Catching up: Cologne Archives; the Stasi and recent German history

I planted three "Tiny Bee" Asiatic lily cultivars last year, and they didn't do very well. I didn't expect them to survive, and was very pleasantly surprised when they sprang to life earlier this spring. As of today, they have more than a dozen full blooms and a like number of buds. Interesting things -- most of which aren't as pretty as these lilies -- sometimes pop up unexpectedly . . . .

Sorry for the light blogging over the past week. I've been struggling to meet multiple deadlines at work, combating (organically and non-lethally) the squirrels that are attacking the lettuce, beets, and other produce in the container garden, and getting used to the feeling of having a trio of staples in my scalp; there's nothing like a minor household accident to keep an archivist's life interesting.

Next week's blogging may be similarly light: I'm planning to attend a National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program grant partners meeting during the last full week of June, and as a result must devote next week to wrapping up some loose ends, meeting some additional deadlines, and preparing for departure.

However, before any more time elapses, I wanted to comment on a couple of archives-related developments that have taken place in Germany. Neither one is particularly new, but the first is really encouraging and the second highlights the role of archives in shaping -- and, in this instance, destabilizing -- collective understandings of history.

The first piece of news concerns the records Historical Archive of the City of Cologne, which collapsed on 3 March of this year: the archive's staff and other experts on the site have been stunned and pleased by the condition of the records that have been recovered to date. As of 1 June, approximately 85 percent of the archive's holdings have been recovered (the remaining 15 percent is submerged in groundwater), and roughly 75 percent of the recovered material is relatively intact. Although archivists still anticipate that it will take approximately 30 years to recover from this disaster, they also expect that digital technology will aid the process: special software developed to reassemble documents shredded by the Stasi, the East German secret police, in the days before the collapse of the East German government may help them reassemble torn and badly damaged documents.

The other archives-related development of note also relates to the Stasi. The records concern an event that took place on 2 June 1967, when police officer Karl-Heinz Kurras shot and killed Benno Ohnesorg, an unarmed, at a political protest. Ohnesorg's death triggered mass protests throughout the nation and helped to shape the political views of countless young Germans who saw Kurras as a far-right extremist. Forty years after Ohnesorg's death, many Germans identify 2 June 1967 as an important date in their nation's history: the upheaval that followed in the wake of Ohnesorg's death profoundly affected life in the Federal Republic of Germany. Some Germans believe that it made the Federal Republic more democratic and more open, while others are convinced that it ushered in an era of social decay, but everyone agrees that it was significant.

on 21 May, two historians who were conducting research in the vast archives of the Stasi announced that they had inadvertently discovered compelling evidence that Kurras had been on the Stasi's payroll since 1955. Kurras, who was tried but never convicted of any crime, roundly denies that the Stasi ordered him to shoot Ohnesorg, and to date, no records indicating that the Stasi ordered Kurras to kill have surfaced. However, it is widely known that the East German government actively sought to destabilize the Federal Republic, and questions about Kurras's motivations have led many Germans to ponder their nation's recent past. If Kurras's Stasi ties had come to light sooner, would the the mass student and women's movements fueled, directly or indirectly, by outrage over Ohnesorg's death have been as large or as influential? Would the left-wing terrorist groups that plagued the Federal Republic in the 1970s existed had young radicals widely known about Kurras's true political beliefs? Would the Federal Republic be better or worse off?

In sum, a handful of archival records may ultimately cause an entire nation to reassess and reinterpret its recent past.

Cologne Archive update

A poignant article detailing the holdings of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne appears in the online edition of today's Los Angeles Times. It illuminates, in a very matter-of-fact and understated fashion, the emotional impact of the collapse and the recovery effort upon the archive's staff -- some of whom haven't returned to work since the building's collapse on 3 March -- and the roughly 1,000 volunteers who have worked at the site or are storing salvaged materials.

A brief piece centering upon a group of Czech archivists who volunteered at the site appears, interestingly, in the online edition of today's People's Daily (the official paper of China's Communist Party). According to this article, the Czech volunteers estimate that no more than 30 percent of the Cologne Archive's holdings will be "saved."

This figure contrasts quite sharply with that advanced by officials in Cologne: according to a recent Deutsche Press-Agenter news release, approximately 80 percent of the archive's holdings have been recovered.

