Topographic office

A topographical bureau was an institution that collected and kept everything related to the knowledge of the surface of the ground and the mapping of this knowledge. These offices were set up in all civilized states on the model of the depot de la guerre in France and have assumed a military character since Napoleon I. In former Prussia and later Germany they were subdivisions of the General Staff . In the Federal Republic of Germany the Military Geographical Service (MilGeoDienst) had these tasks , in the GDR - according to the Soviet model - the Military Topography Service was responsible.