleged general corruption in Germany, with two newspaper articles on this subject, undated - Masch. Letter from Georg Gothein, MdR, regarding the future political organization of Poland and the role of the Jews, as well as Gothein's newspaper article "Break with militarism", Oct. 1918 - Letter from Dernburg, regarding the participation of America experts in the negotiations with the USA, Oct. 16, 1918 - Four letters and a postcard from Robert Bosch, regarding Bosch's business principles and management style, the possibility of a national uprising and a social revolution, an armistice, Ludendorff, Hindenburg and Prussia, Oct. 1918 - Letter from Clara Zetkin requesting support for her request for her son to be recalled from the front, Oct. 18, 1918 - Letter from G. Stoskopf, regarding the autonomy of Alsace, Oct. 19, 1918 - Letter from Judicial Councillor D. Stoskopf, regarding the autonomy of Alsace, Oct. 19, 1918 1918 - Letter from Councillor of Justice D.F. Waldstein asking whether Haußmann, as a representative of the Progress Party, wishes to accept the declaration of consent to the League of Nations, which Waldstein is asked to do in the enclosed letter from the People's League for Freedom and Fatherland, Oct. 1918 - Letter from Gottlob Eppler on his business card, who sends a letter from his son with a picture of the mood at the front, together with a letter of congratulations from the Ebingen People's Association on Haußmann's appointment as Reich State Secretary, Oct. 15 and 20, 1918 - Two letters from different authors, concerning the necessity, possibility and preconditions of a last great effort, Oct. 1918 - Letter from Hartwig Schubart, retired Royal Prussian Captain, in which he asks for support for the enclosed copy of a masch. The purpose of the letter is to lift the confiscation of Hartwig's book "Deutsche Schuld am Kriege" ("German guilt in the war"), Oct. 22, 1918 - Telegram from Major Walter Bloem requesting a meeting on an "urgent patriotic matter", Oct. 22, 1918 - Two letters from the Reichskanzler (German Chancellor), Oct. 22, 1918 Oct. 22, 1918 - Two letters from the student councilor Humbert, concerning the annexation of German-Austria and the introduction of electoral emperorship, Oct. 23 and 28, 1918 - Letter from Behrens from the management of the Disconto-Gesellschaft in Berlin, concerning the enclosed excerpt from a letter from the police chief of the Berlin police station. Excerpt from a letter from Police President Gerstein, in which he comments on his possible use within the new Reich government, Oct. 1918 - Letter from Björn Björnson, who recommends ending the war and settling the Schleswig issue with Denmark, Oct. 25, 1918 - Letter from Dr. Emil Leimdörfer, concerning a possible abdication of the Kaiser and his son, Oct. 27, 1918 - Letter from Walther Schücking, concerning the journalistic activities of Schücking and several colleagues on behalf of the government, Oct. 29, 1918 - Letter of thanks from former Reich Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg for Haußmann's comments in the "Berliner Tageblatt", Oct. 29, 1918 - Letter from Franz Schieting, concerning the lack of foreign representation of German interests, with stenographic notes, Oct. 30, 1918 - Seven letters from various authors, concerning the bringing about of an armistice and peace, Oct.Nov. 1918 - Twelve letters or postcards whose authors request employment or use or ask Haußmann to become involved in an individual matter on their behalf, Oct.-Nov. 1918 - Five congratulatory letters or cards and telegrams on Haußmann's appointment as Reich State Secretary or with praise for his person and work, Oct.Nov. 1918 - Letter from lawyer Dr. Rheinstrom, regarding the demand for the abdication of the Kaiser, Nov. 2, 1918 - Masch. political and business exposé for a new Berlin newspaper which is to be "based on the radical aspirations within the majority government", with accompanying letter from the author Rauscher, Nov. 9. 1918 - Telegram from the editor Wallishauser, who, as a member of the local parliament, requests instructions for his conduct in the constituent National Assembly, Nov. 9, 1918 - Two letters from various authors demanding the abdication of the Kaiser, Nov. 1918 Also contains: - Anonymous second part of the article "Letters from a German Jew abroad", undated (printed) - Masch. Memorandum "Creation of a Peace Council", masch. List of members of the Peace Council as well as typed and handwritten notes concerning the military and economic program of the new Reich government by Fritz Warburg, Oct. 1918 - M, Oct. 18 and 19, 1918 - Handwritten note by Haußmann concerning the possibility of an armistice, Oct. 1918 - Masch. Draft of a program of the Imperial Government by Baron Walter von Herman-Wain, Nov. 7, 1918 - Letter from Guido Leser, concerning a union of Württemberg and Baden, April 25, 1919

Introduction Welfare care is defined as planned care for the benefit of the general public and not as a profit-making activity for those in need or at risk. It can extend preventively or remedially to the health, moral or economic well-being. Welfare must be distinguished from welfare care (care is "provided", welfare care is "exercised"), since welfare deals with individual welfare measures. The cornerstones of welfare care are (a) health care, (b) occupational welfare with severely disabled care and (c) youth welfare as well as - if not covered by health care - infant care, maternal and young child protection, school child care, care for weak and sick children and vulnerable care. It also includes (d) housing care and (e) popular education, as well as public, general and special care to control and respond to the needs of individuals when other forms of welfare are not effective. The term "welfare police", which refers to the preventive activity of the police, proves the long-standing link between welfare work and public administration. The decisive change towards modern state welfare care took place through the economic, social and political changes brought about by industrialisation, which made new social security systems necessary for the developing class of free wage workers and their families. Since it began work, the Ministry of the Interior, as its field of work, understood the entire internal state administration in the broadest sense of the term "the changed constitution of the supreme state authorities" of 16 December 1808. Apart from finance, military and justice, these included the general police, the industrial police, the section for cult and public education, general legislation, medical matters and matters relating to mining, coins, salt production and porcelain manufacture, from which the departments A - general police, B - trade and industry, C - cultus and public education and D - postal service (since 3 June 1814 as general post office subordinate to the State Chancellor) emerged. Depending on their specificity, welfare work was subordinated to the various departments. When the Ministry of Culture, Education and Medicine was established with the Cabinet Order of 3 November 1817 and the Ministry of Trade, Commerce and Public Works was created on 17 April 1848 by the Most High Decree, individual welfare measures also changed in their departments. For example, the "Ministry of Commerce" was supervised over occupational and housing care and the "Ministry of Culture" over health care and primary education. The Ministry of the Interior thus retained the youth welfare with the areas that were not subject to health care, as well as public (special) welfare. Youth Welfare includes all measures to strengthen young people (from birth to majority) physically, psychologically and socially. This includes health care as well as guardianship and protection of the foster children. The occupation with healthy young people is understood as youth care. The activities towards the endangered and neglected youth are carried out by the youth welfare, which is also the main object of the tradition recorded here. Until the I. After the Second World War, only guardianship and welfare education were regulated by law. The Reich Law for Youth Welfare of 9 July 1922 created a uniform basis for public youth welfare institutions. In addition, the newly created youth welfare offices were given the function of both the overall supervision of private activities in this field and a link between private organisations and public welfare. Prior to this, the Ministry of People's Welfare was established on 1 November 1919, reassembling the responsibilities that were divided up among the individual ministries in the course of the 19th century. This in turn changed with the dissolution of this authority on December 1, 1932, whose tasks were taken over by the Prussian Ministry of Economics and Labour. However, prior to the establishment of the Ministry of People's Welfare, matters already within the Ministry of the Interior's area of responsibility fell back to the Ministry. Nevertheless, the tradition discovered here was part of the holdings of the I. HA Rep. 191 Ministry of Public Welfare, which comes from donations to the Prussian Secret State Archives of the years 1931 to 1938, which during the Second World War, along with other archival material, was outsourced and, after its recovery, was transferred to the Central State Archives of the German Democratic Republic - Merseburg branch. In the course of a revision in 1977/78, it was decided to dissolve the holdings there. Apart from the tradition of the Prussian State Commissioner for the Regulation of Welfare, the file material was again transferred to the written tradition of those ministerial authorities which had already been entrusted with these tasks before the Ministry of People's Welfare was founded or after its dissolution. A decade after the 1993/94 holdings were returned to the GStA PK, the still unprocessed materials of the Ministry of People's Welfare, which fell under the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior, were now sorted and recorded. However, in contrast to the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Trade and Commerce and the Ministry of Finance, the documents were not integrated directly into individual groups of files. Rather, the partial stock was left as such. In addition to its focus on youth welfare with the provisions of the Reichsjugendwohlfahrtsgesetz, the Fürsorgeerziehung mit Fürsorgepersonal or the Erziehungsanstalten und -vereinen, it also contains documents on welfare offices, which were not only responsible for youth welfare offices, but also, for example, subsidies for small pensioners. The Ministry experienced an extension of its competence with regard to the newly defined borders of the Prussian state through the Versailles Treaty, in which the affected areas of the individual parts of the country were now also supported. The collection contains archival documents from the period 1806 to 1936 and has an extent of approx. 