Dresden City Archives
The Dresden City Archive is the archive of the Saxon state capital Dresden and an independent office. With around 43 kilometers of holdings, it is one of the largest and most modern German municipal archives and is located in Albertstadt .
The legal norms on which the work of the city archive is based are regulated in the statute of the state capital Dresden for municipal archives (archive statute ) of February 29, 1996. The chief archive director (as of 2019) is Prof. Thomas Kübler.
Tasks and responsibilities
The city archive archives the documents of all city administrative offices, subordinate companies and foundations as well as the city council. Subject to separate agreements, it also archives collections and estates from private property, documents from special-purpose associations with municipal participation, as well as archives of associations, crafts and companies. In addition to taking over the archive material, its safekeeping, maintenance and preservation as well as the utilization and evaluation of the material belong to the tasks of the city archive. The tasks also extend to archives of the legal predecessors of the city administration as well as in the period from May 8, 1945 (entry into force of the surrender of the Wehrmacht ) to October 2, 1990 (last day of the German Democratic Republic ) to archives of the former state or economic management bodies as well of the establishments, cooperatives and institutions for which the city was responsible. This also applies to the archives of parties, social organizations and legal persons.
organization
The city archive is divided into two departments. The evaluation department is responsible, among other things, for the processing of written public concerns and official inquiries, user support, archive tours, the preparation of publications, the certification of facts from archive documents, microfilming as well as for damage assessments and advice on damage prevention and health protection in archives. The area of responsibility of the apron and development department of the city archive includes the provision of archival material for research, the development of the history of the authorities and the inventory, as well as the acquisition, processing and utilization of archival material.
use
According to the archive statutes, everyone has the right of use who can substantiate a legitimate interest in the archive material, provided that regulations or agreements with its owners or other authorized persons do not conflict with this. The receipt of a usage permit includes advice, inspection and use of the archive material in the two reading rooms. The reading rooms on the top floor of the archive building in Elisabeth-Boer-Straße have 30 workplaces, and those interested can view the material on microfilm / microfiche at eight places . The conference room on the third floor has 120 seats. The archival material is mainly used for internal administrative research, legal, scientific, home and family history research and other private purposes.
Duration
The total stock of files is around 43 kilometers of shelves . In 2019 there were more than 4,200 certificates, around 107,000 cards, plans and cracks, 550,000 postcards, slides and photos, 43,000 books, newspapers and magazines, 2,500 films and video recordings as well as around 35,000 microfilms, 3,200 sound carriers and 40 TB digital Media. It is Germany's second largest municipal archive. A large inventory of medieval documents (over 3000) and files are still held today as looted goods in special archives in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Heinrich III has the oldest document in the possession of the city archives . , Margrave of Meißen, issued on March 27, 1260 - around half a century after Dresden was first mentioned in 1206. In the deed, the Margrave grants the citizens of Dresden the authority to take pledges from their knightly debtors coming to the city and to take them to keep until the claims are settled. In a further document from the 13th century, Heinrich's son Friedrich the Little pronounced on November 24, 1292, the reduction of the annual prayers of the city of Dresden to 60 marks. A letter of indulgence with 13 seals, which just as many archbishops and bishops issued in September 1319, is impressive. He named conditions under which believers in the Dresden Kreuzkirche could avoid being punished for their sins - for example, by saying three Ave Maria prayers with bent knees at the evening bell or by making financial contributions to the Dresden Bridge Building Fund .
The old council documents in the holdings of the city archive also include the city books, the oldest of which covers the period from 1404 to 1436. The city registers document all non-contentious legal transactions negotiated before the council. They belong to the most important objects of the old urban writing system. Part of the city archive is also an extremely rare volume of wax tablets from the period from 1437 to 1456. The city clerk scratched the results of the city budget and the names of the new residents of Dresden on the tablets every year.
