Reichsfilmarchiv

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One of the bunkers in the former Reichsfilmarchiv in Potsdam-Babelsberg (2018)

The Reichsfilmarchiv was a state film archive opened in 1935 in the German Reich during the time of National Socialism with its headquarters in Berlin .

history

Tempelhofer Ufer 17 in Berlin-Kreuzberg, former factory building, used from 1939/40 to 1945, among others, by the Reichsfilmarchiv as an official residence

The first official mention of the Reichsfilmarchiv is likely to come from July 14, 1934, when the Reichsfilmkammer's activity report stated that it had created a film archive. On December 6, 1934, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declared that the Reichsfilmarchiv had been founded on the initiative of his ministry and that it already comprised 1200 films of artistic and cultural value. These included 350 copies of valuable silent and sound films donated by the film industry, and 300 documentary and educational films from the First World War that the Reichsarchiv in Potsdam had handed in.

The Reichsfilmarchiv was opened in the Harnack House in Berlin-Dahlem on February 4, 1935 in the presence of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels with great propaganda effort.

The director between 1935 and 1937 was Frank Hensel (1893–1972). On April 1, 1938, the Reichsfilmarchiv was removed from the previous association of the Reichsfilmkammer and became a subordinate department of the Propaganda Ministry with its own administration under the direction of Richard Quaas (1905–1989) and your own budget. New offices were moved into the lower Friedrichstrasse and around 1939/40 in the Tempelhofer Ufer 17 building, which was also used by several companies. Film bunkers were built in Babelsberg as a storage facility, construction work began in 1939 with the address Breites Gestell 1. The buildings that have been preserved are now on the property with the address at Kohlhasenbrücker Straße 106.

The archive quickly gained a high international reputation. When the Fédération International des Archives du Film ( FIAF ) - an international association of film archives - was founded in Paris in 1938 , the Reichsfilmarchiv was one of the four founding members. Hensel became its vice-president and from 1939, formally until the end of the war, president.

At the beginning of the Second World War, the staff counted 27 people, including administration, scientific advisors and assistants with typists, warehouse management and film technicians. This number slowly and steadily decreased after 1942 due to drafts into the Wehrmacht.

After their invasion of Berlin in April 1945, the Soviet troops took over the offices at the headquarters and the film bunkers on the Babelsberg site with around 15,000 films that were in good condition until the end of the war and confiscated all film materials. Further films, film copies and files had been moved to various locations and were partially destroyed during the war and at the end of the war. In 1947 the Archive for Film Studies founded by Hanns Wilhelm Lavies succeeded the Reichsfilmarchiv in the Federal Republic of Germany , and in the German Democratic Republic the State Film Archive of the GDR , which was transferred to the Federal Archives' film archive after 1990 .

Stocks

At the time of the opening, the archive already owned more than 1,200 films, some of which came from the Reichsarchiv Potsdam and some of which had to be provided by the film industry. Through legal acquisition, but also to a large extent through forced delivery and confiscations in the occupied territories, the stock increased to 17,352 films by the end of the war.

After the end of the war, most of the holdings, some of which were stored in the bell tower at Berlin's Olympic Stadium, were lost. 6,400 selected films ended up in the Soviet film archive in Krasnogorsk near Moscow and from there to the Soviet cinemas, where some of them were shown until 1956. In 1955 the newly founded State Film Archive of the GDR was able to take over part of the holdings.

See also

literature

  • Hans Barkhausen: On the history of the former Reich film archive. Foundation, structure, working method , in: Der Archivar , No. 1, April 1960, Col. 1–14

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barkhausen, Col. 3
  2. ↑ Barkhausen, Col. 3
  3. ↑ Rolf Aurich, cineast, collector, National Socialist ( article on www.filmdienst.de )
  4. ↑ Deutsche Kinemathek: Press kit for the exhibition on traces of fire. Film posters from the salt dome 2019-2020, online at deutsche-kinemathek.de
  5. ↑ * July 9, 1893 in Bingen; † December 23, 1893 in Bad Breisig ( entry in IMDB )
  6. ↑ Deutsche Kinemathek: Press kit for the exhibition on traces of fire. Film posters from the salt dome 2019-2020, online at deutsche-kinemathek.de
  7. ↑ Address books Berlin, online at the ZLB , 1939 and 1940, especially 1940, part IV, p. 888
  8. ↑ Barkhausen, Col. 6-7
  9. ↑ Barkhausen, Col. 6-7, 13
  10. ↑ Deutsche Kinemathek: Press kit for the exhibition on traces of fire. Film posters from the salt dome 2019-2020, online at deutsche-kinemathek.de
  11. ^ House without Windows: The Reichsfilmarchiv. In: potsdamenthaben.de. Retrieved January 11, 2020 .
  12. ↑ ID no. 09156579 Reichsfilmarchiv. In: List of monuments of the state of Brandenburg. Retrieved January 11, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Barkhausen, Col. 6
  14. ↑ Barkhausen, Col. 7
  15. ↑ Barkhausen, Col. 13
  16. ↑ Barkhausen, Sp. 13-14 with details on the state of knowledge from 1960