31 running metres. How to order and quote: The archives listed here are stored in the Westhafen external magazine. Therefore, the yellow order forms must be used and waiting times must be accepted for operational reasons. The archives can be ordered as follows: I. HA Rep. 77 B, No. - to quote: GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 77 B Ministry of the Interior, Volkswohlfahrt, Nr. Last assigned number: Handling of the finding aid In principle, the finding guide is arranged within the classification groups according to the order numbers. However, in some groups - especially in those under the classification point "Individual educational institutions and associations in Prussia and other regions" - there are jumping numbers, because for reasons of clarity additionally an order according to place names or provinces or also according to the dating was made. Reference to other GStA PK holdings on this subject: 1) I. HA Rep. 76 Ministry of Culture VII new - primary education (each "A" in the individual sections) VIII B - younger medical registration, sparkling wine. 19 - Social training 2) I. HA Rep. 77 Ministry of the Interior Tit. 421 - School and Education Police Tit. 423 - Security Police, Gen. Tit. 491 - Prisoner (penal and reformatory) institutions Tit. 924 - Youth Care Dept. I, Sparkling Wine, Germany 19 - Social Policy and Insurance, Private Companies Section II, Sparkling Wine 27 - Private Companies and Associations Section IV, Sparkling Wine 9 - Charity and reformatories, East-West Division (here: support for border areas) 3) I. HA Rep. 84a Ministry of Justice 6.2.0[D] - Welfare in general ([D]: Dahlem component) 6.2.1[D] - Youth Welfare 9.1.4[D] - Implementation of the Versailles Peace Treaty C 6.4.2[M] - Welfare Education ([M]: Merseburg component) 4) I. HA Rep. 89 Secret Civil Cabinet, younger period 5.6 - Welfare Societies & Institutions, Foundations 9.4.3.2.8 - Welfare Education 5) I. HA Rep. 151 Ministry of Finance I 4[D] - Volkswohlfahrt (here mainly: 4.1 - Jugendwohlfahrt und Fürsorgeerziehung) I B 38[D] - Jugendpflege I A, 7.2[M] - Auswirkungen des Friedensvertrages von Versailles I C, 7.3[M] - Erziehung (vereinzelt) I C, 8.7.1[M] - Volkswohlfahrt. General 6) I. HA Rep. 169 D Prussian Parliament X e - Child and youth care 7) I. HA Rep. 191 The Prussian State Commissioner for the Regulation of Welfare Literature Selection: - Binder, Thomas: Realization of core archive tasks using the example of the tradition "Ministry of the Interior, People's Welfare" from the GStA PK. Berlin, diploma thesis at the FH Potsdam 2006 - v. Bitter, Rudolf: Handwörterbuch der Preußischen Verwaltung. Berlin, W. de Gruyter 19283. Here: Article "Youth Welfare" and "Welfare". - Blum-Geenen, Sabine: Fürsorgeerziehung in der Rheinprovinz von 1871 bis 1933 Köln, Rheinland-Verlag 1997 - Henne-Am Rhyn, Otto[Red.]: Ritter's geographic-statistical encyclopedia []. Leipzig, Otto Wigand 1874, on which the information on the place names are based. - Marcus, Paul: The Prussian Ministry of People's Welfare (1919 - 1932). Prehistory, business, activity and dissolution as well as his tradition in the Secret State Archive of Prussian Cultural Heritage. In: Generaldirektion der Staatl. Archive Bayerns[Ed.]: Archivalische Zeitschrift, 83rd vol., p. 93 - 137 Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, Böhlau 2000, Berlin, June 2005 T. Binder M. A. (Archivangestellter) finding aids: database; find book, 1 vol.

Geschichte des Bestandsbildners: Das Allgemeine Truppenamt (TA) wurde 1919 errichtet. Aus ihm ging 1935 der Generalstab des Heeres (GenStdH) hervor. Dieser gliederte sich wie folgt: Chef des Generalstabes des Heeres (ChefdGenStdH), zuvor Chef des Truppen amtes (ChefTA); Zentralabteilung des Generalstabes des Heeres (GZ), zuvor Zentralgruppe (TZ); Operationsabteilung (1. Abt.GenStdH), zuvor Heeres abteilung (T 1); Organisationsabteilung (2. Abt.GenStdH), zuvor Heeres organisationsabteilung (T 2); Abteilung Fremde Heere (3. Abt.GenStdH), zuvor Abteilung Fremde Heere (T 3); Heeresausbildungsabteilung (4. Abt GenStdH), zuvor Heeresausbildungsabteilung (T 4); Transportabteilung (5. Abt.GenStdH), zuvor Transportabteilung (T 5). Verselbständigte sich zu Beginn des Zweiten Weltkrieges als "Chef des Transportwesens"; Quartiermeisterabteilung (6. Abt.GenStdH), zuvor Gruppe V der Heeres abteilung (T 1 V). Zu Kriegsbeginn verselbständigt als "Generalquartier meister"; Kriegswissenschaftliche Abteilung (7. Abt.GenStdH), zuvor Kriegswissenschaftliche Abteilung (TK), 1942 verselbständigt; Attach bteilung, entstanden 1940 durch Erweiterung der 1934 eingerichteten Attach-Gruppe. Dem Truppenamt angegliedert war die Heeresfriedenskommission, die bis 1927 bestand. Ab 1935 wurden zur Entlastung des Chefs des Generalstabes des Heeres sukzessive die Oberquartiermeister I bis V eingerichtet und unter ihrer Führung einzelne Abteilungen des Generalstabes zusammengefaßt, bis 1942 dann aber wieder aufgelöst. Ebenso wurden die 8. Abt. GenStdH (Technische Abt.), die 9. Abt. GenStdH (Heeresvermessungswesen und Militärgeographie), sie 10. Abt. GenStdH (Landesbefestigungsabteilung), die 11. Abt. GenStdH (Offizierausbildungsabteilung) und die 12. Abt.GenStd (Abteilung Fremde Heere Ost) neu geschaffen. Die 8., 10. und 11. Abteilung wurden zu Beginn des Krieges aufgelöst, die 9. Abteilung verselbständigte sich 1941 als Chef des Kriegskarten- und Vermessungswesens. Bestandsbeschreibung: Das Allgemeine Truppenamt wurde 1919 im Reichswehrministerium als Nachfolgeorganisation des "Großen Generalstabes" des Kaiserreiches errichtet, nachdem Deutschland durch den Versailler Vertrag ein Generalstab oder ähnliche Institutionen verboten worden war. Nach Wiedererrichtung der Wehrhoheit wurde das Allgemeine Truppenamt im Jahre 1935 in Generalstab des Heeres umbenannt. Das Truppenamt bestand zunächst aus folgenden Abteilungen: T 1 (Heeresabteilung): Innere und äußere militärische Lage, Grenzschutz, Landesbefestigung, Truppenverwendung und -gliederung, Militärtransportwesen, Militärvermessungs- und Kartenwesen. T 2 (Organisationsabteilung): Allgemeine Heeresangelegenheiten, Organisation des Übergangs- und künftigen Heeres. T 3 (Statistische Abteilung): Sammlung und Bearbeitung von Informationsmaterialien über fremde Armeen. T 4 (Lehrabteilung): Militärische Ausbildung (auch der Offiziere), Truppenübungen, Sammlung von Erfahrungen. T 5 (Wehrabteilung): Allgemeine Angelegenheiten der Offiziere und Unteroffiziere, Vorgesetzten- und Rangverhältnisse, innerdienstliche Angelegenheiten wie Garnisons- und Wachdienst, Ehrenbezeugungen, Flaggen, Anzugsordnung und Armeemusik, Wehrgesetze nebst Ausführungsbestimmungen, Führung der Personalpapiere. T 6 (Abteilung für Erziehungs- und Bildungswesen): Allgemeine Erziehungs- und Bildungsfragen, Erziehung und Unterrichtung der Offiziersanwärter, Unteroffiziere- und Mannschaften, militärpolitische Ausbildung. T 7 (Transportabteilung): Heerestransportangelegenheiten, insb. Eisenbahntransporte und Schifffahrtsangelegenheiten. H-Friko (Heeresfriedenskommission): Dem Truppenamt angegliedert. Zuständig für die Vertretung des Reichswehrministers in allen die Heeresleitung berührenden Friedensfragen gegenüber anderen Ministerien und der Ententekommission sowie für die Mitprüfung der zur Durchführung der Friedens- und Waffenstillstandsbedingungen von den zuständigen Stellen der Heeresleitung zu treffenden Maßnahmen (1927 aufgelöst). Der zweite Entwurf der "Geschäftsverteilung des Reichswehrministeriums" vom Juni 1921 sah eine Reduzierung des Truppenamtes auf die Abteilungen T 1, T 2, T 3, T 4 und T 7 und die H-Friko vor. Im Rahmen der getarnten Aufrüstung nach 1933 wurde das Truppenamt um die Transportabteilung, die Inspektion der Festungen, die Zentralgruppe und die Kriegswissenschaftliche Abteilung erweitert. Der Generalstab des Heeres wurde durch Verfügung vom 26. Juni 1935 geschaffen. Er gliederte sich zunächst wie folgt: (siehe dazu: "Friedensgliederung des OKH mit Generalstab, 1938-1939", in: Ueberschär: Generaloberst Franz Halder, S. 104): Chef des Generalstabes des Heeres: Er stand an der Spitze des Generalstabes des Heeres, war dem Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres unterstellt und dessen erster Berater und ständiger Vertreter. Sein Arbeitsgebiet umfasste sämtliche mit der Vorbereitung und Führung eines Krieges zusammenhängenden Fragen. Zentralabteilung des Generalstabes: Die Zentralabteilung war zuständig für die Organisation der Dienststelle "Generalstab des Heeres" einschließlich der ihr nachgeordneten Behörden sowie für die Personalangelegenheiten der Generalstabsoffiziere. Dem Chef der Zentralabteilung war außerdem die Verwaltung der dem Chef des Generalstabes zur Verfügung stehenden Fonds und Stiftungen übertragen. 1. Abteilung des GenStdH - Operationsabteilung: Die Operationsabteilung hatte die Aufmarschvorbereitungen für den Kriegsfall zu bearbeiten. Daneben bereitete sie militärische Übungsreisen und operative Aufgaben zur Ausbildung der Generalstabsoffiziere vor. 2. Abteilung des GenStdH - Organisationsabteilung: Die Organisationsabteilung befasste sich mit dem Aufbau und der Gliederung des Friedens- und des Kriegsheeres; die Durchführungsanordnungen hierzu erließ das Allgemeine Heeresamt. Ferner bearbeitete sie die jährlich neu erscheinenden "Besonderen Anlagen zum Mobilmachungsplan (Heer)" und die Forderungen hinsichtlich der materiellen Rüstung (außer Munition und Betriebsstoff). 