Archives and archival organization in southern Germany from the early 19th century until World War I. The example of Bavaria

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Archives and archival organization in southern Germany from the early 19th century until World War I. The example of BavariaPisa, 16.9.2011; Joachim Kemper (Speyer, Germany)
Introduction: Southern Germany (19th century)
The archival “landscape” in Bavaria: Organization, principles and archival buildings
Instead of a summary: Historical research
and archives in Bavaria

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1. Introduction: Southern Germany (19th century)
Archives are very traditional institutions (long history, tradition).
Especially the turn of the 18th to 19th century has brought to the (from today's perspective) "southern" german regions and states large changes.The impact on the role of archives and their organization and work was significant.
In the center of attention stays Bavaria, the most important of the southern german states.

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State development in the time of “German Confederation” (1815-1866 = “Deutscher Bund”) was still open and not foreseeable. Build up: Ca. 39 states/free cities; Prussia and Austria (in parts), small and medium-sized states (Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, Hannover etc.).
„German War“ (1866): „Lesser german solution“, dominance of Prussia in the new empire (1871).

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File: Wikimedia commons

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Nevertheless: the archival management remained in the new empire a business of the single states.
Bavaria was the major state of the empire apart from Prussia; with special role – also in archivistics (up to our times, for instance: Bavarian Archives School, since 1821). Bavaria is also in the focus, because there we have a very high and sophisticated number of state archives.Bavaria had at the beginning of the 19th Century to deal with the tradition of many newly added territories and monasteries etc. A very centralized and very strong on pertinence-principle based archival management was established.

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2. The archival “landscape” in Bavaria: Organization, principles and archival buildings
Bavaria was at the beginning of the 19th Century one of the big winners of the territorial and political changes of the Napoleonic era. In 1806 the kingdom of Bavaria was founded.
Unlike today, there was not only the state located in the southeast of Germany, but also (since 1816) a county left to the Rhine, leading directly to France: the "Rhine Palatinate" with its capital Speyer.

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All in all, the basic changes around (1800ff.)/1806/1816 brought a significant change in the archival live, and not just in terms of their legal status. The documents of secularized dioceses or monasteries were transferred to the state, their acquisition or disposal had to be organized.
A look at the central archives in Munich will be important to classify the prevailing principles and methods!

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Archival Reorganization of 1799: Three central archives were divided due to local, state and regional matters on the principle of pertinence. The various provinces should still have further additional provincial archives.
1812: Attempt to build a single national archive for the entire kingdom (“all other archives will exist no longer”). Centralization in the strictest form of selection to Munich, especially all charters, selected manuscripts and “the most interesting” records.

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While the real centralization could only be in parts executed, the theoretical centralization in Munich was postulated for a long time!
1820: Existence of regional archives assured.
From 1837: Organizational continuity of the Bavarian state archives until now. National archives Munich and state archives („Kreisarchive“): Amberg, Bamberg, Landshut, Munich, Neuburg, Nürnberg, Speyer and Würzburg.

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Strange from today's perspective appear the criteria by which a distinction was made between the “quality” of archives (e.g. charters).
Some misunderstandings and disputes started between the archive due to the different interpretation of principles; question of archival responsibility (e.g. Neuburg).
Since the 1920 provenance became temporary important, but not until the 1960s the revision of stocks and the exchange of stocks between the state archives was the declared primary task of all state archives in Bavaria.

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Organization, turning point 1921: The “Kreisarchive” were renamed in “Staatsarchive”, which is still valid today. The Bavarian Main state archives (“Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv”) still exists also from 1921, it was consolidated from the former Bavarian Central State Archives together with the "Secret State Archives” (under the Bavarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and the Secret House Archive in Munich. New chief-archivist of the whole archival administration was the General director.

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Organization, turning point 1921: The „Secret House Archive” is since 1923 property of the "Wittelsbach Compensation Fund". It is also part of the Bavarian Main state archives, but the concession to do research in this archive is tied to the approval of the House of Wittelsbach. Another special role played for many years the Bavarian Military archive (“Kriegsarchiv”). It was incorporated after WW II in the Main state archives.

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Organization, turning point 1921: In parallel to this external reorganization, the new general director Riedner planned an internal change (based on provenance): “a better distribution of the records, the elimination of fragmented records, in short the revision and the exchange of stocks”. There should be a "reliable archive topography". But the attempts were mostly in vain ...

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The consolidated archival organization (1837/1921) in Bavaria was broken until our times only in two cases (acquisition of Coburg, 1920; Speyer/Rhine-Palatinate, 1946 dropped away).

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New archival buildings (between 1871 and WW I):
Prussia: pioneer in constructing “modern” archival buildings (two parts, administration and depots); average Prussian State archives in the provinces of the state occurs as a brick-lined functional-building.
In Bavaria and in other "smaller" states of the empire we can generally also assume a certain amount of new buildings with seemingly greater need for “representation”.

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New archival buildings (between 1871 and WW I):
Bavaria:Since 1877 some new buildings, like in Amberg, Speyer, Munich and Bamberg – but the Prussian example (the modern division of archives in two parts) was seen with some retention.
Example Staatsarchiv Bamberg (1902/1905): Especially in the case of the new and very representative archive of Bamberg, the Bavarian archivists consciously decided against the "foreign" Prussian “style” and created an backwards-archive-design: Three-blade “castle” with closed administrative building and a kind of neo-baroque garden in the courtyard; the magazine: cabinet-system (with many separated cabinets, chambers or single rooms).

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3. Instead of a summary: Historical research and archives in Bavaria
Archival and institutional continuity in Bavaria ↔ Archives and archival holdings have been torn apart due to the principle of pertinence, or even because of the principle of value…
Although the principle of provenance is since decades in Bavaria ruling, the revision of stocks and the exchange of stocks between the state archives make some difficulties.

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And: A changeful history conducts a serious dissemination of records.
Example: Rhine-Palatinate („Bayerische Pfalz“, „Rheinpfalz“, 1816-1946 Bavarian; capital: Speyer), fragmented in former times in many territories and states. The modern state archives Speyer has at most fragmented archival holdings of the previous dominions. The only archive, that rans continuously through the year 1800, is the archive of the former imperial city of Speyer; our tradition is still undisturbed.

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3. Instead of a summary: Historical research and archives in Bavaria (Map Rhine-Palatinate, 1789, http://www.hoeckmann.de/deutschland/pfalz.htm)

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The archival holdings are mostly not in the region; they are in fact in archives like Munich or Karlsruhe or elsewhere.
Reasons e.g.: Principle of archival following (“Archivfolge”), migration of families (and archives), archival (didactical) collections.
A reconstruction of the Palatine archives in the region itself, a return, has been postulated many times, but it is impossible.

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Solutions to the problem: Deposita (e.g. records of the „Reichskammergericht“, from Munich to Speyer; a solution also for the thousands of „Palatine“ charters in Munich?); virtual reconstruction through digitization or at least through (cross-border-) finding-aids?

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Conclusion
and
“Grazie”!
joachim.kemper@stadt-speyer.de

Archives and archival organization in southern Germany from the early 19th century until World War I. The example of Bavaria

by Abteilung Kulturelles Erbe (Stadtarchiv, Museen, Gedenkstätten) Speyer on Sep 18, 2011

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Archives and archival organization in southern Germany from the early 19th century until World War I. The example of Bavaria — Presentation Transcript