Background on Quellen zur Geschichte der Jden in den Archiven der Neuen Bundelslander

Research into German Jewish history was severely restricted due to the inaccessibility of archival collections in the former DDR, while regional and local studies in the Federal Republic of Germany were increasingly being published since the 1960s.

• Following the fall of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) and the German Reunification on October 3, 1990, the Leo Baeck Institute in New York and the Leo Baeck Institute in the Federal Republic of Germany took the initiative to expand research into German Jewish history by providing a guide to such archives.  
• A first meeting with historians and archivists from the GDR was organized by Leo Baeck institute in Berlin, and a second meeting was organized in October 1991 in Leipzig.
• In her lecture during the meeting,  titled “Sources for the History of the Jews from the Eighteenth Century to the Twentieth Century in the Archives of the former DDR,” Elisabeth Brachmann-Teubner presented an overview of archives in former East Germany.
• During a working meeting in February 1992 with the directors and employees of the large archives in the new federal states, concrete issues of planning and implementation of the project were discussed.
• In the spring of 1992, Stefi Jersch-Wenzel, Head of the Section for German-Jewish History in the Historical Commission in Berlin, and Reinhard Rürup, Chairman of the Scientific Working Group of the Leo Baeck Institute in Germany, in consultation with the Leo Baeck Institute New York, presented an overall concept for the project, suggesting a dual approach: 
  • A comprehensive inventory that would list all archives with their relevant holdings to provide a first orientation for interested users, and 
  • Special inventories for the large central archives, the main provincial, provincial and state archives that would offer a detailed breakdown of the available material, and would address specialized interests.
• The project gained broad support and special funds were made available to the Leo Baeck Institute by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior.
• The project began in August 1992 and was sponsored by the Scientific Working Group of the Leo Baeck Institute in the Federal Republic of Germany and the Historical Commission in Berlin. It was headed by Reinhard Rürup, Chairman of the Scientific Working Group, and Stefi Jersch-Wenzel, Head of the Section for German-Jewish History in the Historical Commission.

EXTENT OF MATERIALS INCLUDED

• Special inventories were prepared for the following archives: Federal Archives, Potsdam departments; Federal Archives/Interim Archives Dahlwitz-Hoppegarten; Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin; Foundation, endowment "New Synagogue - Centrum Judaicum", Berlin; Mecklenburg State Main Archive Schwerin; Vorpommersche Landesarchiv Greifswald; Brandenburg State Main Archive Potsdam; Berlin State Archive; Berlin State Archives, Breite Straße branch; state archive Magdeburg - State Main Archive; Oranienbaum State Archive; Saxon main state archive Dresden; Saxon State Archives Leipzig; Thuringian State Archive Gotha; Thuringian Rudolstadt State Archives. 
• At the set-out, 211 institutions were identified to be surveyed for Jewish collections. By 1994, this number had increased to 620, and out of these 304 had Jewish materials.
• In the end, 7 central archives, 14 state archives, 207 city and district archives, 7 archives of Jewish communities, 4 business archives, 13 church archives, 25 university (among others) archives, 27 other archives (museums, memorials, etc.)  could be included in the comprehensive inventory.
• The distribution of central archives with Jewish collections based on German federal states (including Berlin and Brandenburg) and  is as follows: 45 archives in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, 46 in Brandenburg, 19 in Berlin, 67 in Saxony-Anhalt, 63 in Saxony, and 64 in Thuringia. 
  • It should be noted however that for Berlin only the East Berlin archives have been fully taken into account, while West Berlin Archives were included only to the extent that their holdings have expanded in the course of an institutional merger (e.g., Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Landesarchiv Berlin, Academy of Arts, German Historical Museum).
  •  If archives were institutionally combined, but the archival material remained in its original location (e.g. State Library of Prussian Cultural Heritage or Evangelical Central Archive), only those in East Berlin-based institutions have been included in the inventory.