I suspect that that, in a way, the Czech archivists and the Cologne officials are both correct: as the Los Angeles Times article makes plain, some of the materials are recovered intact, others are wet or torn to bits, and the process of sorting through the recovered documents and reassembling series and collections will be an arduous, years-long process. Moreover, some series and collections have no doubt been damaged so extensively that they are effectively lost; for example, if a handful of documents is all that remains of a voluminous series that spanned hundreds of years, those documents probably won't be of much use to scholars.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, the Irish Times published a reflective article focusing upon the impact of the archive's collapse on the family and friends of writer Heinrich Böll. After six years of careful negotiation, Böll's son and other relatives had transferred Böll's papers, which included photographs and manuscripts documenting Böll's frequent visits to Ireland, to the Cologne Archive in mid-February 2009. The disaster -- and what they see as grievous lack of communication from city officials -- has left them stunned, outraged, and deeply concerned about Böll's literary and political legacy.

Cologne Archives site in April: photographs

My friend and colleague Ray Lafever was visiting friends in Cologne, Germany a few weeks ago, and on 1 April he traveled to the site of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne, which collapsed on 3 March. Ray has graciously allowed me to post these photographs; he also took a short video, which I will post once I overcome some technical difficulties at my end.

The site from a distance; the green metal canopy that covers the rubble is behind and slightly to the left of the yellow-jacketed emergency personnel.

Ray took this image from the site's perimeter. Only authorized personnel and vehicles are allowed past this point.

Ray used a telephoto lens to take this picture. The recovery personnel, who are wearing black or orange jackets, are in the process of rescuing several large bound volumes.

Adjacent to the perimeter of the site is an impromptu memorial to the two young men who were killed when their apartment building, which was adjacent to the archives, collapsed on 3 March. There is something deeply touching about this simple, spontaneous remembrance.

Ray, thank you for allowing me to post these pictures.

Bettina Schmidt-Czaia, Cologne Archives

I honestly don't know how I missed it, but on 27 March the Guardian Weekly published Bettina Schmidt-Czaia's first-person account of the collapse of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne. Schmidt-Czaia is the director of the Historical Archive, and her matter-of-fact narrative is wrenching.

3 March 2009 began well for Schmidt-Czaia, who spent part of the morning reflecting upon the progress that she and her growing staff were making: they were improving the care of the collections and creating new programs and exhibits that raised the repository's public profile. However, shortly after lunch, an alarm went off, everyone was told to leave the building immediately, and everything literally fell apart:

I opened the door of the reading room on the ground floor, and was confronted with panic. People were running in different directions or frantically packing up their belongings . . . . The last thing I remember doing was shouting "Outside, everybody, outside!" And then I ran.

A few seconds after I reached the back door and ran out onto the street, the school yard behind our building collapsed. When I turned around I saw the upper part of the archive bursting into a big, brown cloud.

I screamed. A terrible pain grew in my stomach as I realised what was happening. Cultural remains, collected for much longer than hundreds of years, were being destroyed. And it was taking place within seconds.

Schmidt-Czaia discusses in detail the recovery effort taking place at the site and the impact of the collapse on the archive's donors and its users, which include not only scholars but also school groups, genealogists, and the many people who saw the archive's local history exhibits. Finally, she outlines her hopes for building a new archival facility in a different part of the city.

Schmidt-Czaia has all of the hallmarks of a truly top-notch archivist: love of the records in her care, deep concern for her staff, determination to carry on despite suffering inconceivable loss, and a clear vision for the future. No archivist worth his or her salt will fail to be humbled and moved by her simple, eloquent account of living through and responding to the unthinkable.

News from Cologne

Today, one month to the day after the collapse of the building housing the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne, city officials began looking for a suitable site for a new archival facility. It seems that the new archives will be situated in the city center.

The recovery effort at the site of the collapse will likely continue for several more months. Earlier today, the Express posted a gallery of images of archivists and emergency personnel painstakingly searching through the rubble.

Finally, residents of and firms located in Cologne have to date donated 135,000 euros for the victims of the collapse, which demolished several adjacent apartment buildings, and tomorrow charitable officials in the city will begin disbursing a second round of assistance. Two young men died as a result of the collapse, and a number of other people were left homeless.

Offices raided in Cologne

This isn't surprising: earlier today, state prosecutors in Cologne raided the offices of the building and engineering firms that were building a new subway line adjacent to the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne, which collapsed on 3 March. The raids encompassed approximately 40 different offices, including that of the city's public transit organization, and the records and other evidence seized will be used to determine responsibility for the collapse.

The construction of the new subway line is widely believed to be the cause of the collapse, and officials in Cologne learned a few days ago that contractor logbooks documented the existence of persistent groundwater problems in the segment of the subway tunnel adjacent to the archives.

