German Central Agency for Genealogy

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The German Central Office for Genealogy (DZfG) in Leipzig is an institution of the Saxon State Archives integrated into the Leipzig State Archive as Section 33 and has the task of collecting and archiving publications on personal and family history from the entire German- speaking area , in particular also unprinted preparatory work on it , to secure, to open up and to the interested public as well as to support scientific research in the context of historical, sociological , demographic , naming , human genetic or legal To provide questions.

Legal basis

The Archives Act for the Free State of Saxony of May 17, 1993, legally adjusted as of January 1, 2005, stipulates in Section 3 (1): “The Free State of Saxony maintains the Saxon State Archives including the German Central Office for Genealogy as a Special archive for personal and family history ”.

history

A central office for German personal and family history existed in Leipzig from 1904 to 1967 . Your publication was called "Mitteilungen der Zentralstelle für Deutsche Personen- und Familiengeschichte".

The first archivist from 1909 to 1913 was the historian Ernst Devrient ; Treasurer in the years before and after 1921 Herrmann AL Degener . In 1921, Degener managed to sign a contract by which the central office was integrated into the German library . The contract secured the central office the bibliographical lead function for the entire German-speaking area in its field of knowledge.

Johannes Hohlfeld was the managing director from 1924 to 1950 . Under his leadership, this genealogy institution developed into a world-renowned institution.

In April 1933 the position of the expert for race research was set up under the supervision of the Reich Ministry of the Interior . In accordance with the law for the restoration of the civil service, she was supposed to check the Aryan descent of all civil servants in the German Reich. In March 1934 the institution was renamed the Reichsstelle für Kippenforschung (RFS). In the same year the archiving of church records began . In 1940 it was renamed Reichssippenamt (RSA).

Towards the end of the Second World War, parts of the RSA database were moved from Berlin to Thuringian forest castles or salt mines near Magdeburg, so that in 1945 the majority of the holdings of the Reichssippenamt were located in the Soviet occupation zone . The genealogist Paul Langheinrich, who was already familiar with the RFS archives in pre-war times, was aware of this. In 1946, Langheinrich founded a German archive for genealogy as a collection point in Wolfsgrün and Eibenstock / Erzgebirge . When the opportunity arose to use the space, this collection moved to the Public Scientific Library in Berlin (today's State Library) and was restored and preserved as the German Central Archive for Genealogy Berlin under the direction of the Ministry of Education and Culture .

On September 30, 1949, the Central Office Foundation was transferred to a collective foundation, from which it was donated to the state archives on December 4, 1956 (and can also be transferred to another foundation through a renewed act of donation).

On May 2, 1950, the Ministry of Culture ordered the relocation of Langheinrich's Central Archive for Genealogy to Potsdam, where it was subordinate to the Central Archive of the GDR as the German Archive for Genealogy Potsdam from 1952 to 1965 . In July 1965, the genealogical inventory of approx. 250 shelf meters was transferred to the state archive in Leipzig. In 1967 this archive, the collections of the old Leipzig central office and various collections from dissolved associations (including the ancestral index of the German people of the German ancestral community and the complete catalog of the personal documents and funeral sermons collections of the Dresden Roland ) became the assets of the " Central Office founded this year transferred for genealogy in the GDR ”(so the formulation of the office for the regulation of open property questions) and made accessible again for public use in the former imperial court building in Leipzig.

On October 3, 1990, the Leipzig Central Office, now known as the German Central Office for Genealogy , was transferred to the sovereignty of the Free State of Saxony; in 1995 it was incorporated as a department in the Leipzig State Archives. After an administrative reform in 2005, the correct name is "Saxon State Archives - Leipzig State Archives, Section 33 German Central Agency for Genealogy and Special Collections". From 1990 to 2007 Volkmar Weiss was head of the German Central Office for Genealogy; Since 2008 it has been led by Thekla Kluttig.

Present archive material

The filming of church registers began in November 1933 with the inventory of the old Berlin church register. In 1934 filming work followed in the eastern provinces of West Prussia and East Prussia , Pomerania , Posen and Silesia . Subsequently, the film work was extended to parts of the rest of the Reich and to German settlement areas abroad. The year 1875, the year in which registry offices were set up in Prussia , was chosen as the final year for the film . More recent documents about the eastern provinces are not available in the German Central Office for Genealogy. Only in the case of Germans abroad do the films reach the present until 1940 (in Transylvania until 1944). The tradition of the Central Office for German Personal and Family History in Leipzig includes, among other things, business files, minutes of board meetings, lists of members, statutes and correspondence on anniversaries and organizational issues. There is also an ex-libris collection comprising around 1,600 book owner's marks, a collection of personal files with around 21,000 index cards, a collection of seals, a collection of coats of arms and a collection of funeral sermons.