DATA COLLECTION AND SCOPE OF MATERIALS

• All archives were first asked in writing whether they had sources on the history of the Jews. 
• After a positive answer, existing holdings or groups of holdings were checked using the available finding aids, and in special cases also by access to the respective files.
• Since the finding aids in the archives vary, it was impossible to have uniform entries for materials in this inventory, but we had to make compromises in the interest of the comprehensive inventory.
• We have included large archives in the comprehensive inventory although special inventories were also created for them. For this reason, in this inventory only short descriptions for them have been provided and then a reference to the special inventory.
• Some exceptions to this approach have been made with collections that have been recorded in full for branch offices of some state archives (Brandenburg State Main Archive - Lübben branch, Saxon State Archive Dresden - Bautzen branch), some central archives (Federal Commissioner for the Documents of the State Security Service, Evangelical Central Archives in Berlin — branch Ziegelstraße) and also some state archives for which no special inventories are to be expected in the foreseeable future (Saxon State Archive Chemnitz and the Thuringian State Archives in Altenburg, Greiz and Meiningen and the Main State Archive in Weimar). This apparent inconsistency has been decided for the benefit of the users.
• The short descriptions were created in close cooperation with the editors of the special inventories:
  • Dr. Lars Bäcker (Vorpommern State Archives Greifswald), Jens Beger (Thuringian State Archive Rudolstadt), Elisabeth Brachmann-Teubner (Federal Archive, Potsdam departments), Dr. Hans Czihak (Berlin State Archive, Breite branch Straße), Andreas Grape (Berlin State Archive), Dr. Eduard Hartstock (Saxon State Archive Dresden), Steffen Held (Saxon State Archive Leipzig), Antje Herfurth (State Archive Magdeburg - State Main Archive), Dr. Bernhard Jähnig (Geheimes Staatsarchiv Prussian cultural heritage, Berlin), Christine Klose (Brandenburg State Main Archive Potsdam), Dr. Meta Kohnke (Geheimes Staatsarchiv Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin), Dr. Joachim Lehmann (Geheimes Staatsarchiv Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin), Dr. Peter Letkemann (Geheimes Staatsarchiv Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin), Esther Ludwig (Saxon State Archive Leipzig), Dietrich Muregger (Federal Archive/Interim Archive Dahlwitz-Hoppegarten), Christel Schütt (Mecklenburg State Main Archive Schwerin), Brigitta Steinbruch (Mecklenburg State Main Archive Schwerin), Dr. Reinhart range (Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin), Dr. Uwe Jens Wandel (Thuringian State Archive Gotha), Barbara Welker (Foundation "New Synagogue - Centrum Judaicum", Berlin), Frank Winkler (Federal Archives/Interim Archives Dahlwitz-Hoppegarten).
• The most important collections are found in the central archives and the main state archives, particularly in the respective “Jewish files,” since after Emancipation, Jewish individuals, families or companies were not anymore referred to as Jewish. 
• Although materials often go back to the Middle Ages, the main focus of the collections included is from the 18th century to 1945. The sources for the disenfranchisement and persecution of Jewish are extensive particularly during the Nazi, reflected in the holdings of police authorities, regional finance departments, or state and municipal holdings, i.e., materials with non-Jewish provenance.
• Among the city and county archives that stand out with their rich collections are Angermünde, Chemnitz, Dresden, Frankfurt/Oder, Hildburghausen, Leipzig, Mühlhausen, Neustrelitz, Nordhausen, Plauen, Rostock, Schwerin and Stralsund. These collections contain particularly records about settlements and purchase of real estate by Jews, civil status register of the Jewish communities, Jewish employment, Jewish schools, synagogues and cemeteries, and some Jewish associations. 
• Rich personal materials are mainly contained in archives of universities, academies and similar institutions.
• In addition to the parts of the former "Gesamtarchiv der Deutschen Juden" that were included in the Foundation "New Synagogue - Centrum Judaicum,” material with Jewish provenance can also be found in some other archives, and particularly in institutions that have been previously overlooked, such as the "Landesrabbinat Mecklenburg-Schwerin" in Mecklenburg State Main Archive, "Landrabbinat Stadtlengsfeld and Eisenach" in Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar as well as fragments of files from the Jewish Community Meiningen in the Thuringian State Archive Meiningen.
• In principle, only unpublished manuscript sources have been included in the comprehensive inventory.
• In exceptional cases, however, printed documents within the archival collections have also been included, provided they are of rare and of unique significance (flyers, pamphlets, municipal statutes, etc.). 
• Depending on their rarity, other non-manuscript material (i.e. cartographic, visual, auditory and audiovisual sources) have been included.
• The decision to create special inventories for the large archives, but nevertheless include brief descriptions about them in the comprehensive inventory gives the impression that some smaller or city archives have far larger collections that state archives with richer holdings. This also means that some smaller places or otherwise unknown persons seem to have larger entries that well known places (e.g., Berlin) or individuals (e.g. Moses Mendelssohn). 
• Users should keep in mind that the comprehensive inventory is only intended to provide initial access to the sources, and needs to be supplemented by the special inventories. Once the special inventories become available, the factual imbalances that are unavoidable at this point in time can be rectified.
• This publication is based on a database specially developed for this purpose, which is also used to process the information obtained during the preparation of the special inventories. The database also offers the possibility of adding additional data, and updating the current inventories.

