Digitalization of the record group C 20 I Oberpräsident Magdeburg. Allgemeine Abteilung (1815-1944) of the state archives of Saxony-Anhalt

• Applicant: Dr. Detlev Heiden
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2018 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 392594583

The Oberpräsident was the Prussian central authority in the province of Saxony, which was established in 1815. It was both a supervisory and executive governmental body. Due to its supervision of the administrative activities of the state authorities, the correspondence between the three district governments (Magdeburg, Merseburg, Erfurt) and the other provincial authorities up to the year 1945 is also represented in this archival holding. In addition, the Oberpräsident had independent administrative tasks, such as the direct superintendence of the provincial authority for church, school and medical affairs.The Oberpräsident is the essential authority in regard of the past Prussian period of today's Saxony-Anhalt and thus the files belong to the historical most relevant ones of the state archives. Furthermore the Prussian province of Saxony comprised territories, which are today under the administration of the federal states of Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, which underlines the supraregional importance of the documents. As well this is reflected in the fact that, thanks to its high-quality and completely online accessible archival description, the collection has been for years one of the most widely used in the state archives. For this reason, a digitization of the entire inventory (approximately 443 linear meters) is planned during a promotion period of three years in order to enable interested parties to process a wide range of research questions using the sources provided here, independent of location and time.An older micro-filming from GDR-times is inadequate in quality, which is why the films have not been presented in the reading room as a medium for a long time. In particular, because of the Prussian thread stitching, a high loss of information on the inner edges arose during the filming at that time. A digitization from the original is therefore indispensable.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)