Gerlach archive
The Gerlach Archive is the family archive of the Prussian civil servants and politicians family von Gerlach and at the same time a research center for the history of ideas at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg . A partial archive of the von Raumer family is also assigned to him .
The archive mainly comprises the estate of Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach (1795–1877). It has a total of around 17,000 documents and has been in Erlangen since 1954 . It has been part of the Institute for Political Science there since the late 1970s.
history
The Gerlach Archive, also known as the “Gerlach-Rohrbecksches Familienarchiv” or “Rohrbeck Archive”, is the family archive of the von Gerlach family of Prussian officials and politicians. The private archive, which was probably built in Berlin and at the family’s original country estate , Gut Rohrbeck (today: Rosnowo ) in the former eastern Brandenburg , was probably organized first by Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach himself and then by his nephew Jakob and edited. Little by little, he was extended to include smaller estates and partial estates from his father, the Lord Mayor of Berlin Carl Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach († 1813), and his brothers Wilhelm († 1834), Otto († 1849) and Leopold von Gerlach († 1861) after 1877 Ludwig von Gerlach's own extensive estate was finally added. In the years and decades that followed, the archive continued to grow through the inclusion of further material from later family members or from other branches of the von Gerlach family.
Unlike comparable family archives from rural Prussia , the Gerlach Archives survived the Second World War unscathed, also because the family moved to Berchtesgaden in Bavaria in the 1920s . A larger part of Leopold von Gerlach's estate, on the other hand, which was in the Szczecin State Archives , was lost in 1945.
In April 1954, at the instigation of conservatism researcher Hans-Joachim Schoeps , Klaus von Gerlach handed over the archive to the Department of Religious and Intellectual History at the University of Erlangen . In the following period there was a great deal of research and publication about the archive. The archive was also expanded through purchases of smaller fragments from other sources. It has belonged to the political science institute of FAU since the late 1970s and was expanded in 1980 to include the Raumer family archive (Raumer Archive), an archive inventory owned by the von Raumer family, who are related to von Gerlachs and who live in Erlangen . Between 2011 and 2015, the holdings of the Gerlach Archive were re-indexed and cataloged as part of a third-party funded project under the direction of Clemens Kauffmann . The Gerlach archive has since been fully recorded in the Kalliope database for autographs and bequests.
Stocks
overview
The Gerlach archive mainly consists of the real and enriched estate of the judge, politician and publicist Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach (1795–1877). In addition, it has taken on further partial estates and fragments of the estate over the years. Today, Ludwig von Gerlach's estate forms the core of the archive, which has been a family archive since its creation. When it was processed and organized as a whole, all delimitations within the entire collection were largely blurred until well into the 20th century. B. from Ludwig's estate to the other partial estates of the brothers Wilhelm, Leopold and Otto. These annexes, some of them later, can therefore no longer be precisely reconstructed in their original form as physical parts of the inventory.
The main inventors of the Gerlach Archive are:
- Carl Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach
- Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach (main heir)
- Leopold von Gerlach (partial estate)
- Otto von Gerlach
- Wilhelm von Gerlach
- Johann Georg von Raumer
There were also two “extensions”, fragments of the estate of Karl Witte and Franz von Lucadou (1783–1860), which go back to purchases and are stored as separate holdings.
content
The focus is on the so-called "Rohrbeck Archive", which contains the extensive correspondence of Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach (approx. 15,000 letters from almost 9,000 correspondents), as well as some relatives, various official and political documents and his diaries (1815–1877). It also includes larger parts of the estate of his older brother, General Leopold von Gerlach, as well as the estate of his father, Berlin Mayor Carl Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach . In addition to correspondence, the latter also contains official documents.