The Leipzig central office is also the location of the ancestral index of the German people (ASTAKA) and the ancestral list collection as well as the general catalog of the personal documents and funeral sermons collections .

trouble

There is no local or temporal completeness of the parish registers. Name registers are rarely available. Legibility is often impaired due to the original state of preservation of the books. The fact that the church registers were filmed separately according to right and left pages makes things more difficult. The evaluation of such church register documents can usually only be carried out through direct use in Leipzig itself.

Use and service

As a rule, the central office's work capacity is too small to answer written information. Reference is made to direct use in Leipzig. The central office would also be overwhelmed if it were to guide the individual researchers or even introduce newcomers to genealogy . The genealogical associations, specialist journals and specialist literature are responsible for this. The TV program Die Spur der Anhnen des MDR also deals with this topic.

On the legal status of the Leipzig Central Office

The Office for the Settlement of Open Property Issues has to be the Leipzig Central Office on 26 July 2001 (reg 8175) the unjustified application of the foundation "Central Office for Personal and Family History" in Friedrichsdorf, successors, rejected for lack of personal identity. This Friedrichsdorf central office (with a depot in Frankfurt-Höchst) was founded on October 10, 1951 in West Berlin by the former chairman and co-founder of the central office, Hans Breymann . At the beginning of 1966 "German" was deleted from the name of the foundation. A successor function of this central office for the Leipzig is not applicable, as there was no expropriation between 1933 and 1945. The assertion that this central office and its support association continued to make in the list of members of the German Working Group on Genealogical Associations after 1990 that it was the foundation founded in Leipzig in 1904 has no legal basis.

Inventories of the German Central Office for Genealogy

literature

  • The German Central Agency for Genealogy and its tasks . In: Yearbook of historical research in Germany. Reporting year 1995 (1996), pp. 30–33.
  • The development of the Leipzig Central Office from 1945 to 1967. A contribution to the history of genealogy in the GDR . In: Genealogy. 48th year, 1999, pp. 577-591.
  • Volkmar Weiss : Johannes Hohlfeld, from 1924 to 1950 managing director of the Central Office for German Personal and Family History in Leipzig, on the 50th anniversary of his death. In: Genealogy. German magazine for family studies. Volume 49, 2000, pp. 65-83, also in: Genealogie. Special issue (2000/01), pp. 1-19.
  • Volkmar Weiss: The survival of Johannes Hohlfeld as managing director of the Central Office for German Personal and Family History in Leipzig in the years 1933–1939. In: Peter Bahl , Eckart Henning i. A. the Herald. Association for heraldry, genealogy and related sciences in Berlin (Hrsg.): Herold-Jahrbuch. New series, Volume 5, Neustadt ad Aisch 2000, pp. 211–226.
  • Wolfgang Ernst: In the name of history . Munich, 2003. ISBN 3-7705-3832-3 , pages 1055-1056
  • Volkmar Weiss: The extended SächsArchReport. Documentation from the head of the German Central Office for Genealogy 1990 - 2007 . Neustadt an der Orla: Arnshaugk 2019, ISBN 978-3-95930-202-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. German Digital Library: History of the Reichssippenamt
  2. ↑ See Martina Wermes: New Research Opportunities for Family Researchers on the Internet. In: Sächsisches Archivblatt. Communications from the Saxon State Archives . Issue 2/2015, p. 24
  3. ↑ 21942 Central Office for German Personal and Family History Leipzig. In: State Archives Leipzig. Retrieved March 30, 2020 .
  4. ↑ 21945 Central Office for German Personal and Family History Leipzig, bookplate collection. In: State Archives Leipzig. Retrieved March 30, 2020 .
  5. ↑ 21944 Central Office for German Personal and Family History Leipzig, personal cards. In: State Archives Leipzig. Retrieved March 30, 2020 .
  6. ↑ 21947 Central Office for German Personal and Family History Leipzig, collection of seals. In: State Archives Leipzig. Retrieved March 30, 2020 .
  7. ↑ 21948 Central Office for German Personal and Family History Leipzig, coat of arms collection. In: State Archives Leipzig. Retrieved March 30, 2020 .
  8. ↑ 21946 Central Office for German Personal and Family History Leipzig, funeral sermons. In: State Archives Leipzig. Retrieved March 30, 2020 .