More thoughts on Cologne

I somehow missed this Der Spiegel article, which was published last week and which highlights the monumental challenges that confront the archivists and conservators leading the recovery effort at the site of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne. The good news is that as much as 25 percent of the repository's holdings had already been recovered. The bad news is that the weather has not cooperated and that many of the recovered records will require intensive conservation treatment:

. . . The archivists are engaged in a race against time. Soon after the building collapsed, rain began falling on the ruins. Rubble is being brought to a dry warehouse so that workers can carefully sift through it in the search for documents. Once paper gets wet, though, damaging mold quickly sets in. Archive material is being sent to restoration facilities around the country where they will be flash frozen and then stored for two years before they can be cleaned.

It is an immense project, and one which will take years, if not decades, to complete. A restoration workshop in the city of Münster, for example, can restore up to 150 meters worth of documents per year. The material in the Cologne archive, however, took up fully 30 kilometers of shelf space. In addition, Markus Stumpf, who heads up the archival office in Münster, told Handelsblatt that "the personnel necessary for such a catastrophe simply doesn't exist."

Adding to the difficulties is the fact that many of the documents housed in the Cologne archive were parchment, instead of paper. "The parchment used for deeds in the Middle Ages is extremely sensitive to water," Jan op de Hipt, head restorer for the Hamburg state library, told the Hamburger Abendblatt. "Parchment is dried animal skin. When it comes into contact with water, it becomes very soft and begins to shrink."

The recovery effort is in its earliest stages, and the need for facilities, supplies, and expert personnel will not abate in a few weeks or months. If you are interested in helping, Archivalia and Salon Jewish Studies have compiled and translated lots of information for prospective volunteers and donors. Also, Frank Sobiech posted some additional information in a 10 March comment on this blog and Mark added another contact in an 11 March comment. Thanks to both of them for this information.

Thoughts on Cologne

I somehow missed an interesting commentary that appeared last week in the English-language section of Die Welt's Web site. The popular and official attitudes toward archives that Hildegard Stausberg identifies are by no means unique to Germany:

There are certain words that tend not to engage very much sympathy in a person, and "archive" has traditionally been one of them. It is generally associated with something dried out and perhaps a little dull. Could it be that the collapse of the Cologne city archives building will mark a change in this mentality in Germany?

Noting that "the narrowing of German history to the twelve revolting years of Nazi rule" is yielding to a fuller understanding of the nation's past, Stausberg highlights how the holdings of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne contributed to this development:

Heinrich Böll’s original school grades, the birth records of Konrad Adenauer, the scores of Jacques Offenbach, Sulpiz Bisserée’s Cathedral designs, the diary of the 16th Century alderman Heinrich von Weinsheim were all buried in the rubble. Merely the example of the Cologne “Schreinsbücher”(business records of plots of land) allow a glimpse at the scope of Cologne’s city history within the larger narrative of Germany; the records were a predecessor to land registration and therefore belong to the foundation of German law. And it only becomes clear in the instant that it disappears that the ruin of the largest city archive north of the Alps wasn’t only significant locally: Cologne’s catastrophe has European dimensions.

All too often, historical records really aren't missed or thought about until they've been lost or destroyed. I suspect that many Cologne residents who gave little thought to the Historical Archive while it was still standing are starting to realize that their city has suffered a staggering blow, and that many other people throughout Germany and the rest of Europe are beginning to grasp the enormity of what just happened.

We archivists have always tried to convey to the public, in plain and viscerally affecting terms, the importance of historical records and the cultural, legal, and economic losses that occur when archives are destroyed. As Stausberg points out, the disaster in Cologne may help to make the case for us:

What lessons can we take away from such a tragedy? The ruling school of thought in the Federal Republic of Germany has so far operated on the assumption that something stored in a distinguished city archive is safe – but the war generation [which kept the city's records safe despite heavy Allied bombing] certainly didn’t see things that way. Archivists and restorers will certainly do more work to document the treasures in future, both within Germany and abroad; copies of some sort will have to be made.

These are good, broadly applicable lessons, and the cost of learning them has been horrifically high. We should strive to reinforce them whenever possible.

Bad news from Cologne

A few hours ago, recovery personnel found a second body in the rubble in Cologne. Although the authorities are waiting for the autopsy results to confirm the victim's identity, it is likely that the body is that of the second young man who went missing after the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne collapsed on 3 March. What horrible news for the young man's loved ones; keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Recovery efforts in Cologne

Those of us whose German is weak owe a debt of gratitude to Frank Schloeffel at Salon Jewish Studies, who is translating into English Klaus Graf's Archivalia updates on the recovery effort at the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne.

The latest translated post brings some good news: three shifts of 20 volunteer archivists are working non-stop at the site, and "up to 15-20% of the archival inventory" has been recovered. Among the materials recovered are two manuscripts written by medieval German theologian Albertus Magnus, dozens of medieval codices, and four of the five volumes of the 16th-century chronicle written by Cologne Councilman Hermann von Weinsberg. Of course, the condition of the records varies widely: some are in astonishingly good shape, while others are wet, torn, or both, and others are likely unsalvageable.