The archive generally contains extensive material on the political history of Prussia , on theology and church history ( neo-pietism ), on legal history and - thanks to the friendships of the Gerlach brothers with well-known scholars of the time and with well-known artists of the Romantic era - on German science, art and Cultural history of the 19th century.
construction
The previous editors divided the entire inventory into a total of 177 fascicles or volumes, which were primarily intended to depict provenances or closed communication contexts (e.g. letters from Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach to his wife Luise nee von Blankenburg or letters from his father Carl Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach to his Sons). Since holdings and partial holdings from different sources were brought together, this structure does not run through the archive in a completely uniform and sometimes redundant manner; for example, when letters from the same author were handed down in two different branches of the family and therefore in different places. Although this structure certainly shows various historical expansion phases of the entire inventory, these could not yet be systematically examined. There are no detailed records of the previous processing steps. However, the traditional structure of the inventory has been respected and largely preserved in the context of the most recent new development; it is therefore still available for later users as a physical part of its history.
As part of the new cataloging, the documents were also assigned to virtual, person-related holdings (structured according to the original inventors: "ER" for Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach, "FA" for family archive, "LE" for Leopold von Gerlach, "WI" for Wilhelm von Gerlach Gerlach, "OT" for Otto von Gerlach etc.), which in their entirety form an archival classification , which means that the archive can now be searched for both personal and material types (correspondence, documents, etc.). The assignment of the archives to personal holdings can be found in the newly assigned signatures, e.g. B. "ER02117".
New development
The entire inventory was re-indexed and re-indexed in the years 2011 to 2015 within the framework of the development and digital recording of the Gerlach archive, financed by funds from the German Research Foundation (DFG) . The aim of the project was its first comprehensive indexing including all secondary archives and the creation of an electronic estate directory.
In the course of the project, more than 3,300 catalog data records were created, with which a total of over 17,000 letters and documents were recorded by author, date and location, and in some cases also by nature and content. Since the end of the recording project in spring 2015, the holdings of the archive in the Kalliope union catalog for autographs and personal papers have been fully cataloged.
Signature groups
The previous total of 177 fascicles was divided into the following signature groups:
| signature | number |
|---|---|
| 1-11 | 11 |
| I – XIX | 19th |
| A – Z | 25th |
| AA-EY | 122 |
| Sum : | 177 |
The units of description of the new cataloging also divide the entire inventory into the following personal data ( classification ):
| Duration | number | possibly stock images |
|---|---|---|
| HE | 1777 | Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach |
| FA | 778 | Family archive |
| LE | 179 | Leopold von Gerlach |
| WI | 395 | Wilhelm von Gerlach |
| OT | 28 | Otto von Gerlach |
| KW | 95 | Karl Witte |
| JL | 3 | Johann Paul Franz von Locadou |
| RA | 62 | Raumer archive |
| Sum : | 3317 |
Since the units of description formed during the new indexing represent a detailed indexing of the previous order, the fascicle structure has remained undisturbed and can be assigned to the new signatures by means of concordance or archive catalog.
use
The Gerlach Archive is accessible to the scientifically interested public for research purposes. Use is free of charge, copies and electronic reproductions can be made by arrangement and for a fee.
literature
- Hellmut Diwald (Ed.): From the Revolution to the North German Confederation. Politics and ideas of the Prussian highly conservative 1848 - 1866 , two volumes. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970.
- Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach: Notes from his life and work 1795–1877. Edited by Jakob von Gerlach, two volumes. Bahn, Schwerin, 1903. (Volume 1: 1795–1848, Volume 2: 1848–1877)
- Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach: God's grace and freedom. Selected political writings from the years 1863 to 1866. Edited and provided with an afterword by Hans-Christof Kraus . Karolinger, Vienna a. a. 2011, ISBN 978-3-85418-141-5 .
- Jürgen von Gerlach : Von Gerlach: Life pictures of a family in six centuries . Insingen, Degener, 2015, ISBN 978-3-7686-5209-4 .
- Hans-Christof Kraus : Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach. political thinking and action of a Prussian old conservative (= series of publications by the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Vol. 53, 1-2). Two volumes. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1994, ISBN 3-525-36046-0 (At the same time: Göttingen, Universität, Dissertation, 1992).
- Hans-Joachim Schoeps (Ed.): From the years of Prussian hardship and renewal. Diaries and letters from the Gerlach brothers and their circle 1805–1820 . Berlin: Haude & Spenersche Verlagbuchhandlung, 1966.
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 35 '58 " N , 11 ° 0' 50.7" E