History of the Municipal Archives

Losses Due to the Destruction of the City

The city’s ravage in 1689 entailed the loss of valuable stocks. While the municipal charters weathered time relatively unscathed, the archive material of the clerical institutions have been scattered to the four winds. Most of them ended up in a large number of state archives, especially in the Hessian State Archives.

Examination and Reorganization

Originally stored in the old archive vault of the Bürgerhof, the stocks had been evacuated several times. Securing and reorganizing them thoroughly only succeeded in the late 19th century after several failed attempts. With the financial aid of the leather factory owner and MP Cornelius Wilhelm von Heyl zu Herrnsheim, Professor Heinrich Boos from Basel started to reorganize the old stocks in 1880, a classification still in use today. Moreover, he published the city’s charters and chronicles in a three-volume work and wrote a four-volume history of the city.

Move to the Rashi House

After a heavy losses (predominantly of more recent documents of the municipality) in early 1945, the major part of the documents was taken to the old site and to the House of the Cultural Institutes (today’s Municipal Library). In 1982, most of the stocks—with outposts excepted—were shifted to the Rashi House.

As from 1996, the plan of the inner structure of records was reorganized and a clearer diving line was drawn between the different stocks.

Since 2000, the Archives have storage rooms in four of the municipality’s buildings. In 2005, an important measure was taken to preserve the stocks when the depot in the Rashi House was air-conditioned. A number of significant legacies and other stocks have been acquired and indexed in the last couple of years. The Archives are endeavouring to complete the indexing of all stocks that have not been indexed yet.

Information for Download

If you are interested in a detailed history of the Municipal Archives, you can download it as a pdf here (German only).

… more on the history of the Municipal Archives

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