The inventory is divided into the following main groups:
- Council documents (1260–1941)
- City administration until 1945
- Council Archives (1370–1940)
- Landtag Representation (1480–1933)
- Council offices and offices (1642–1945)
- Courts (1412–1951)
- Invoice archive (1528–1944)
- City Council Archives (1830–1935)
- City Council and City Council 1945–1990
- City Council and City Council 1945–1953
- City Council and City Council 1953–1990
- Works union leadership of the City Council (1945–1952)
- District administrations, city district assemblies and councils of the city districts 1945–1990
- City administration from 1990
- Offices
- Municipal administrations of incorporated suburbs (1542–1999)
- Companies and institutions (1826–1989)
- Businesses and economic institutions
- Scientific and cultural institutions
- Educational institutions
- Social and health facilities
- Construction and property files
- Guilds
- Guild documents (1542-1934)
- Guild files (1523–1943)
- Foundations (1842–1939)
- Clubs, associations and societies (1664–1989)
- Cooperatives (1903–1989)
- Special stocks (1940–1950)
- Estates, partial estates and fragments of an estate
- Estates (1679–1949)
- Partial bequests and fragments of the estate (1536–2009)
- Archival collections
- Map collection (1579 - today)
- Contemporary history collections (1711 - today)
- Collection of theater bills / programs (1813 – today)
- Loschwitz local museum (1693–1958)
- Manuscript collection (1591 – today)
- Image archive (1890–1977)
- Library (16th century - today)
- Intermediate archive (1938–1989)
- Archives of the Cross School and the Cross Choir (1762–1989)
- Order archiving
Except for two main groups, the stocks are all stored in the same building. An external subject area of the city archive is the interim archive, in which those documents of the Dresden city administration from the time before 1990 are stored, which are no longer required for ongoing operations, but whose statutory retention periods have not yet expired. In addition, the archive of the Kreuzschule and the Kreuzchor , which does not belong to the Kreuzkirche but is also a municipal institution, is a branch of the city archive .
building
The city archives have been based in a former granary of the former Royal Saxon Army Bakery since the beginning of 2000 . The building is located at Elisabeth-Boer-Straße 1/2 in Albertstadt , right next to the Görlitz – Dresden railway line . The relatively simple neo-renaissance building erected in the 1870s was used as part of the provisions yard to supply the Albertstadt barracks and the entire Saxon army with baked goods. Its southern neighbor was demolished in 2008. At the end of the 1990s, today's archive building was extensively renovated. Part of the old structure, including the original iron pillars and beams, was preserved.
The interior was modernized and its functionality and logistics were tailored to the new use as an archive building. The total area is 6000 square meters and includes public areas such as reading rooms, conference and exhibition rooms as well as internal areas with magazines , workshops and offices. In the air-conditioned magazines with a constant 18 degrees Celsius and 40% relative humidity, there is space for 20 kilometers of shelves for files. The workshop area includes the photo area, a bookbindery and the restoration workshop. During the renovation, a glass and steel cube was added to the south side of the historic building, which houses the main staircase. In order to reduce the room height, false ceilings were inserted. The Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau took over the interior work and design .
After two years of construction, the intermediate archive at Elisabeth-Boer-Straße 7 with a further 6500 square meters of usable space was handed over in May 2012. With a length of 30 kilometers of shelving, it contains the largest interconnected shelving system of all German city archives. The materials stored in the interim archive were previously stored in the Junghansstrasse and Spenerstrasse depots and in the New Town Hall .
The branch office with the archive of the Kreuzschule and the Kreuzchor is located in the Kreuzschule building at Dornblüthstraße 4, the former Freemason Institute in Striesen .
The buildings in Elisabeth-Boer-Straße, Dornblüthstraße and Marienallee are listed.
history
At the end of the 14th century, the Dresden town clerk, first mentioned at this time, supervised the storage of parchment documents and wax tablets in the town hall's armory in the town hall on the north side of the Altmarkt . This council archive can be regarded as the foundation of today's city archive and thus one of the oldest institutions in Dresden. From 1469 the city treasury and the city books were kept in a drawer with three keys in the “vault” of the city hall. Its opening was therefore only possible if the chamberlain and the two key councilors were present.
A first register of the city registers was set up in 1517; From 1601 to 1604, the town clerks Hanemann and Reich created the first registers of the archival material available at the time. In the 17th century, however, the council increasingly neglected the proper storage of files. There was only space left for older archive materials in the attic. Since 1709 the Ratsarchiv has been in the second Dresden City Hall on the west side of the Altmarkt, as the previous building had been demolished two years earlier on the orders of Augustus the Strong . A municipal archivist with service regulations is first mentioned in 1747.
Otto Richter worked as a council archivist from 1879 to 1912. In 1880 he had the council archives accessible for scientific research and private use, and a year later the city council's library also became public. An independent municipal office, which was responsible for the council archives and the city library, developed from 1881. From 1891 Richter headed the council archives, the city library and the city museum . The first congregations in Dresden fell during this time , which is why the council archives had already taken over 18 community archives by 1902. From 1902 a chronicle on the history of Dresden was kept in the council archives .
In 1910 the council archives and the city library moved to the newly built New Town Hall on today's Dr.-Külz-Ring ; they shared the reading room on the first floor. Since 1919 the city museum, council archive and city library have been separated from each other in administration. From 1919 to 1945 Georg Hermann Müller worked in personal union as director of the council archives and the city library. When the city council archives were taken over in 1936, the council archives were renamed Dresden city archives. As the risk of air raids increased, parts of the archive were relocated from 1943 onwards. The air raids on Dresden in February 1945 led to the destruction of the town hall and thus serious damage to the city archive.