Some amazing photos of the recovery effort and recovered materials are available via Bild (mouse over the image to make scrolling arrows appear), the Kölnische Rundschau, and the Express; American readers should note that the Express page may include content that would likely be considered NSFW in the United States.

(Hat tip: Felipe Diez of Solidarity Köln Historisches Archiv)

More on the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne

The news from Cologne is, in many respects, profoundly disheartening. Earlier today, recovery personnel found the body of one of the young men who had been missing after the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne collapsed on March 3, and the authorities believe that the other missing man is also dead.

The archival losses are also staggering:

The archive's collection of original documents included thousands from Cologne's golden age. The founding charter of the University of Cologne, signed in 1388, was inside, along with the documents that established Cologne as a free imperial city under Emperor Friedrich III in 1475. Two of the four manuscripts in the hand of Albertus Magnus, considered the greatest German theologian of the Middle Ages, were kept in the archive's rare books collection.

For historians trying to reconstruct the past, the greatest loss may be the more quotidian papers: Tens of thousands of receipts issued by the city government between 1350 and 1450, for example, or the 358 volumes of decisions and minutes of the Cologne City Council dating back 700 years.

The archives also contained the personal papers of almost 800 prominent German authors, politicians and composers, including Konrad Adenauer, the first post-war chancellor of Germany. The manuscripts and letters of Nobel Prize winner Heinrich Böll and Jacques Offenbach, a 19th century cellist and opera composer, were stored at the archive. Weimar Republic politician Wilhelm Marx and German-Jewish composer Ferdinand Hiller were among the other notables whose collections have been buried under tons of concrete.

The German archival community is working feverishly to salvage as much of this priceless material as possible, and my thoughts and prayers are with them. Archivists working at the site have already recovered some documents. The weather is not cooperating and the site itself is dangerous, but they press on nonetheless. Other archivists and conservators are in the beginning stages of organizing a mammoth recovery effort and collecting researchers' scanned images or digital photographs of materials held by the Historical Archive.

American archivists concerned about the fate of the Historical Archives owe a special debt of gratitude to Klaus Graf, who has tirelessly compiled and shared news about the disaster and the recovery effort. Many of us in the United States first learned about the catastrophe in Cologne from his March 3 messages to the Archives & Archivists listserv, and his Archivalia posts have been a crucial source of information for archivists around the world. Dr. Graf is also the administrator of a new Facebook group, Solidarity Köln Historisches Archiv, to publicize developments in Cologne, direct prospective volunteers to the organizations coordinating various aspects of the response, and highlight organizations that are accepting financial contributions for the victims' families and for the recovery effort; thanks also to Felipe Diez for starting this group.

Collapse of the Historic Archive of the City of Cologne

The building housing the Historic Archive of the City of Cologne (Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln) is now a pile of rubble. Fortunately, staffers, researchers, and onsite construction workers inside the building were alarmed by strange noises and left immediately before the structure collapsed earlier today. However, at the time of this writing, three people who were in buildings adjacent to the archives are still missing.

At present, the cause of the building's collapse is unknown. A new subway line is being built under the street in front of the facility, but the section of the tunnel adjacent to the building is apparently complete. The building may also have had structural problems.

Until today, the repository in Cologne was the largest municipal archives in Germany. It held 500,000 photographs and 65,000 documents dating back to 922, including manuscripts by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and materials relating to 20th-century writer Heinrich Böll. Government officials have promised to help salvage the archives' records, but street-level and aerial photographs of the building's remains suggest that many of the records are beyond recovery.

My heart goes out to the families and friends of the missing people, and I hope that all of them were able to escape before the building collapsed or are rescued as quickly as possible. My heart also goes out to the staff of the archives; the loss of records under one's care is incredibly painful. Finally, my heart goes out to the people of Cologne, who have lost a substantial portion of their recorded history.

I suspect that I'm not alone in wanting to send a message of support to my colleagues in Cologne, but at present I'm not sure how to do so. The Historical Archives of the City of Cologne has a "friends" organization, but its very small site lacks an e-mail contact; it does have a PDF copy of a flier about the organization, but the mailing address on the flier is that of the archives itself. I also checked the the Web site of the Federation of German Archivists (Verband deutscher Archivarinnen und Archivare e.V.), but at present it doesn't have any information relating to the collapse. I'll keep looking, and if I find an appropriate point of contact I'll be sure to post an update. And if anyone out there in cyberspace finds a suitable contact, please let me know.