State archive North Rhine-Westphalia Rhineland department

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State archive North Rhine-Westphalia Rhineland department

Logo de-nordrhein westfalen 300px.png
State level State of North Rhine-Westphalia
position State Archives
Supervisory authority Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia
founding 1832
Headquarters Duisburg
Authority management Martina Wiech
Servants 192
Web presence State archive NRW

The State Archive of North Rhine-Westphalia Rhineland Department is a department of the State Archive of North Rhine-Westphalia . Since 2008, it has consisted of the North Rhine-Westphalian Main State Archive, based in Düsseldorf, and the Rhineland civil status archive, based in Brühl . The two locations in Düsseldorf and Brühl were merged in 2014 by moving to Duisburg . For this purpose, a historic storage building in the Duisburg inner harbor was converted from 2010 to 2013 .

History and jurisdiction

The new office building of the North Rhine-Westphalia State Archives in Duisburg inner harbor, Schifferstrasse 30
The magazine tower of the state archive

North Rhine-Westphalian Main State Archives

The history of the main state archive goes back more than 170 years. Founded as the Royal Provincial Archives in 1832, it kept the documents and files of the former territories and lordships as well as the monasteries and monasteries of the northern part of the Prussian Rhine Province . It also recorded the files of the central and subordinate authorities of this area . The provincial archive, later the state archive, was part of the public administration as a “memory” of the authorities. Since 1952 it has also been responsible for the ministries and higher authorities of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, founded in 1946, and operates an active documentation on the history of the state. In order to supplement the state tradition, it stores documents from parties and associations as well as the estates of important personalities from the country's history, image, film and sound documents and the largest aerial photo archive in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2004 it became a department of the newly created State Archives North Rhine-Westphalia, in 2008 it was merged into the Rhineland department of the State Archives. In order to counter the space and capacity problems of the main state archive, it was decided in 2007 to build a new building with the involvement of all departments at the time at a common location.

Rhineland civil status archive

The Rhineland civil status archive keeps archives of civil status, i.e. church records, civil and civil status registers from the administrative districts of Düsseldorf and Cologne . In 1954/1955 all stocks were merged at the Brühl location. The creation of the civil status archive goes back to the time of the Second World War, when church registers and second civil status records from the time before 1900 were combined. In 2004 the civil status archive became a department of the North Rhine-Westphalia state archive, in 2008 part of the Rhineland department of the state archive and in 2014 it was spatially merged with it at the new location in Duisburg.

tasks

The employees of the North Rhine-Westphalia State Archives

  • advise state authorities, courts and institutions in North Rhine-Westphalia on managing and securing their documents.
  • decide which of the large number of documents that are generated there will be permanently preserved as archival material and transfer these documents to the archive.
  • collect documents from non-governmental bodies, e.g. B. by parties, associations and private individuals to supplement the state tradition.
  • open up the transferred documents in order to create convenient and meaningful access to the archive material.
  • restore damaged archive material and treat it conservatively.
  • store the archived material in magazines under suitable climatic conditions so that it can survive the next centuries undamaged.
  • provide the archival material for use and advise on research.
  • make the holdings stored in the archive accessible to a broad public with publications, archive tours and exhibitions.

The Rhineland department is responsible for the administrative districts of Cologne and Düsseldorf.

Stocks

In total, the archives of the Rhineland department fill almost 100 kilometers of shelves. They are divided into

  • approx. 70,000 documents before 1800,
  • approx. 88 kilometers of shelves for files and official books ,
  • over 320,000 maps and plans,
  • approx. 7,000 church registers,
  • approx. 320,000 civil and civil status registers as well as additional files,
  • approx. 2,300 sound carriers, approx. 4,800 films and videos,
  • approx. 702,000 photos and aerial photographs,
  • approx. 11,000 microfilms ,
  • 85,000 publications and
  • 150,000 books and magazine volumes.

The so-called Kahnakten are also stored in the State Archives. These are files that were destroyed or damaged in an air raid in March 1945 when they were transported on the barge MS Main 68 to an alternate camp, and their restoration has not yet been completed.

The holdings cover almost 1200 years of Rhenish history and range from the early Middle Ages to the present day. They can be divided into the following groups:

Holdings from the period up to 1816

include all older holdings from the beginning of the 9th century to the end of French rule and the transition period in the Rhineland (1814/15): Archives of the territories of Kurköln , Jülich-Berg , Kleve-Mark , Moers and Geldern , Reich Chamber Court files , holdings of the The French era secularized monasteries and monasteries, extensive registries of the French administration from 1794 to 1813. There are also important manuscripts and seal collections .

Authority holdings from the beginning of Prussian rule (1815) until today

These include the documents taken over from the district governments of Düsseldorf and Cologne (including the Aachen government, which was dissolved in 1972 ), authorities from numerous administrative branches (e.g. district offices, police, finance, railway and postal administration), the courts and public prosecutors, the penal system and notaries as well as land registers and files or cadastral maps.

Civil status archive

Church registers, civil status registers (second books, public register, additional files), civil status registers according to the civil status law that has been in force since 1876, as well as name directories, genealogical evaluations, estates and collections are stored here.

Non-governmental and non-written archival material

In addition to the documents of state origin, those from parties and legal entities under public law, estates and contemporary historical collections are also taken over. The Rhineland department has extensive collections of images, sound carriers, films and videos.

Supreme and senior authorities of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia since it was founded in 1946

These include the State Chancellery, the ministries, the State Audit Office and the bodies responsible for the administration of justice (Constitutional Court / Higher Administrative Court and State Social Court), the regional higher authorities and all institutions of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. As a document archive of the state government, the department Rheinland preserves all original copies of laws and regulations. In addition to the official statistics, the denazification files are kept here and the cabinet minutes edited.

use

In principle, everyone can use the archives of the North Rhine-Westphalia State Archives in accordance with the regulations of the North Rhine-Westphalian Archives Act. However, there are legally regulated blocking periods, in particular to protect the rights of individuals. Most of these deadlines can be shortened on request for scientific purposes.

Users can do research on the website of the State Archives or on the Internet portal “Archive in NRW” in the inventory overviews, in the catalog of the service library and increasingly also in the finding aids. The archives and holdings of the service library can be viewed in the service building at Schifferstrasse 30 in Duisburg. Microforms and digital copies are available for many documents , which enable careful use. The website of the State Archive of North Rhine-Westphalia provides detailed information on usage.

management

The State Archive of North Rhine-Westphalia Rhineland Department was founded in 1832 as the Prussian State Archive. In 1946 it became the North Rhine-Westphalian Main State Archive, and in 2008 - organizationally combined with the Rhineland civil status archive - into what is now the Rhineland department of the State Archive. Since its inception, it has had the following leaders:

1832-1866 Theodor Joseph Lacomblet
1866-1900 Woldemar Harleß
1900-1921 Theodor Ilgen
1921-1929 Otto Redlich
1929-1952 Bernhard Vollmer
1953-1972 Friedrich Wilhelm Oediger
1972-1992 Wilhelm Janssen
1992-2001 Ottfried Dascher
2003-2008 Wolf-Rüdiger Schleidgen
2009-2013 Frank M. Bischoff
since 2014 Martina Wiech

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Kirfel: The moving boxes are already packed . In: Rhein-Erft Rundschau . Edition of January 30, 2014 ( online ).
  2. ↑ Kahnakten: An overview for orientation. (PDF) State Archives North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on June 3, 2017 .


Coordinates: 51 ° 26 ′ 14.6 "  N , 6 ° 45 ′ 29"  E