3. Abteilung des GenStdH - Abteilung Fremde Heere: Der Abteilung Fremde Heere oblag das Studium fremder Heere und militärpolitischer Probleme des Auslands durch die Auswertung der Berichte der Militärattachés und der zu ausländischen Heeren abkommandierten Offizieren. Ihr gehörte auch die Attaché-Gruppe des Generalstabes des Heeres an. 4. Abteilung des GenStdH - Heeresausbildungsabteilung: Die Heeresausbildungsabteilung erließ Verfügungen für die Truppenausbildung einschließlich der Truppenübungsplätze, für Herbst- und Sonderübungen sowie für die Ausbildung von Reserve- und Landwehrverbänden. Weiterhin hatte sie die von den Waffeninspektionen bearbeiteten Ausbildungsvorschriften vor der Ausgabe an die Truppe zu prüfen. 5. Abteilung des GenStdH - Transportabteilung: Die Transportabteilung bereitete die jährlichen Mobilmachungs- und Aufmarschtransporte vor. Im Bereich des Transportwesens war sie federführend für die ganze Wehrmacht, doch beschränkte sich ihr Arbeitsgebiet auf die Eisenbahn und auf die Binnenschifffahrt. Aus der friedensmäßigen 5. Abteilung ging zu Beginn des Zweiten Weltkrieges die OKH-Dienststelle "Chef des Transportwesens" hervor. Ihr jeweiliger Leiter war in Personalunion "Der Chef des Transportwesens der Wehrmacht" (letzterer ist ohne eigenständige Überlieferung; das Archivgut beider Dienststellen, einschließlich der Vorprovenienzen, ist im Bestand RH 4 zusammengefasst). 6. Abteilung des GenStdH - Quartiermeisterabteilung: Die Quartiermeisterabteilung hatte die Versorgung des Heeres mit allen Nachschubgütern vorzubereiten. Aus ihr entwickelte sich zu Beginn des Zweiten Weltkrieges die Dienststelle "OKH/Generalquartiermeister"(siehe Bestand RH 3). 7. Abteilung des GenStdH - Kriegswissenschaftliche Abteilung: Aufgabe der Kriegswissenschaftlichen Abteilung war die Auswertung der Kriegserfahrungen sowie die Bearbeitung, Prüfung und Herausgabe kriegswissenschaftlicher Veröffentlichungen, ferner das Studium kriegs- und heeresgeschichtlicher Probleme. Mitte 1942 wurde die 7. Abteilung geteilt in eine "Kriegswissenschaftliche Abteilung des Heeres" (siehe Bestand RH 60) und eine "Kriegswissenschaftliche Abteilung des Generalstabs des Heeres" (bereits Ende 1942 aufgelöst). Inspektion der Festungen (InFest): Der Inspekteur der Festungen hatte Vorschläge zur Ausnutzung und zum Aufbau der Landesbefestigungen zu erarbeiten. Am 24. November 1938 wurde die InFest im Rahmen der vom Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres befohlenen Organisationsänderungen der Waffeninspektionen dem Allgemeinen Heeresamt unterstellt (siehe Bestand RH 12-20). Vertragsgruppe: Sie wurde 1934 aus der Völkerbundabteilung gebildet. In der Folgezeit (ab 1935) war eine wichtige Erweiterung des Generalstabes die Bildung der Oberquartiermeister I bis V, die mehrere Abteilungen leiteten; ferner wurde die 8. (Technische Abteilung), 9. (Heeresvermessungswesen und Militärgeographie), 10. (mit zuständig für Fragen der Landesverteidigung) und 11. Abteilung (Ausbildung der Offiziere und Fortbildung der Generalstabsoffiziere) eingerichtet. Der Oberquartiermeister I war Stellvertretender Chef des Generalstabes des Heeres. Ein Teil der neu eingerichteten Abteilungen wurden nach und nach wieder aufgelöst oder ihre Aufgaben anderen Abteilungen zugeteilt (z.B. 1939 Auflösung des Oberquartiermeisters II; 1942 Auflösung des Oberquartiermeisters I und IV ¿ die Aufgaben gingen an die Operationsabteilung und Länderabteilung über; die Aufgaben der für die Generalstabsoffiziere zuständigen Personalabteilung in der Zentralabteilung wurden dem Personalamt des Heeres übertragen). Im Rahmen der Mobilmachung für den Zweiten Weltkrieg wurde der Generalstab des Heeres September 1939 in zwei Staffeln aufgegliedert: (siehe dazu: "Kriegsgliederung des OKH mit Generalstab 1939-1942", in: Ueberschär, Generaloberst Franz Halder, S. 105): Die 1. Staffel wurde als "Hauptquartier OKH" zusammengefasst. Seine Angehörigen waren dem Chef des Generalstabes des Heeres disziplinarisch unterstellt. Dieser stand an der Spitze des dem Oberbefehlshabers des Heeres zur Verfügung stehenden Führungsstabes und leitete die Operationen des Heeres in dessen Auftrag. Grundlegende Operationsbefehle wurden jedoch vom Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres unterzeichnet. Die für die Führung des Feldheeres nicht unmittelbar benötigten Teile des Generalstabes verblieben als 2. Staffel des Generalstabes des Heeres unter Führung des Oberquartiermeisters V in ihren Friedensunterkünften (Berlin), blieben dabei aber dem Chef des Generalstabes des Heeres unterstellt. Zur 2. Staffel des Generalstabes des Heeres gehörten die Zentralabteilung (GZ), die Abteilung Fremde Heeres Ost und West sowie die Ausbildungsabteilung (Ausbildungsfilmwesen), ferner die Attachéabteilung, die Kriegswissenschaftliche Abteilung und die Abteilung für Heeresvermessungswesen und Militärgeographie. Im Verlauf des Krieges veränderte sich die Organisation und Stellung des Generalstabes des Heeres. Die Führung des Polenfeldzuges lag noch in den Händen des Oberkommandos des Heeres, doch schon die Besetzung Dänemarks und Norwegens im Frühjahr 1940 (Unternehmen "Weserübung") lief unter Leitung des Chefs des Wehrmachtführungsamtes ab und wurde damit zum ersten Kriegsschauplatz des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht. Während der Westfeldzug im Mai/Juni 1940 trat die Einflussnahme Hitlers auf die Befehlsführung erstmals in den Vordergrund. Als Organ einheitlicher Befehlsgebung diente ihm das Wehrmachtführungsamt (am 8. August 1940 in "Wehrmachtführungsstab" umbenannt), das er dazu benutzte, um in die vom Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres geführten Operationen einzugreifen. Die Planung und Durchführung des Balkanfeldzuges im Frühjahr 1941 sowie die Vorarbeiten zum Krieg gegen die UdSSR lagen wiederum im wesentlichen in den Händen des Generalstabes des Heeres. Die Tätigkeit des Wehrmachtführungsstabes beschränkte sich hier auf die Bearbeitung der Weisungen Hitlers. Im Dezember 1941 wurde der Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres, Generalfeldmarschall von Brauchitsch, abgelöst, und Hitler übernahm den Oberbefehl über das Heer selbst. Bei seinen Entscheidungen über die Operationsführung des Heeres zog er immer mehr den Wehrmachführungsstab heran. In dieser Zeit begann die eigentliche Trennung nach OKH- und OKW-Kriegsschauplätzen. Während der Generalstab des Heeres die Ostfront übernahm, lag die Zuständigkeit für alle anderen Kriegsschauplätze beim Wehrmachtführungsstab. 1945 wurde der Generalstab mit dem Wehrmachtführungsstab zusammengelegt. Vorprovenienz: Großer Generalstab Erschließungszustand: Online-Findbuch Vorarchivische Ordnung: In RH 2 ist die Überlieferung aller Abteilungen des Allgemeinen Truppenamtes bzw. des Generalstabes des Heeres zusammengefasst mit Ausnahme jener Organisationseinheiten, die seit 1938 selbständig wurden (5., 6., 7. und 9. Abteilung des Generalstabes des Heeres sowie die Inspektionen der Festungen) und demzufolge im Militärarchiv eigene Bestände bilden (siehe Punkt 2.2. und 3.2). Eine Ausnahme bildet die Attachéabteilung, bei deren Zuordnung und Verbleib beim Bestand RH 2 die im Juli 1944 befohlene Unterstellung unter den Wehrmachtführungsstab/Amtsgruppe Ausland außer acht gelassen wurde. Dies konnte erfolgen, da die Überlieferung der Attachéabteilung mit den Anlagen zum Kriegstagebuch nur bis Ende Oktober 1944 reicht und dann abbricht. Insgesamt gesehen bildet der Bestand RH 2 mit seinen mehr als 3000 Nummern ein relativ abgerundetes Bild von der Tätigkeit des Allgemeinen Truppenamtes und des Generalstabes des Heeres. Das Schriftgut sowohl des Truppenamtes - hier besonders der zwanziger und dreißger - als auch des Generalstabes des Heeres wurde, sobald es nicht mehr für den laufenden Geschäftsbetrieb benötigt wurde, aus den jeweiligen Registraturen ausgesondert und an das Heeresarchiv in Potsdam bzw. an die Außenstelle des Heeresarchivs in Liegnitz abgegeben. Das Magazingebäude des Heeresarchivs Potsdam und alle in ihm lagernde Unterlagen ¿ auch die Außenstelle Liegnitz war am 7. Dezember 1944 mit allen Archivalien dorthin zurückverlegt worden - verbrannten bei dem alliierten Luftangriff am 14. April 1945. Einzelne Bestände des Heeresarchivs waren zuvor allerdings nach Bad Reichenhall ausgelagert worden. Dort jedoch wurden sie beim Näherrücken der alliierten Truppen auf Befehl von General Scherff (Beauftragter des Führers für militärische Geschichtsschreibung) teilweise verbrannt. Verhältnismäßig dicht ist die Überlieferung aus der Zeit des Zweiten Weltkrieges, doch haben viele Kriegsereignisse auch hier schmerzliche Lücken gerissen (z.B. fehlt ein Teil der Kriegstagebücher - samt Anlagen - der Operations- und Organisationsabteilung). Soweit Archivgut aber die Kriegsereignisse überdauerte und den Amerikanern in die Hände fiel, wurde es in die USA verbracht. Dies gilt auch für das seinerzeit laufende Registraturgut des Generalstabes, das nach der deutschen Kapitulation von amerikanischen Truppen in Flensburg beschlagnahmt wurde. In den 60-er Jahren erfolgte die Rückführung der Unterlagen. Eine grundlegende Überarbeitung des Bestandes erfolgte zu Beginn der 80-er Jahre, wobei die Organisation des Truppenamtes/Generalstabes als Grundlage für die Bestandsordnung diente. 3.1. Überlieferung und ggf. archivische Bewertung 3.2. Sonstige Bestände, Hinweise RH 3 OKH/Generalquartiermeister RH 4 Chef des Transportwesens RH 7 Heerespersonalamt RH 12-20 Inspektion der Festungen RH 15 Allgemeines Heeresamt RH 60 Kriegswissenschaftliche Abteilung des Heeres Kart. RH 2 (Generalstabskarten) RW 4 Wehrmachtführungsstab N 28 Beck, Ludwig (Chef GenStdH) N 63 Zeitzler, Kurt (Chef GenStdH) N 220 Halder, Franz (Chef GenStdH) N 738 Adam, Wilhelm (Chef des Truppenamtes) Umfang, Erläuterung: 3282 AE Zitierweise: BArch, RH 2/...

