Political archive of the Federal Foreign Office

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The Political Archive of the Foreign Office (PA AA) was founded in 1920 and was given its name, which is still valid today, in 1924. It is a federal department archive that keeps sources on German foreign policy from the founding of the North German Confederation (1867) to the present day.

History and jurisdiction

After the First World War , in 1920 - one year after the establishment of the Reichsarchiv - as part of the reform of the Foreign Office, the documents of the dissolved Political Department were transferred from the former central and dispatch office to a "main archive", which in 1924 was named "Political Archive" . These files of political content - a total of around 20,000 volumes - formed the basis of the newly founded archive and were supplemented over time by documents from other departments and the diplomatic missions abroad. The tradition begins chronologically with the files of the Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

From 1943, the holdings of the Political Archive were relocated to protect against air raids . However, as a result of the effects of the war , files were destroyed, including files that were created after a reorganization of the Foreign Office in 1936 and that could not be relocated because they were still needed in the respective departments.

The majority of the evacuated stocks were confiscated by the Allies after the war , brought to Great Britain in 1948 and scientifically evaluated there. As part of this measure, a comprehensive cataloging and filming of the holdings took place. When the Political Archive was re-established in 1951, initially only the personnel and budget files of the “Old Office” that had already been returned were available. Between 1956 and 1958, the other holdings that had been confiscated and relocated from the Western Allies were returned. The part of the stocks relocated during the war that was confiscated by the Soviet Union in 1945 did not reach the Federal Archives via the Central State Archives of the GDR until reunification .

With German reunification in 1990, the Political Archive took over the files of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MfAA) as well as the international treaties of the former GDR . When the Foreign Office moved from Bonn to Berlin in 2000, the two archives were also spatially combined in the former Reichsbank building.

Legal basis

The legal basis of the Political Archive is based on the Law on the Foreign Service, the Law on the Safeguarding and Use of Federal Archives and the Usage Regulations.

The Foreign Service Act (GAD) of August 30, 1990 (BGBl. I, p. 1842) came into force on January 1, 1991 and was last amended by Article 5 of the Act of November 14, 2011 (BGBl. I, P. 2219); it regulates the legal status, competence and tasks of the Political Archives of the Foreign Office in § 10. The law on the safeguarding and use of federal archives (Federal Archives Act) of January 6, 1988 (Federal Law Gazette I, p. 62) came into force on January 15, 1988 and was last amended by Section 13 of the Freedom of Information Act of September 5, 2005 (Federal Law Gazette I, p. 2722). The usage regulations for the Political Archives of the Foreign Office of December 5, 1990 came into force on January 1, 1991.

The stocks

The documents stored in the Political Archive have a total of around 26 running shelf kilometers. In addition to files, which make up the largest part of the holdings, the archive records contain around 30,000 international treaties, 300 diplomatic estates, 10,000 photos and 300 audio-visual media.

The holdings include:

  • Files of the Foreign Office (1867–1945)
  • Files of the diplomatic missions abroad (until 1945)
  • Files of the Foreign Office (1949/1951 to today)
  • Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the GDR (1949–1990)
  • Files of the diplomatic missions of the Federal Republic of Germany (1950 to today)
  • Archive of international agreements
  • Personnel files archive
  • Estates / files from former officials
  • Picture collection / audiovisual archive

Partial editions

  • Lepsius, Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Thimme, (Ed.): The Great Politics of the European Cabinets 1871–1914 . Berlin 1922–1927
  • Kautsky, Graf Montgelas (ed.): The German documents on the outbreak of war in 1914 . Charlottenburg 1919
  • Scherer, Grunewald (ed.): L'Allemagne et les problemèmes de la paix pendant la première guerre mondiale . Paris 1962–1978
  • Files on German foreign policy • 1918–1945 • from the archives of the German Foreign Office . Baden-Baden, Imprimiere Nationale, 1950
    • Supplementary volume for series A – E. Complete directory of persons, portrait photos and data on service use, attachments . Format: VIII, 598 p., Numerous Illustrations. Baden-Baden, Imprimiere Nationale, 1995
  • Hans-Peter Schwarz (ed.): Adenauer and the high commissioners . Munich 1989–1990
  • Horst Möller et al. (Ed.): The unit. The Foreign Office, the GDR Foreign Ministry and the two-plus-four process . Göttingen 2015
  • Institute for contemporary history (ed.): Files on the foreign policy of the Federal Republic of Germany . Munich 1993 ff.

Archive manager since 1920

1920-1926 Hermann Meyer-Rodehüser
1926-1933 Johannes Sass
1933-1936 Friedrich Stieve
1937-1938 Werner women's service
1938-1945 Johannes Ullrich
1951-1953 Hans Andres
1954-1956 Peter Klassen
1956-1965 Johannes Ullrich
1966-1971 Heinz-Günther Sasse
1971-1984 Nikolaus Weinandy
1984-1996 Heinz Waldner
1996-2003 Hans Jochen Pretsch
2003-2014 Ludwig Biewer
since 2014 Elke von Boeselager

literature

  • Ludwig Biewer: The Political Archive of the Foreign Office. In: Foreign Service . Quarterly publication of the Association of German Foreign Officials e. V., No. 58/1997, pp. 21-35.
  • Ludwig Biewer: The Political Archive of the Foreign Office. Plea for a department archive. In: Archivalische Zeitschrift , No. 87/2005, pp. 137–164.
  • Astrid M. Eckert: Fight for the files. The Western Allies and the return of German archive material after the Second World War . Stuttgart, Steiner Verlag 2004.
  • Martin Kröger, Roland Thimme: The Political Archive of the Foreign Office in World War II. Protection, escape, loss, repatriation. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , No. 47/1999, pp. 243–264 ( PDF ).
  • Hermann Meyer: The political writing in the German Foreign Service. A Guide to Understanding Diplomatic Documents. Tübingen 1920. PDF: [1]
  • Hans Philippi: The Political Archive of the Foreign Office. Return and overview of its holdings. In: Der Archivar , No. 13/1960, Sp. 199–218.
  • Hans Jochen Pretsch: The Political Archive of the Foreign Office. In: Der Archivar , No. 32/1979, Col. 299–302.
  • Hans Jochen Pretsch: The legal status of the political archive. In: Der Archivar , No. 43/1990, Sp. 597-599.
  • Roland Thimme: The Political Archive of the Federal Foreign Office. Return negotiations and file edition 1945–1995. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , No. 49/2001, pp. 318–362.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Order and cite archival material. In: Foreign Office Political Archive. Retrieved February 17, 2020 .