In the distant past, Charlemagne attempted to connect the rivers Rhine and Danube with a navigable canal. This mega construction project from the years 792/793 went down in history under the name Fossa Carolina (Karlsgraben). Although the canal was never completed, it is considered a prime example of medieval engineering. It is also one of the most important archaeological monuments from the early Middle Ages in Germany. The remains of the Fossa Carolina between Treuchtlingen and Weißenburg in Middle Franconia can still be seen today.
In the huge collection of the Bavarian state aerial photo archive in Neustadt an der Aisch there is a photograph from April 1957 that shows the Karlsgraben and its dimensions very clearly from the air. This image can be seen live on Saturday, because the Bavarian State Aerial Photo Archive is also taking part in the Day of Archives. Hourly archive tours from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. give visitors an insight into the collection, which contains many curious and mysterious aerial photos (registration under [email protected] or under Tel. 09161/8280299).
Since 2001, the nationwide Day of the Archives has been held every two years, and many Bavarian archives always open their doors to the general public. This year, however, the pandemic only allows a few face-to-face events, the state aerial photo archive, together with the Wasserburg city archive (Sunday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 to 5 p.m.), are among the few exceptions that receive the public directly in the archive. The Wasserburg Archive is one of the most important municipal archives in Old Bavaria. Instead, the Bavarian State Archives, in cooperation with Munich archives, invite you to a so-called blog slam from March 5th to 21st. The new blog “Archive in Bavaria” on the platform https://archivebay.hypotheses.org provides remarkable contributions from Bavarian archives. The Munich contributions appear on the blog “Archive in Munich” at https://amuc. hypotheses.org.
Almost everything can be found in the archives, including the estate of the “Meister Eder” actor Gustl Bayrhammer.
(Photo: Bayerischer Rundfunk)
The motto of the archive day, which this time is “Facts, Stories, Curiosities”, already arouses curiosity. As expected, it turns out that the archives also contain a wide variety of treasures for this complex – from adventurer reports from distant countries to records of Bavarian witch trials to poison recipes, royal birth certificates and even the estate of “Meister Eder” actor Gustl Bayrhammer. It is still not generally known which exciting and almost unbelievable stories are lying dormant in the magazines and are just waiting to be discovered. When Margit Ksoll-Marcon, the general director of the Bavarian State Archives, speaks of “facts in abundance”, that is by no means an exaggeration. The archive day poster, which shows playing cards and a pistol, shows the curiosities that open up there. As Ksoll-Marcon explains, the pistol is a murder weapon from the 1920s, which remained in the case files because it was forgotten to be returned to the evidence room at the time. A murder knife from a 16th-century trial by the Imperial Supreme Court was also left lying between the files. So the archives have a lot of “crime” to offer. No wonder, as Ksoll-Marcon has noticed in recent years, that writers are increasingly turning to the archives to be inspired by the old cases and dramas. Life is raging there, so to speak, all the highs and lows of being human are documented in millions and millions of documents.
The picture kept in the Coburg State Archives is also curious and shows Queen Victoria of Great Britain driving out in a mule-drawn carriage in 1894. It comes from the photo album kept in Coburg, which was made for the wedding of Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse in April 1894. Queen Victoria, the grandmother of the bride and groom, was also visiting at the time. Despite the distance, the photo that shows her on the exit can be described as lovely.
This print from 1511 commemorates the time of witch hunts and witch trials.
(Photo: Bavarian State Archives)
Of course, state documents are only part of the rich analogue and digital heritage. In Bavaria, in addition to the state archives, there are, for example, numerous university, business, municipal, church, private, party, film and literary archives. The website provides an overview of the archives involved in the archive day and what they have to offer vda.archiv.net. Six Bavarian church archives are also taking part with an all-day online event, namely five Catholic diocesan archives (Eichstätt, Munich and Freising, Passau, Speyer, Würzburg) and the Nuremberg-based state archive of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. Under the motto “Open all the time!” inform them about how many of their files and offers are already available online, which is not least helpful for genealogists and family researchers. The project “Critical online edition of the diaries of Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber (1911-1952)” funded by the German Research Foundation, which cooperates closely with the Archbishop’s Archive in Munich, also allows a glimpse into its work on the archive day.
The fact that archive material is anything but dusty is shown by the Bamberg State Archives, which spread three cases of conspiracy stories and fake news from Bamberg’s history at the blog slam. It shows that people everywhere and at all times have sought explanations for natural disasters and social change, and fought against feelings of disadvantage. Alleged culprits were quickly found: witches, immigrants and Jews.