State Archives Szczecin

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The building of the Stettin State Archives, completed in 1901, on the corner of Karkutschstrasse and Turnerstrasse from Turnerstrasse, as it is today

The State Archives Stettin was the state archive of the Prussian province of Pomerania in the 19th and 20th centuries. It existed until the spring of 1945. Its holdings were transferred to the Polish Archiwum Państwowe w Szczecinie (Stettin State Archive), which was established on March 1, 1946, and the Greifswald State Archive, which was also established in 1946 .

history

The archive was established as an independent authority in 1827 by the President of the Province of Pomerania, Johann August Sack , when he commissioned Friedrich Ludwig Baron von Medem to set up a provincial archive . In 1831 this was subordinated to the directory of the Prussian archives. His first accommodation was the west wing, from 1875 the south wing of the Szczecin Palace .

Medem was mainly busy with the reorganization of the found old holdings (Herzoglich-Stettiner Archive, Herzoglich-Wolgaster Archive and the so-called Swedish Archive). At the same time, however, he also began editing sources and wrote, among other things, one of the first archive stories of a German state archive. A new era began in 1855 with the appointment of Robert Klempin as Medem's successor, who alone and together with Gustav Kratz launched numerous publications, including the first volume of the Pomeranian Document Book , the most important source edition on the Middle Ages in Pomerania. This was made possible by financial support from the two rural corporations in the province.

At the end of the 19th century, the size of the archives increased due to levies from the state authorities and acquisitions by municipalities, e.g. B. the city archives Stettin and Kolberg , so that the premises in the castle and the rented house on Petrihofstrasse were no longer sufficient. In 1901 the archive moved into a functional building at Karkutschstrasse 13.

The volume of the holdings grew particularly strongly in the 1930s, and on the eve of the Second World War , around 8,000 linear meters of files, over 10,000 documents and over 10,000 maps, plans and cracks were archived in the magazine. Because of the danger of bombing, the evacuation of the stocks began in 1942. In 1944 the archive building was hit by a bomb, which caused only minor damage in the attic.

In the spring of 1945, the work of the State Archives as a German authority ended. On August 1, 1945, it was taken over by Polish archivists and became part of the city administration of Szczecin until March 1, 1946, when it was placed under the General Directorate of the Polish State Archives. The archived holdings were subsequently housed in one of the two subsequent facilities, depending on the location of the relocation site.

Maintenance of the non-governmental archives

Since there were no full-time specialist archives in the province of Pomerania apart from the State Archives, with the exception of the Stralsund City Archives, until the second quarter of the 20th century, the non-governmental archives (municipalities, churches and parish offices, estate and family archives) were often at great risk . For this reason, the State Archives made efforts as early as the 19th century to secure and maintain these written sources outside of its actual area of ​​responsibility. With the establishment of the Historical Commission for Pomerania in 1910, the circular inventory of the non-state archives began. A step further was taken in 1931 with the establishment of an archive advice center by the Provincial Association , which was attached to the State Archives in 1934 for practical reasons and was staffed by a full-time worker from 1938.

In many cases the archive owners deposited their archives in the state archive, but since the 1930s they have also succeeded in setting up independent city archives, e.g. B. in Kolberg and Greifswald . In addition, the archives advice center provided on-site advice and recorded numerous non-governmental archives. There were volunteer archivists in all circles to support their work.

Directors

Source: Wolfgang Leesch : The German archivists 1500–1945. Volume 1: Directory according to their places of work. Saur, Munich a. a. 1985, ISBN 3-598-10530-4 , pp. 102f.

literature

  • Hans Branig : The State Archives Stettin and the maintenance of the non-state archives in Pomerania. In: Society for Pomeranian history and antiquity (ed.): Monthly sheets. 52nd vol. (1938), pp. 82-90.
  • Adolf Diestelkamp : The State Archives Stettin since the World War. In: Society for Pomeranian history and antiquity (ed.): Monthly sheets. 52nd Vol. (1938), pp. 70-82.
  • Jerzy Grzelak: 100 years ago: moving into the newly built State Archives in Stettin. In: Pomerania. Journal of Culture and History. 39. Jg. (2001), H. 3, pp. 20-27.
  • Erich Randt : 100 years of archive maintenance in Pomerania. In: Society for Pomeranian history and antiquity (ed.): Monthly sheets. 52nd vol. (1938), pp. 62-70.
  • Martin Schoebel : Lost, destroyed, torn, divided. - The archival records of Pomerania after the Second World War. In: Archives and Dominion. Lectures at the 72nd German Archives Day 2001 in Cottbus. Siegburg 2002, pp. 153-162. (The archivist. Bulletin for German archives. Supplement 7)
  • State Archives Stettin - Guide to the holdings up to 1945. edited. v. Radosław Gaziński, Paweł Gut, Maciej Szukała. Translated from Polish by Peter Oliver Loew. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-486-57641-0 . (Writings of the Federal Institute for Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, Vol. 24)
  • Maciej Szukała: Szczecin archivists and “German East Research”. In: Reports and Research. Volume 10 (2002), pp. 27-58. (on-line)
  • Heiko Wartenberg: Archive guide on the history of Pomerania until 1945. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58540-7 . (Writings of the Federal Institute for Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, Vol. 33)
  • Dirk Schleinert : The State Archives Stettin from 1939 to 1945 , In: Baltic Studies NF 99 (2013), pp. 111-131.
  • Dirk Schleinert: Contemporary reports on the beginnings of the Greifswald State Archives. An annotated source edition. In: Baltic Studies NF 101, 2015, pp. 161–181.

Web links

Coordinates: 53 ° 25 ′ 48.5 ″  N , 14 ° 32 ′ 57.6 ″  E