Inventory description: In 1920 a counterespionage group with two departments for espionage and sabotage defense in the east and west was formed in the army statistics department of the troop office. In 1935 it was used as the starting point for the defence department of the Reichswehr and Reichskriegsministerium. In 1938 it was renamed into the Foreign Intelligence and Defense Office Group of the OKW, and in October 1939 it was finally renamed into the Foreign Department/Defense Office. The Office was divided into five departments: Central department (task: organization and administration) with groups: Z O- Officer's personal data Z K- Central file and ZKV-Zentral file of V-people Z B- Foreign policy reporting Z R- Legal affairs Z F- Finances, connection with the foreign exchange protection commands Z Reg and Z Arch- Registratur und Materialverwaltung sowie Archiv Abteilungung/Amtsgruppe Ausland (auslands- und Wehrpolitischer Nachrichtendienst); Evaluation of the press, literature and radio; connection to the German military attachés abroad and the foreign ones in Berlin as well as the German military missions; questions of warfare under international law; situation reports) with groups: Abroad I- Military policy information for Wehrmacht leadership Abroad II- Foreign policy issues, press reports Abroad III- International law issues Abroad IV- Supply of warships and blockade breakers Chief group adjutant, personnel, accommodation, defence vehicles I (procurement of military, armaments and war-related news in the foreign country; development of a reporting organisation and an agency network with control and contact points, letter boxes, radio and courier connections abroad), divided into groups: I Z- Central and Chief Office I H(eer)- Espionage against foreign armies with subgroups I H West and I H East - Explorations in the West and East I M(arine)- Espionage against foreign navies I L(uftwaffe)- Espionage against foreign air forces I T(echnik) L(uft)w(monkey)- Espionage against foreign air transport technology I Wi(rtschaft)- Espionage against foreign economy I G- Laboratories, u.a. false documents, secret inks, photo laboratory I i- radio, esp. transmission, agent radio network, traffic I T(echnik)- espionage against foreign technology I C(riegs)O(rganisations)-connection to the war organ. in the neutral countries) defence II (sabotage; active sabotage protection; training for and preparation of command enterprises) with groups: II A- Executive Office II West (further divided into North and South) II East (also divided into North and South) II Southeast II Overseas II Technology subject to factual subordination: Front reconnaissance commandos and troops as well as units and formations of the "Brandenburger" defence III (above all Defense protection in the Wehrmacht, but also in civilian areas; combating espionage and treason; infiltration of enemy intelligence services) with III A/Chefgruppe-Adjutantur III C- Military secrecy and defense protection; security of the civilian authorities with which the Wehrmacht is in contact; connection to the RSHA; OKW-Paßstelle III C 1- Behörden III C 2- remaining civilian sector, without economy III D- misleading the enemy, double agents (so-called Spielmaterial) III F- Counter-espionage against foreign intelligence services, especially abroad (KO) III F fu- Fahndungsfunk III G- Expert opinion on treason III K- Radio defence (at the beginning of the war passed to Wehrmacht command staff) III Kgf- defence in the prisoner of war camps III N- connection to the press; Protection of own radio, telephone and telegate network III U- Internal evaluation, results of counter-espionage; defence instruction III W- Wehrmacht command group with subgroups III H- Wehrmacht defence in the army, esp. Secret protection and preservation of the moral III L- defense in the air force III M- defense in the navy with the front troop the defense officers were settled in the department Ic III Wi/Rü- counter espionage in the own economy and armament the "secret field police" belonging to the army in the area of the military commanders was subordinate to the defense department III until beginning of 1942. Then their members were integrated to a large extent into the security police. In addition, foreign letter and telegram inspection offices existed; they were affiliated to the locally responsible defensive offices. After individual areas of responsibility and parts of the office had already been assigned to the Reichsführer-SS with the Führer's order of 12.2.1944 (Amt MIL. of the RSHA), the defense departments were subordinated after the 20th century. In July 1944 the chief of the Security Police and the SD was finally assigned to the Wehrmacht leadership staff (OKW/WFSt/Ag.Ausl.), only the foreign department and the troop defense (including the defense officers deployed at the deputy general commandos, the military and Wehrmacht commanders in the still occupied territories) were assigned to the Wehrmacht leadership staff (OKW/WFSt/Ag.Ausl.) Vorprovenienzen: Defense department in the Reich Ministry of Defence or Reich Ministry of War Content characterization: Central department: business distribution plans, including organizational documents, also for subordinate and Defence services (1935-1944); salary and career regulations; identification mark directories; individual personnel documents, in particular of V-people (1939-1945); files with personnel, training and budget matters; provision of foreign exchange for assignments abroad (1935-1944); other services administration (e.g. management and procurement matters); a total of approx. 100 vol. Foreign Office Group: series of files on foreign, economic and military policy of individual countries and groups of countries (ca. 170 Bde, 1934-1944); reports of the Enlightenment Committee Hamburg-Bremen on individual countries (ca. 60 Bde, 1939-1945); news and overviews from and to the Department (ca. 40 Bde, 1939-1945); reports "Fremde Handelsschif-fahrt" (1940-1942); files on the treatment of German prisoners of war and internees (1939-1943); international law and violations (1939-1944); cooperation with the Red Cross 1939-1942); Naval war (1939-1942); gas war preparation abroad and gas defense 1933-1943); disarmament issues (1934-1935); press reports on German violations of the Treaty of Versailles (1933-1935). For the lost files of the Administrative Group Abw. I The few documents of defence stations alone offer a substitute (inventory: RW 49). Defense Section II: War diary of the group leader GM E. Lahousen (3 volumes, 1939-1943, with records of individual actions); elaboration of the "Secret Intelligence Service and Defense Against Espionage of the Army" for the period 1866-1917 (15 volumes); training documents (1939-1944); correspondence with defense units in defense districts I, IV, and VIII (1934-1939, v.a. Personnel documents); processes about V-people and individual companies (1940-1944); altogether approx. 50 vol. Defense III: Collection of secret decrees, decrees and circulars (1935-1940); instructions for defensive instruction (1937-1942); internal security, including individual cases (1940-1943); search lists (1940); secret protection; surveillance of the economy (1933-1945); surveillance of foreigners, including prisoners of war; documents on enemy agent schools (1943/44); individual companies (1941-1943); total of all documents on enemy agent schools (1941-1943). 60 vol. 32 volumes contain deciphering reports of the cipher centre (1925-1933). State of development: Word-Findbuch Scope, Explanation: 570 AE Citation method: BArch, RW 5/...

