[GBay] Aufruf zur Rettung des Stadtarchivs Augsburg

["Geschichte Bayerns (Dr. Georg Köglmeier)" <georg.koeglmeier_AT_soziologie.uni-regensburg.de>]

From: Thomas Max Safley <tsafley[at]history.upenn.edu>
Subject: ANN: The City Archive of Augsburg
Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2009
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Dear Colleagues,

We have all heard the reports of scholarly catastrophe in Europe: the fire in 
the Anna Amalia Library in 2004; the collapse of the City Archive of Cologne 
in 2009. They are immeasurable scholarly losses: two valuable collections of 
rare books and archival documents, unique sources from the past that can never 
be replaced.

I write today to alert you all to developments that threaten another great 
cultural treasury. The City Archive of Augsburg is now one of the most 
important city archive in Germany, housing the greatest collection of 
documents for a single city from the period between the early eleventh and the 
early nineteenth century. On the basis of its serial collections alone, it is 
arguably the most valuable city archive for research in the late medieval and 
early modern periods, when Augsburg was one the greatest cities of the Empire 
and of Europe, a metropolis of commerce and culture, home to Fugger and Welser 
as well as to Breu and Holbein, site of the Augsburg Confession and the 
Religious Peace. Located in a nineteenth-century Buergerhaus, however, this 
great archive is at great risk. The current situation meets modern standards 
for neither study nor preservation.

Those of you who are familiar with the City Archive know from personal 
experience that the reading room is small, stuffy and shabby. It lacks 
sufficient space for regular users. It lacks up-to-date catalogues to access 
the collections. It lacks sufficient, secure electrical outlets to permit the 
use of personal computers by all users. Such conditions are not only an 
inconvenience for scholars but also a strain for both staff and collections

Far more important is the current situation of the collections themselves. As 
a result of their sheer size, the collections far outstrip the available shelf 
space, so that a large percentage lays, uncatalogued and unshelved, in cartons 
in the basement. Given the age of the structure and surrounding construction, 
that basement is given to periodic flooding with predictable and consistently 
lamentable results for the documents. Shelved documents are, in fact, no more 
secure, because there is no automated fire-suppression system. Given the age 
of the electrical and heating systems in the house, the threat of an 
uncontrollable fire is a real and constant presence. All of these conditions 
contribute to an environment in the stacks that has encouraged a proliferation 
of so-called bookworms. These pests enter archives and libraries through 
poorly fitting windows and doors and proliferate where dust, dirt, heat, 
darkness, and poor ventilation prevail. The mature female insect lays her eggs 
on the edges of books, or in the crevices between quires, and the hatched 
larvae burrow into the books, riddling them with tiny tunnels. Thus, even as 
flood and fire threaten the collections of Augsburg´s City Archive, the 
documents as of this writing are quite literally being eaten away.
 
These are deficiencies, for which the archive´s committed, professional staff 
cannot entirely compensate. Though its number has increased in the last few 
years-to say nothing of the level of its professional training-and its 
achievements in matters of conservation, organization and exhibition have won 
well-deserved praise, it cannot be expected to contend with the challenges 
that confront them.

The situation has reached crisis. Plans are now in hand to close the City 
Archive for three years, beginning next summer, to permit the fumigation of 
the building. Not only will the collections be unavailable for use, but the 
measures themselves will prove futile. Experts have already reported the 
building so infested and so unsuitable that the only hope for Augsburg´s 
unique historical record is to find it a new, safe home.

These developments are not new, but the city government of Augsburg refuses to 
act. It has recognized the problems by undertaking exploratory studies to move 
the archive to a new location, where its collections can be appropriately 
stored and studied, but it has not rescued the City Archive, claiming 
budgetary restrictions. Fiscal considerations may be part of the explanation, 
but a failure to appreciate the cultural and scholarly importance of the 
historical record also plays a role. The city government has, for example, 
acquired millions in new debt to underwrite the construction of a new football 
stadium, among other "cultural" projects. In brief, the political leadership 
neither knows what is in its archive, nor accepts responsibility for it.

This is where each of us can help. I have been asked by our colleagues, 
Professor i. R. Dr. Rolf Kiessling, Lehrstuhl fuer Bayrische und Schwaebische 
Landesgeschichte der Universitaet Augsburg, and Professor Dr. iur. utr. 
Christoph Becker, Lehrstuhl fuer Buergerliches Recht, Roemisches Recht und 
Europaeische Rechtsgeschichte der Universitaet Augsburg, to organize a letter-
writing campaign among American colleagues to save the City Archive. Let me 
therefore ask each of you who see the scholarly importance of the Augsburg 
City Archive and the human importance of cultural memory to write to the 
Buergermeister of Augsburg, urging him to preserve the archive by moving it 
without delay to its planned, new home in the renovated structure of the 
Augsburger Kammgarn-Spinnerei. Letters should be sent to: 
	
Oberbuergermeister Dr. Kurt Gribl
Maximilianstrasse 4
D-86150 Augsburg
GERMANY

By writing, we have the opportunity to help prevent a catastrophe, rather than 
merely to read and grieve about it after the fact.

Thank you for your help. Please contact me, if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Thomas Max Safley
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6379
USA
tel. 215.898.2186 / 8452
<tsafley[at]history.upenn.edu>
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