 

NOTES ON ARRANGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION

•  The comprehensive inventory is broken down by federal state from north to south.
• Central archives take precedence.
• The following scheme applies within states: A. Main State, State and State Archives, B. City and District Archives, C. Archives of Jewish communities, D. Economic archives, E. Archives of universities, academies, libraries, F. Church archives, G. Other (museums, memorial sites, etc.).
• Within each category, the archives are arranged alphabetically according to their locations.
• To facilitate user access to the archives, each entry for an archives contains the address, telephone and fax number (if available), contact person, opening hours and available finding aids.
• Individual files or groups of files have been given a serial number. 
• Archives with multiple brief descriptions have been assigned only one number, and subsequent descriptions have been assigned subdivisions (e.g. 162/1).
• The appendix lists those archives which, according to information they provided, do not have any material on the history of the Jews.
• Access to the comprehensive inventory is provided through a detailed table of contents and three indices.
• The relevant sources are listed individually for each archive, classified per collection.
• Entries contain the following: collection number and collection description, file number and file title, notes relating to the history of the Jews, and the temporal extent of the file. This information follows the finding aids of the respective archives and reflects the arrangement and description of a collection at the time of this inventorying project.

 

LIMITATIONS

• The finding aids used for the inventory overview range from repertories to delivery lists, finding aids and card indexes of all kinds to databases, with the larger archives usually also having the better finding aids. This diversity has resulted in uneven description lengths in the comprehensive inventory.
• Files the title of which did not contain any clear reference to relevant material were not included. Files with titles with a personal name without “the Jew N. N.” (“der Jude N.N”) or something similar, which was common until the 19th century are only included when the context suggests that the individual was Jewish or if the respective archives had made this deliberation.
• In the case of series (such as university personnel files) in which Jewish individuals are definitely or very likely also listed, description at the series level is provided rather than individual listings.
• When archives have restricted access to material due to privacy issues, the inventory includes relevant access and use restrictions.
• The description of medieval documents has been summarized briefly, with special consideration of their importance for Jewish history. Reference to Hebrew manuscripts in various libraries is given based on printed inventory catalogues.
• The spelling of the file reflects modern orthography and punctuation. 
• Legacy terms in title names that might be offensive today have been left in their original spelling.
• Some corrections for better legibility have been performed. Illegible words and parts of text, or unidentifiable place names have been noted with [?].
• Personal names were more difficult to correct since holdings often reflect different spellings, and since also before Emancipation Jewish names were often first name plus place of origin. The order of first and last names were often reversed in archives, so a clear assignment was not always possible. Varying spellings by the authorities or the archivists were only corrected when the person is mentioned several times.
• For folder titles given during the Nazi era, terms as “Mischling”, “Aryanization” etc. we also kept the original title with reservations. 
• We only used quotation marks for such offensive terms in the descriptive notice.