History of the Inventor: Establishment of an office on 12 February 1919 for the processing of the duties assigned to the Reich President by the Constitution as head of state, at the same time official liaison office between the Reich President and the Reich and state authorities; transfer of the powers of the Reich President to the "Reich Chancellor and Führer" Adolf Hitler by the law on the head of state of 1 August 1934; retention of the office of the Reich President and renaming of the office to Präsidialkanzlei by ordinance of 4 September 1934. Inventory description: Inventory history In the 1930s, the office of the Reich President regularly handed over so-called "Weglegesachen" to the Reich Archives, for example in April 1932 and March/April 1935. However, the registry, which was still ready for handing over in 1944, with processes up to 1934, no longer reached the Reich Archives. In 1944, the archives already kept in the Reichsarchiv Potsdam were transferred to the galleries of Staßfurt and Schönebeck a.d.Elbe. The office of the presidential chancellery and the current registry were maintained at the end of the war in Kleßheim Castle near Salzburg. In 1942/1943 Schloss Kleßheim had been lavishly refurbished as the guest house of the presidential chancellery and the Führer for special purposes. After the capitulation of the German Reich and the occupation by the Allies, the archive holdings fell into their hands. For the files of the presidential chancellery, this meant, in accordance with the territorial division of the occupation zones, that the documents from the tunnels in Staßfurt and Schönebeck a.d.Elbe were largely transported to the USSR, and that the service records at Schloss Kleßheim were under American administration. During the Berlin blockade of 1948/49, the ministerial holdings subsequently brought together in the western sectors of Berlin were transferred to Whaddon Hall in Buckinghamshire and jointly administered by the Foreign Office of the United Kingdom and the American State Department. File returns from the Soviet Union to the GDR began in the mid-1950s. As part of the most extensive restitution campaign, the files of the Presidential Chancellery were transferred to the German Central Archive Potsdam (DZA) in 1959 and stored here under the signature 06.01. The holdings were supplemented in 1963 by further additions that had previously been assigned to the Reich Chancellery. At the same time, the files from American and English administration were transferred from the archive in Whaddon Hall to the Federal Archives in Koblenz. The inventory signature was R 54. After the unification of the two German states and the takeover of the Central State Archives of the GDR (ZStA) by the Federal Archives, the partial inventories were merged and are now stored in Berlin with the inventory signature R 601. 2,536 transactions from the NS archive of the MfS were incorporated during the current processing, the third comprehensive addition. After the repatriation of the files from the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1950s, the MfS also took over documents in order to expand and build up a personal collection for "operative" purposes. As a consequence, the concentration on individual persons, i.e. the person-related filing, meant the destruction of the historical context in which the tradition originated, as files and processes were torn apart or reformed. In autumn 1989 the archive came under the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior of the GDR (MdI) and thus of the Central State Archive of the GDR. After its transfer to the Federal Archives and its provisional use in the 1990s, comprehensive IT-supported indexing began in 2001. At the Centre for the Preservation of Historical Documentary Collections, formerly the Central State Archives Special Archive Moscow, there are still 53 file units from the period 1921-1944 as Fund 1413 in the Centre for the Preservation of Historical Documentary Collections. These are "...above all files on the awarding of the Ostmark Medal (12 volumes, 1938 - 1943), Police Service Award (3 volumes, 1938 - 1943), and the.., 1942) and other awards (4 vols.), among others to railway workers in the Eastern territories, furthermore individual political reports (2 vols., 1935 - 1937) and documents on the representation at the London Disarmament Conference (1933), the discontinuation of proceedings for maltreatment of prisoners (1935 - 1936), racial and population policy (1935 - 1936) as well as a list of employees (1942 - 1943)". In the course of processing, the inventory was supplemented by files that had been proposed for cassation at an earlier date, but were returned to the inventory due to requests for use. These are files from Department B (Domestic Policy), Title XV, support given by the Reich President of Hindenburg to corporations and individuals, but above all for the purpose of assuming honorary sponsorships - inventory adjustments between the holdings R 43 Reich Chancellery, R 1501 Reich Ministry of the Interior and with the Central Party Archives of the SED The volumes with the previous signatures 1499 to 1502 were the provenance adjutant of the Wehrmacht to the Führer and Reich Chancellor. It was handed over to the Department of Military Archives in Freiburg/ Breisgau and assigned to the holdings RW 8. R 2 Reich Ministry of Finance R 43 Reich Chancellery R 2301 Court of Audit of the German Reich N 429 Paul von Hindenburg Estate NS 3 Economic and Administrative Main Office NS 6 Party Chancellery of the NSDAP Foundation Reichpräsident-Friedrich-Ebert Memorial, Heidelberg Archive of Social Democracy of the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation, Bonn Zentrum für die Aufbewahrung historisch-dokumentarischer Sammlungen (formerly Zentrales Staatsarchiv Sonderarchiv Moskau) Fonds 1413 Archivische Bewertung und Bearbeitung A first finding aid book on the files of the presidential chancellery was produced in the German Central Archive Potsdam in 1960. The 1,213 volumes of files were broken down by administrative structure and provisionally recorded. In 1967 the provisional indexing took place in the Federal Archives in Koblenz and in 1981 the submission of a finding aid book to the 241 volumes under the stock signature R 54. After the consolidation of the partial stocks from Potsdam and Koblenz a complete finding aid book was submitted in 1998. At the end of 2008, the database-supported revision of the finding aid book and the incorporation of 2538 files with the provenance Presidential Chancellery from the NS archive of the MfS began. The present archival records are composed of files in their original order of origin, partly with the original file covers and in the predominant number of individual folders comprising only a few sheets. The stock grew from 1,581 files by 933 signatures to a total of 2,547 files. The majority of these are personal transactions such as appointments and dismissals of civil servants and awards of orders. However, it was possible to supplement the volume series with two fact files from the years 1926 and 1927 both chronologically and verifiably on the basis of the diary numbers with volumes 8 and 9. The five-volume series in connection with Paul von Hindenburg's honorary membership is a complete complement. The current processing, including classification, was based on the registry order already used in the previous finding aid: Department A (Internal Affairs) Department B (Internal Policy) Department C (Foreign Policy) Department D (Military Policy) Department E (Not documented) Department O (Chancellery of the Order) Citation BArch R 601/1... Content characterization: Internal affairs of the presidential chancellery 1919-1945 (56): Correspondence with other authorities, rules of procedure of the Reich government, of Ministe‧rien and of the Reich Representation of the NSDAP 1924-1943 (8); organization, personnel, cash and budget matters of the presidential chancellery, private correspondence of Staatsmini‧ster Dr. Otto Meissner 1919-1945 (48); domestic policy 1919-1945 (939): Constitution 1919-1936 (19), Reich President 1919-1939 (190), Reich Government 1919-1936 (23), Legislation 1919-1936 (24), Civil Service 1919-1943 (109), Departments of the Reich Ministry of Labor 1919-1943 (46), Peripheral Areas of the Reich (Saar, Eastern Provinces), including Eastern Aid, Revolutionary Movements, Press, Police and Technical Emergency Aid, Disputes between Princes, Holidays and constitutional celebrations 1919-1945 (42), ministries of the Reich Ministry of Finance 1919-1944 (40), ministries of the Reich Ministry of Justice 1919-1942 (35), church, cultural and health services 1919-1944 (20), Economic and financial policy 1919-1944 (21), economic policy 1919-1944 (40), transport 1919-1943 (26), Disposi‧tionsfonds and donations 1919-1940 (292), Prussia 1919-1937 (5), Bavaria 1919-1936 (15); Foreign Policy 1919-1945 (143): Treaty of Versailles and its implementation 1919-1940 (39), international organizations and treaties 1919-1944 (26), Foreign Office 1921-1945 (2), intergovernmental agreements 1919-1944 (64), cultural relations with foreign countries 1920-1944 (4), foreign policy situation, weekly reports of the Foreign Office 1920-1933 (8); military policy 1919-1939 (48): Military Legislation and Policy 1919-1934 (39), Submitted Writings and Books 1928-1932 (1), Adjutant of the Wehrmacht to the Führer and Reich Chancellor 1934-1939 (4), Prisen‧ordnung 1939-1941 (1), Civil Air Defence 1927-1938 (2), Reich Labour Service 1935-1941 (1); Order Chancellery 1935-1945 (237): Management of orders and decorations 1935-1944 (3), service awards 1937-1945 (102), decorations 1939-1945 (43), decorations on certain occasions 1937-1944 (43), acceptance of foreign titles, orders and decorations by Germans 1941-1944 (6), war awards 1939-1944 (34), trade with orders and decorations 1941-1944 (6); Miscellaneous (congratulations) 1935-1944 (65); Letter diaries 1942 (1) State of development: Findbuch 2011 Citation method: BArch, R 601/...

