Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv
The Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv ( RWWA ) foundation in Cologne is a service and research facility for the West German economy. Ulrich Soénius has been the director since January 1, 2000 .
The RWWA is the oldest regional economic archive in Germany. It is maintained by the commercial economy, especially in the Rhineland. Organizationally, it is affiliated with the Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Industry . The archive has had the legal form of a foundation since 2000 . The economic archive is supported by the “Wirtschaftshistorischer Verein zu Köln e. V. ".
history
The date of foundation is December 14, 1906, when the Cologne city council approved the statutes of the Archive of the Rhenish-Westphalian Economic History . Before that, there were discussions about whether materials and archives from the economy of the Prussian provinces of Rhineland and Westphalia should be recorded and maintained centrally or at the individual chambers of industry and commerce.
At the decisive meeting of the chambers of commerce in Düsseldorf in March 1906 , the vice-president of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce, the publisher and city councilor Josef Neven DuMont , with his argument that the boundaries of our chambers of commerce in general do not coincide with the boundaries of certain branches of industry , penetrated and the institution for Win Cologne. The dovetailing with the city's historical archive and the city's newly founded commercial college, whose director Christian Eckert (and later the first rector of the university ) was very committed to the establishment in Cologne, spoke in favor of Cologne.
During the Weimar Republic and the Nazi era , archiving activities were greatly reduced. Only after the Second World War did the RWWA experience a renaissance. Since the 1960s, holdings have been increasingly acquired and made available to the public. Since the mid-1980s, the RWWA has been steadily expanded as an international and national research institution.
Tasks and inventory
The archive collects, preserves and makes available material for research and research on more than 18 kilometers of shelves that might otherwise have been destroyed:
- Over 450 more extensive files from companies, associations and chambers as well as bequests from business people
- Over 18,000 commemorative publications
- Company magazines, annual reports, newspaper articles, photos and films from and about more than 1500 companies
With the holdings of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK) and the Central Association of German Crafts (ZDH), the RWWA stores holdings of national importance.
The archive is open to the interested public free of charge. It offers its knowledge and help for companies and institutions that want to document their own history or do comparative research.
Research and documentation
The archive publishes its research and documentation in its own series of publications, the Writings on Rhenish-Westphalian Economic History (47 volumes).
See also
literature
- Ulrich S. Soénius : Future in mind - past on file. 100 years of the Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv zu Köln (= publications on the Rhenish-Westphalian economic history . Volume 45 ). Cologne 2006.