From 1946 the city archives gradually moved into the building of the former Saxon war and army archive at Marienallee 3 in Dresden's Albertstadt, which was also damaged by the war in 1897/98. A reading room was opened there in 1953. From 1951 to 1956, Elisabeth Boer was archive manager. Reconstruction work on the damaged part of the archive building began in 1973. The archive extension with new work spaces and more modern magazine was completed 1991st A first archive guide was published in 1994. In 1995 the city archive took over the intermediate archive of the Dresden city administration and in 2005 the medical archive. At the end of 1999 it moved to its current location. From 2003 to December 2011, the Frauenstadtarchiv e. V. is located in the city archives, both also cooperate with each other. In 2009 the Kreuzschule archive reopened after extensive reconstruction, and from 2010 to 2012 a building on the military bakery site was redesigned for the intermediate archive.
Exhibitions and events
The Dresden City Archive is a regular organizer of scientific lectures and seminars. A gallery area and the stairwell of the building serve as locations for exhibitions of works of art or on urban history topics.
On September 21, 2012 the city archives organized a long night for the first time under the title “Varia et Curiosa” .
In 2015, eight exhibitions took place, including the in-house specialist exhibition for the 10th anniversary of the consecration of the Frauenkirche, which was seen by over 5000 visitors. The most successful trade exhibition in recent years was the cooperation with the TU Dresden on table culture in Saxony, with over 10,000 visitors. More than 60 lectures, book readings and similar events annually complete the offer.
Publications
- Works from the council archives and the city library , series of publications, Dresden, 1919–1939.
- The new Dresden City Archives , commemorative publication on the occasion of the inauguration of the new City Archives, Dresden, 2000.
- Edition of the Dresden City Books (1404–1600), from 2007.
- Publications of city history in various periodicals
City Archives Library
The library of the city archive is a publicly accessible service library for employees of the city archive. It was mentioned for the first time in 1408, initially served as a reference library for the city council and only for administrative purposes until the 19th century. In 1838 almost the entire inventory was sold and it was decided to buy a new council library. Their population increased rapidly; Under Otto Richter, it was made accessible to the public on October 3, 1881 as the city library with a collection of around 11,000 volumes at that time. By the Second World War, the collection grew to 290,000 volumes. As a result of the air raids on Dresden, 90% of the inventory and almost all catalogs were lost.
What remained were the almost intact sections on the history of Dresden and the history of the city, newspapers and magazines as well as club libraries. After the end of the war, numerous new additions were made, for example from dissolved government and school libraries and expropriated castle and private libraries. Neither this nor the purchase of new publications or the purchase of antiquarian works could offset the war losses. By the beginning of 1948 the inventory had grown again to 70,000 volumes. By resolution of September 11, 1951, the council dissolved the city library. A large part of the holdings went to the Saxon State Library , the Municipal Library and an antiquarian bookshop. A petition resulted in the city archives keeping part of the collection as an indispensable scientific reference device.
literature
- Dresden City Archives: The Dresden City Archives and its holdings. Self-published, Dresden 1994.
Web links
- Dresden City Archives
- Treasures of the city archive
- City Archives Brochure (PDF; 335 kB)
- Photo collection of the city archive
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The Dresden City Archives - data and facts. In: Disy - magazine of the Dresden society and surroundings. Retrieved May 17, 2013 .
- ↑ a b Statute of the state capital Dresden for the municipal archives (archive statute) (PDF; 40 kB)
- ↑ Archive: Holdings & Use. State capital Dresden, accessed on February 13, 2017 .
- ↑ Treasures of the City Archives: From the Council Archives and Council Library (PDF; 1 MB)
- ↑ Inventory overview - Dresden City Archives (PDF; 206 kB; as of June 3, 2014)
- ^ State capital Dresden - City archive: The intermediate archive . Retrieved February 13, 2017 .
- ↑ State Capital Dresden - City Archives: Archives of the Cross School and the Cross Choir. Retrieved August 20, 2015 .
- ^ Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau: Design and expansion from a single source: City Archives, Dresden. Retrieved May 17, 2013 .
- ↑ Dresden's memory in a modern shell: New interim archive inaugurated. State capital Dresden, May 23, 2012, accessed on February 13, 2017 (press release).
- ^ Anton Launer: Long night in the city archive. In: Neustadt whisper. September 18, 2012, accessed May 17, 2013 .
- ↑ Fourth volume of medieval Dresden city books published. April 13, 2011, accessed February 13, 2017 (press release).
- ^ Scientific library of the city archive. In: Handbook of the historical book collections in Germany, Austria and Europe ( Fabian Handbook ). Retrieved May 17, 2013 .