History of the inventor: Joseph Goebbels, who had already been head of the NSDAP's Reich Propaganda Department since 1929, had certainly developed plans for a Ministry of Propaganda even before the seizure of power.(1) The Reichskabinett (Reich Cabinet) dealt with the issue of the Propaganda Department on 11 September. The arguments for the foundation, which the Reich Chancellor (Hitler) himself presented, sounded extremely harmless ex post and far from future realities: "One of the predominant tasks of this ministry would be the preparation of important acts of government. On the oil and fat issue, for example, which now occupies the cabinet, the people should be enlightened in the direction that the farmer would perish if something were not done to improve the sale of his products. The importance of this matter also for the war measures would have to be pointed out ..." Government action would only begin if the awareness-raising work had taken place and worked for some time. ..."(2) On 16 March 1933, however, Goebbels described the future tasks of his ministry programmatically three days after his appointment in a remarkably open manner in front of press representatives: "If this government is now determined never to give way again, never and under no circumstances, then it need not make use of the dead power of the bayonet, then in the long run it will not be able to be satisfied with knowing 52 percent behind it ..., but it will have to see its next task in winning the remaining 48 percent for itself. This is not only possible through objective work". And about the nature of his propaganda he proclaimed: "Not any aesthete can judge the methods of propaganda. A binding judgment can only be given on the basis of success. For propaganda is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.(3) A timid attempt by Hugenberg to at least delay the decision to establish the Ministry of Propaganda in the cabinet meeting of March 11, 1933 failed miserably. Already on 13 March 1933 the law on the establishment of the RMVP was signed by the Reich President and the "writer" Dr. Goebbels was appointed minister.(4) Almost three weeks later, on 5 April 1933, Goebbels noted in his diary: "The organisation of the ministry is finished".(5) In difficult negotiations(6) with the ministries, which had to cede parts of their competences to the new ministry, the responsibilities were determined in detail. The RMVP was responsible for all tasks relating to intellectual influence on the nation, advertising for the state, culture and economy, informing the domestic and foreign public about them, and the administration of all institutions serving these purposes. As a result, the business area of the RMVP will be: 1. from the business area of the Federal Foreign Office: News and education abroad, art, art exhibitions, film and sports abroad. 2. From the RMI division: General Domestic Enlightenment, Hochschule für Politik, introduction and celebration of national holidays and celebration of national holidays with the participation of the RMI, press (with Institute for Newspaper Science), radio, national anthem, German Library in Leipzig, art (but without art-historical institute in Florence, copyright protection for works of literature and art, directory of nationally valuable works of art, German-Austrian Convention on the Export of Art, Protection of Works of Art and Monuments, Protection and Maintenance of Landscape and Natural Monuments, Nature Parks, Preservation of Buildings of Special Historical Importance, Preservation of National Monuments, Verband Deutscher Vereine für Volkskunde, Reich Memorial), Music Conservation, including the Philharmonic Orchestra, Theatre Matters, Cinema, Combating Trash and Dirt 3. From the business areas of the Reich Ministry of Economics and the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture: Economic Advertising, Exhibitions, Trade Fairs and Advertising 4. From the business areas of the Reich Ministry of Posts and the Reich Ministry of Transportation: Traffic Advertising Furthermore, all radio matters dealt with by the Reich Ministry of Posts and the Reich Ministry of Transportation are transferred from the business area of the Reich Ministry of Posts, unless they concern the technical administration outside the premises of the Reich Broadcasting Company and the radio companies. In matters of technical administration, the RMVP shall be involved to the extent necessary to carry out its own tasks, in particular in determining the conditions for the awarding of broadcasting rights and the regulation of fees. In particular, the representation of the Reich in the Reichsrundfunkgesellschaft and the broadcasting companies is fully transferred to the RMVP. The RMVP is in charge of all tasks, including legislation, in the designated areas. The general principles shall apply to the participation of the other Reich Ministers." (RGBl. 1933 I, p. 449) These competences were exercised by seven departments, so that the business distribution plan of 1 Oct. 1933 (7) shows the following picture: Ministerial office (with five employees), directly subordinated to the Minister. State Secretary, at the same time Head of Press of the Reich Government I. Administration and Law with one main office Administration, three departments as well as the registry II. Propaganda with 10 departments 1. Positive world view propaganda, shaping in state life, press photography 2. Jewish question, foundation for victims of work, Versailles treaty, national literature, publishing etc. 3. Demonstrations and regional organisation 4. Opposing world views 5. German University of Politics 6. Youth and sports issues 7. Economic and social policy 8. Agricultural and eastern issues 9. Transport 10. Public health III. Broadcasting with three sections 1. Broadcasting 2. Political and cultural affairs of broadcasting 3. Organisation and administrative issues of German broadcasting IV. Press, simultaneously press department of the Reich government with eleven papers V. Film with three papers VI. Theatre, music and art with three papers VII. Defence (defence against lies at home and abroad) with eight papers Goebbels was obviously not satisfied with the official title of his ministry. The extensive tasks in the fields of culture and the arts did not come into their own and the word propaganda, of which he was aware, had a "bitter aftertaste" (8). His proposal to rename his department "Reichsministerium für Kultur und Volksaufklärung", however, met with Hitler's rejection. (9) In July 1933, a circular issued by the Reich Chancellor drew the attention of the Reich governors to the exclusive competence of the Reich or of the new Ministry for the above-mentioned competences and called on them to cede to the RMVP any existing budget funds and offices of the Länder. (10) At the same time, 13 regional offices were established as the substructure of the Ministry, the sprinkles of which corresponded approximately to those of the regional employment offices, and 18 imperial propaganda offices, which subdivided the territory of the regional offices once again. After the Reichspropagandastellen were already converted after short time (approx. 1934) to Landesstellen, in each Gau of the NSDAP a Landesstelle of the RMVP was located. Their leaders were in personal union at the same time leaders of the Gaupropagandaleitungen of the NSDAP, which in its leadership, the Reichspropagandalleitung, was also perceived by Goebbels in personal union. (11) As a result, conflicts of loyalty between the Gaupropaganda leaders/leaders of the RMVP regional offices were unavoidable in disputes between Goebbels and individual Gauleiters. According to theory, the regional offices were supposed to monitor and implement the political decisions made in the ministry in the individual districts, but in practice their heads were often more dependent on their respective Gauleiter than on the ministry due to the above-mentioned personal union. By the Führer decree of 9 September 1937 (RGBl. 1937 I, p. 1009), the Landesstellen were renamed Reichspropagandaämter and elevated to Reich authorities. After the integration of Austria there were no less than 42 Reichspropagandaämter with 1400 full-time employees. (12) In addition to the state offices and Reich Propaganda Offices, a whole range of offices, organizations, associations, societies and societies soon developed, which are to be counted to the subordinate area of the Ministry. (13) Despite the apparently clear regulation on the responsibilities of the RMVP, the 13 years of its existence were marked by disputes over responsibilities with other ministries, in particular with the ministers Rust, Rosenberg and Ribbentrop, of whom Goebbels, as is known, held very little personally. Successes and failures in the competence disputes cannot be followed in detail here; they depended to a large extent on Hitler's relationship with Goebbels. For example, Goebbels did not succeed in extending his competence in theatre to the Prussian State Theatres in Berlin. By contrast, in 1943 the RMVP assumed responsibility for carrying out the Eastern propaganda, while Rosenberg, as Reich Minister for the occupied Eastern territories, was left with only the authority to issue guidelines. (14) In the conflict with the Federal Foreign Office over the delimitation of responsibilities for foreign propaganda, an arrangement was reached in a working agreement in October 1941. (15) Wehrmacht propaganda also remained long and controversial. Despite many efforts (16), Goebbels did not succeed in making a decisive break in the competencies of the OKW/Wpr department until the end of the war in March 1945. Propaganda into the Wehrmacht and about the Wehrmacht at home and abroad was then to be taken in charge by the RMVP. It is not possible to determine whether the planned organizational consequences have yet been implemented. (17) Another major success for Goebbels was the establishment of the Reichsinspektion für zivile Luftschutzmaßnahmen (Reich Inspection for Civilian Air Defence Measures), which was headed by the RMVP (18), and his appointment as Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War Operations by Führer Decree of 25 July 1944 (19). For the last months of the Third Reich, Goebbels had reached the zenith of power with this function, apart from his appointment as Reich Chancellor in Hitler's last will and testament of April 29, 1945, which had become effective only theoretically. As Reich Plenipotentiary for the total deployment in war, he had extremely far-reaching powers over the entire state apparatus with the exception of the Wehrmacht. (20) Until that date, the competences of the RMVP had changed only slightly in the main features of all disputes over jurisdiction. That it nevertheless grew enormously and steadily until 1943 (21) was mainly due to diversification and intensification in the performance of its tasks. After 1938, the expansive foreign policy of the Third Reich necessitated further propaganda agencies to direct and influence public opinion in the incorporated and occupied territories. In the occupied territories with civil administrations, "departments" (main departments) for "popular enlightenment and propaganda" were usually set up in the territories with military administration, "propaganda departments", which exercised roughly the functions of the Reich Propaganda Offices. Their position between their superior military services and the RMVP, which sought to influence the content of the propaganda and from where part of the personnel came, was a constant source of conflict. As an indication for the weighting of the individual areas of responsibility of the Ministry in relation to each other, the expenditures for the individual areas in the 10 years from March 1933 to March 1943 are mentioned. With a total volume of 881,541,376.78 RM (22), the expenses for the Active propaganda: 21.8 Communications: 17.8 Music, visual arts, literature: 6.2 Film: 11.5 Theatres: 26.4 Civil servants and equipment: 4.3 Salaries, business needs, including film testing agencies and RPÄ: 12.0 By 1942, the RMVP and its division had been continuously expanded, before facilities in the subordinate area were shut down and departments in the ministry were merged as part of the total war from 1943 onwards. The business distribution plan of Nov. 1942 was as follows: (23) Ministerial Office, reporting directly to the Minister with adjutants, personal advisers and press officers of the Minister, a total of 10 employees State Secretaries Leopold Gutterer, Reich Press Head Dr. Otto Dietrich, Hermann Esser Budget Department (H) with 11 departments; reporting to the Head of the Department, the Main Office and the House Administration Personnel Department (Pers) with seven departments Legal and Organisation Department (R) with three departments Propaganda Department (Pro) with the following ten departments: 1. Political Propaganda 2. Cultural Propaganda 3. Propaganda Exploration 4. Public Health, Social Policy 5. Economy 6. Imperial Propaganda Offices 7. Major Events 8. Youth and Sports 9. Representation 10. Budget of the Department, Preparation of the Peace Treaties, Stagma and other Press Department of the Imperial Government I. Department German Press (DP) with 13 Speeches II. Foreign Press Department (AP) with 19 papers III. Journal Press Department /ZP) with five papers Foreign Press Department (A) with the following five groups: 1. Organization 2. Europe and Middle East 3. Non-European 4. Propaganda Media 5. Deployment abroad and in the Reich Tourism Department (FV) with four units Broadcasting Department (Rfk) with the following eight units 1. Coordination, Interradio and others 2. Broadcasting Command Office 3. Mob Department 4. Broadcasting Programme Support 5. Foreign Broadcasting 6. Broadcasting Industry 7. Broadcasting Organisation 8. Rundfunk-Erkundungsdienst Filmabteilung (F) with five departments Schrifttumsabteilung (S ) with eight departments Theaterabteilung (T) with seven departments Bildende Kunst (BK) with four departments Musik-Abteilung (M) with ten departments Reichsverteidigung (RV) with six departments Abteilung für die besetztischen Ostgebiete (Ost) with twelve departments Generalreferate with State Secretary Gutterer directly subordinated: 1. Exhibitions and Fairs 2nd General Cultural Department (General Cultural Department for the Reich Capital) 3rd General Department for Reich Chamber of Culture Matters 4th Technology (propaganda, radio, film, sound, stage, press, service installations of the RMVP) Press Recording Office for the PK reports of the Press Department of the Reich Government (directly subordinated to the Reich Press Head) A major change in this distribution of responsibilities took place in September 1944 (24). The art departments of theatre, music and visual arts were dissolved and merged into a single department of culture (cult). The East Department was integrated into the Propaganda Department as a main department, the Tourism Department was shut down and the General Departments of the Reich Cultural Chamber, Armaments and Construction and Propaganda Troops were dissolved. Notes (1) J. Goebbels: Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, p. 28. (2) R 43 II/1149, p. 5, excerpt from the minutes of the ministerial meeting of 11 March 1933. (3) R 43 II/1149, pp. 25 - 29, wording of Goebbels' speech of 16 March 1933 according to W. T. B. (4) R 43 II/1149, RGBl. 1933 I, p. 104 (5) J. Goebbels: Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, p. 293 (6) In an elaboration presumably by Goebbels on a "Reichskommissariat für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda" to be created (R 43 II/1149, pp. 49 - 53) further competences had been demanded. In particular, additional responsibilities were demanded of the German section of the RMI and section VI of the AA, as well as in foreign propaganda. (7) R 43 II/1449, pp. 126 - 133. Heiber gives a diagram of the organisational development of the RMVP at department level with the names of the department heads on the inside of the cover of his Goebbels biography. (8) See speech to representatives of the press on the tasks of the RMVP of 16 March 1933 in R 43 II/1149. It was not without reason that there was a language regulation for the press according to which the term propaganda was to be used only in a positive sense (R 55/1410, Decree of the RMVP to the RPA Nuremberg, 8 Nov. 1940). (9) R 43 II/1149, p. 169, Note by Lammers of 9 May 1934 on a lecture to the Reich Chancellor. (10) R 43 II/1149. (11) After the establishment of the Reichskulturkammer organization, they were also state cultural administrators in the substructure of the RKK. (12) Boelcke, Kriegspropaganda, p. 185. (13) Ebendort, p. 136 ff. there are hints for some institutions. (14) The Führer's order concerning the delimitation of responsibilities dated 15 Aug. 1943, cf. R 55/1435, 1390. (15) Boelcke, Kriegspropaganda, p. 126/127. (16) Lochner, Joseph Goebbels, p. 334, p. 442. (17) R 55/618, p. 123; cf. also the depiction of Hasso v. Wedel, the propaganda troops of the German Wehrmacht. Neckargemünd 1962, Die Wehrmacht im Kampf, vol. 34 (18) Führer decree of Dec. 21, 1943, R 55/441 (19) RGBl. 1944, p. 161, R 43 II/664 a. (20) This competence is virtually not reflected in the RMVP files available in the BA. However, it is well documented in R 43 II. See R 43 II/664 a. (21) See the annual budget negotiations on increasing the number of posts in R 2/4752 - 4762. (22) R 55/862, Statistical overview of monetary transactions. Accordingly, 88,5 % of the expenditure was covered by the licence fee. It remains unclear whether the old budgetary expenditure has been taken into account. (23) R 55/1314 According to this schedule of responsibilities, the files held in the Federal Archives were essentially classified. (24) Newsletter of 13 Sept. 1944 in R 55/441. Inventory description: Inventory history The RMVP records have suffered substantial losses, although the main building of the Ministry, the Ordenspalais am Wilhelmplatz, was destroyed relatively late and almost accidentally in March 1945. Large parts of the old registries, including the previous files from the Federal Foreign Office and the Reich Ministry of the Interior (1), had already been destroyed by air raids in 1944. Moreover, in the last days of the war before and during the conquest of Berlin by the Soviet Russian army, files were also systematically destroyed. (2) In view of the total collapse and devastation of Berlin by the air war, it is not surprising that hardly any manual or private files of RMVP employees have been handed down. Notable exceptions are, in particular, documents from Ministerialrat Bade (press department) (3) and hand files of the head of the broadcasting department, Ministerialdirigent Fritzsche. In this context, the diaries of Goebbels should also be mentioned, which, with the exception of those edited by Lochner in 1948, had been lost for almost 30 years. (4) The bulk of the volumes available in the Bundesarchiv Koblenz until 1996 was transferred from Alexandria (cf. Guide No. 22) and from the Berlin Document Center to the Bundesarchiv in the years 1959 - 1963. The personnel files still held back were added to the portfolio in 2007. The RMVP files kept by the Ministry of State Security of the GDR (mainly personnel files, personnel processes of the theatre, music and defence departments), which were stored in the so-called NS archive until 2006, are also assigned to the holdings. Not in Allied hands was only a small collection from the Music Department and some documents from the German Press Department, which were transferred to the Federal Archives in 1969 as part of the land consolidation with the Secret State Archives of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. Some original RMVP files can still be found at the Hoover Institution Standford, the Yivo Institute New York and the Wiener Library London. Fortunately, all three institutions were willing to produce microfilms for the Federal Archives (5). In 1974, the Rijksinstitut voor Oologsdocumentatie Amsterdam (Rijksinstitut for Oologsdocumentatie Amsterdam) kindly handed over some original fragments of files to the Federal Archives. In 1946, officers of the French and Soviet secret services found films of about 35,000 documents that had been filmed in the RMVP and buried near Potsdam at the end of the war with the help of an American mine detector (6). The films were taken to Paris to make re-enlargements of them, and it is possible that they will still be kept in the French secret service. The Americans apparently did not receive copies because they had withheld from the French documents of other provenance found in the CSSR. Only incomplete information is available about the content of the films; it can be assumed, however, that not exactly unimportant files have been filmed. Notes (1) Only a few handfiles and a few volumes on the promotion of music have survived. (2) Files of the Reichsfilmarchiv that had been moved to Grasleben/Helmstedt were even to be destroyed by agents of the RSHA when they threatened to fall into the hands of the English (cf. R 55/618). (3) Cf. Kl. Erw. 615, which is a selection of the bath papers from the time around 1933 in the Hoover library. (4) Frankfurter Allgemeine, 21 Nov. 1974, reader's letter. Insignificant fragments from Goebbels' estate from his student days can be found in the Federal Archives under the signature Kl. Erw. 254. (5) A collection of newspaper clippings concerning Goebbels in the amount of 82 Bde for the years 1931 - 1943 was not filmed at the Yivo-Institut. (6) See the documents in: National Archives Washington, RG 260 OMGUS 35/35 folder 19. Archival processing The order and indexing work on the holdings was relatively time-consuming and difficult, as the order of the files was extremely poor. On the one hand there were no detailed file plans or other registry aids for the mass of files from the budget and personnel departments, on the other hand the file management in the ministry, which at least in its development phase was always deliberately unbureaucratic, left a lot to be desired. Especially during the war, when inexperienced auxiliaries had to be used more and more during the war, the Ministry's staff often complained about the inadequacy of the registries. The organisation of the RMVP's records management showed typical features of office reform (1): Registries were kept on a departmental basis, with each registry having a "self-contained partial list of files". The documents were stored in standing folders (System Herdegen). Instead of a diary, an alphabetical mailing card was kept, separated according to authorities and private persons. The reference numbers consisted of the department letter, file number, date as well as an indication, on which card of an order file the procedure was seized. All in all, the files of the Budget and Human Resources Department were in a certain, albeit unsatisfactory, state of order when they entered the Federal Archives. Numerous volumes from the other departments, on the other hand, were formed in a chaotic manner, possibly as a result of a provisional recording of loose written material when it was confiscated. These were often amorphous and fragmentary materials that lacked the characteristics of organically grown writing. So it was practically impossible to form meaningful band units in all subjects. In the case of some "mixed volumes" with written material on numerous file numbers, only the most frequent ones were noted in the finding aid book. Due to the high loss of files, no strict evaluation standard was applied to the files. The main items collected were volumes from the budget department on preliminary checks in the subordinate area and individual procedures for the procurement and management of managed goods for the purposes of the Ministry. Formal records of non-compliant positions in the business division and a number of unarchivalable documents from the Human Resources Department will still be kept for the foreseeable future for the purpose of issuing service time statements. It is not listed in this guide. Preparatory work for the indexing of the Koblenz part of the stock was carried out by Mr. Oberarchivrat Regel (1967) with regard to the files of the budget department on the Reich's own film assets, Mr. Ltd. Archivdirektor Dr. Boberach (1966) with regard to correspondence and the reference files of the head of the broadcasting department, Hans Fritzsche and Ms. Archivoberinspektorin Schneider, née Fisch (1966) for files of the propaganda department. In 2005, the inventories of the finding aids of both sections of the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda were imported into the database of the Federal Archives via a retroconversion procedure. The data records were then combined in a classification. Despite the inhomogeneity of the traditions of most specialist departments, it was advisable to maintain the division by departments. (2) Within the departments, the structure was essentially based on file numbers and factual contexts. The file numbers used in the RMVP were - as far as possible - used as aids for further subdivision. The final step was the integration of the personnel files and personal documents from the NS archive (approx. 5000 individual transactions) and the former Berlin Document Center (approx. 700 transactions). The documents taken over are mainly documents from the personnel department (in addition to personnel files also questionnaires and index cards), theatre (applications, appointments, confirmation procedures) and imperial defence (applications in propaganda companies). The personal records also contain isolated documents on denazification from the period 1946-1950. Since a relatively large number of individual transactions from the NS archives were often only a few sheets, transactions that objectively related to one transaction (e.g. applications for interpreting) were merged into one file. The names of the individual persons as well as the old signatures from the NS archive can still be traced via the BASYS-P database. Both the files from the NS archive and those from the former BDC are not always filed according to the provenance principle. However, the files were not separated again. Most of the files taken over from the former BDC are personal files and questionnaires as well as personnel index cards of individual employees of broadcasting stations. A search is still possible via the BASYS-P database. The procedures for the donation "Artist's thanks" still present in the personal records of the former BDC concerning the Theatre Department were not adopted in this context (approx. 15,000 procedures). The names are entered in the BASYS-P database and can be searched there. Notes (1) Rules of Procedure and Registration of 8 May 1942 in R 55/ 618. (2) The structure of the business distribution plan of Nov. 1942 was used as a basis. Abbreviations AA = Federal Foreign Office Department A = Department Abroad AP = Foreign Press BDC = Berlin Document Center BdS = Commander of the Security Police ChdZ = Chief of the Civil Administration DAF = German Labour Front DASD = German Amateur Broadcasting Service e.V. DNB = Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro DRK = Deutsches Rotes Kreuz Dt. = Deutsch DVO = Durchführungsverordnung french = French Gestapo = Geheimes Staatspolizeiamt KdF = Kraft durch Freude KdG = Kommandeur der Gendarmerie KdS = Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei Kl. Erw. Small acquisition KLV = Kinderlandverschickung LG = District Court MA = Military Archives, Department of the Federal Archives MdR = Member of the Reichstag MinRat = Ministerialrat MdL = Member of the Landtag NDR = Norddeutscher Rundfunk NSV = National Socialist Volkswohlfahrt o. Az. = without file number or date = without date OKW = Oberkommando der Wehrmacht OLG = Oberstes Landesgericht OLT = Oberleutnant ORR = Oberregierungsrat OT = Organisation Todt PG = Parteigenosse PK = Propagandakompanie RAVAG = Österreichische Radio-Verkehrs-AG Reg. Pres. RMI = Reich Ministry of the Interior RMJ = Reich Ministry of the Interior RMK = Reich Ministry of Justice RMK = Reich Chamber of Music RMVP = Reich Ministry of Education and Propaganda ROI = Reichsoberinspektor RPA = Reichspropagandaamt RPÄ = Reichspropagandaämter RPL = Reichspropagandalleitung RR = Regierungsrat RRG = Reichsrundfunkgesellschaft RS = Reichssender RSHA = Reichssicherheitshauptamt RSK = Reichsschrifttumskammer SBZ = Soviet Occupation Zone SD = Security Service SD-LA = SD-Leitabschnitt SDR = Süddeutscher Rundfunk Sipo = Security Police STS = Secretary of State and a. = among others v. a. = above all VGH = Volksgerichtshof VO = Regulation WDR = Westdeutscher Rundfunk ZSTA = Zentrales Staatsarchiv (Potsdam) citation method: BArch R 55/ 23456 Content characterization: Rounded delivery complexes are available only from the budget department and from the personnel department. From the point of view of financing and personnel management, they illuminate almost all areas of the Ministry's activities. From the specialist departments, the volumes from the Propaganda Department should be emphasized, which document above all the design of propaganda and the propagandistic support of foreign workers and resettled persons in the last years of the war. Also worth mentioning are mood and activity reports of individual RPÄ and suggestions from the population for propaganda and for leading the total war. In the Radio Department there is some material about the design of the radio program and the propaganda reconnaissance with reports about the opposing propaganda, which were compiled from the bugging reports of the special service Seehaus. A separate complex of this department are 14 volumes of pre-files from the RMI with handfiles of the Oberregierungsrat Scholz as representative of the Reich in supervisory committees of broadcasting companies in Berlin from 1926 - 1932. Of the film department there are only a few, but interesting volumes about the film production of the last war years with numerous ministerial documents. The majority of the theatre department's traditions are based on documents on professional issues and the Reich's dramaturgy. From the music department the promotion of musical organizations from the years 1933 - 1935 with pre-files from the RMI, the support and job placement of artists as well as material about the musical foreign relations is handed down. The files of the Department for the Occupied Eastern Territories offer rich sources for questions of Eastern propaganda. The losses are greatest in the departments Law and Organization, Magazine Press, Foreign Press, Foreign Countries, Tourism, Literature and Fine Arts. State of development: Publication Findbuch (1976, reprint 1996), Online Findbuch (2007). Citation style: BArch, R 55/...

History of the Inventor: The remaining administration for Reich tasks was established on October 1, 1923 at the initiative of the Reich Savings Commissioner because of the fragmentation of the tasks resulting from the Treaty of Versailles and was directly subordinated to the Reich Ministry of Finance. It had to summarize and complete the processing work of various imperial administrations arising from the First World War. Within the framework of this competence, it assumed the duties of the following Reich authorities and administrations in 1923-1931: - Commissioner of the Reich Ministry of Finance for Legal Matters from the War (subtasks) - Reich Ministry of Finance, Department IH (R) - Reich Ministry of Treasury, Dissolution Department A - Army Peace Commission - Administrative Commission for Restitution Matters - Civil Administration Processing Office for the Occupied Territories - Processing Office for Prisoners of War - Reich Ministry of Reconstruction (subtasks) - Colonial Central Administration - Reichstreuhand AG, Foreign Department - Reich Compensation Office for War Damage - Reich Equalization Office - Commissioner for Compensation under the German-Polish Liquidation Agreement (Polko) - Ministry of the Interior of the Reich, Civil Administration of Belgium, Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic States. When the RfR was established, the internal structure consisted of two groups with 4 units each. At the time of the largest expansion of the business area around 1930/31, the main tasks were performed by three largely independent departments: Department R - Settlement of claims against the former Army and Navy Administration, the War Office, Colonial Central Administration, Protection Forces, Prisoner of War Affairs, Reich Water Protection Department A - Settlement of monetary liabilities pursuant to Articles 296 and 72 of the Treaty of Versailles (Reich Equalization Office) Department E - Settlement of the compensation proceedings in accordance with the War Damage Acts (Settlement of the Reich Compensation Office) After the dissolution of the RfR on 31 December 2005, Department E - Settlement of claims against the former Army and Navy Administration, the War Office, Colonial Central Administration, Protection Forces, Prisoneregative Matters, Reich Water Protection Department A - Settlement of monetary liabilities pursuant to Articles 296 and 72 of the Treaty of Versailles (Reich Equalization Office) Department E - Settlement of the compensation proceedings in accordance with the War Damage Acts (Settlement of the Reich Equalization Office) After the dissolution of the RfR on 31 December 2005. In March 1933 the tasks were continued until 1945 by a branch office at the Landesfinanzamt (later Oberfinanzpräsident) in Berlin. Inventory description: Inventory history In 1944, the Reichsarchiv contained relatively extensive records from Reich authorities and Reich commissionariats with processing tasks that had been taken over by the RfR. After the wartime relocation, the records were transferred to the Central State Archives of the GDR without significant losses. Archive evaluation and processing Within the framework of inventory processing, extensive cassations of bulk documents from the daily completion of tasks have been carried out. Characterisation of content: The holdings essentially comprise files of the following provenances: Commissioner of the Reich Ministry of Finance for Legal Affairs from the War, Residual Administration for Reich Tasks, State Finance Office or Chief Finance President Berlin (successor of the RfR), Reich Equalisation Office, Reich Compensation Office for War Damage, Commissioner for Compensation on the Basis of the German-Polish Liquidation Agreement (Polko) State of Development: Index (c. 1953) Citation method: BArch, R 2103/...

Contains among other things: Flyers; Grants of aid; Invitations to various events; Overview of previous activities, July 1924; Der Weg zur Freiheit, No. 7/8 of 1924, No. 7/8 and 9 of 1925, No. 3 and 5 of 1926, No. 9 of 1927, No. 18/19 of 1928; Simplicissimus, No. 13 of 23.6.1924 (War Debtor); Brochure "Russia and France on the Road to the World War. From the diplomatic correspondence of a Russian statesman", 1925; annual report for the year 1925; protest rally on 2 March 1928 in Berlin against the incorporation of D e u t s c h - O s t a f r i k a into the British colonial empire. see also no. 2573