folder-by-folder basis - a broader view of contexts
and circumstances is required.
He explains the aims of appraisal, such as enabling
later users to have a complete insight in how the
agency worked. It should be evident how difficulties
were countered. It is evidence which is the aim of
processing archives and especially of appraisal, and
this evidence must be accessible to the user. Not the
rapidity of processing archives is the main object,
but the complete scientific understand ing of the
records. When Zipfel wrote that the individual
characteristics of each agency must be respected and
therefore no catalogues but only guidelines were to
be formulated, provenance to him no longer simply
meant topographical or organizational origin but it
involved specific functions and duties. The guide
lines contained a list of 18 points in which both
aspects - evidential value and informational value -
were to be found, even if they were not pronounced
explicitly. Point 13, for instance, stated that those
records had to be kept which showed in detail how
the agencies worked. This meant that evidence
should be laid bare. Other paragraphs included that
if statistics were available the source material had to
be kept only to prove the accuracy of the aggre
gation of data. In other words, information in the
sense of informational value had to be kept where it
was most concentrated and best accessible. Even if
no theoretical basis is formulated, the distinction
between primary and secondary values is implicitly
made. And also the criteria for retention can be
divided into those aiming at making accessible
evidence and those aiming at delivering factual
information. We can see that the Schellenbergian
way of thinking is present here, thirty years before
his bulletin. Moreover, some of these points seem to
have been models for his later formulations.
Zipfel's article is one of the first examples in the
German archival literature in which the actual
practice of appraisal is described. It shows the
practical approach at a given moment and with
regard to a special sort of material. It does not
intend to formulate a theory of appraisal, but
certain theoretical premises are implied, premises
which can also be found in contemporary ideas
about provenance.
Provenance as a basis
for archival theory
At the same time a theory was developed in the
courses of the Institut für Archivwissenschaft,
where the principle of provenance was explained in
such a way that it might well have become the basis
for a theory on appraisal. However, this combina
tion was not achieved in Germany. It was the work
of the National Archives in Washington, of Salmon
Burk, and it was formulated by Theodore
R.Schellenberg, obviously after discussions with
the German immigrant Ernst Posner.
The principle of provenance derived from the
practical need to handle records of recent origin
which did not fit into the older schemes. When it
was formulated for the Prussian archives in 1881 it
was nothing but a scheme for the arrangement of
archives which stated that records of the same
origin should be kept together. Traditionally it had
been an organizational principle, when spheres of
responsibility and acquisition of archives were
defined according to administrative structures. It
was also a principle of historical research, indicating
where appropriate sources for certain research
questions could presumably be found. In the 1930s
Adolf Brenneke, archivist and professor at the
former Prussian Institut für Archivwissenschaft
(IfX), proposed a fourth meaning which he called
the 'free principle of provenance'.
By this he meant that records could be arranged in
such a way that they showed their organic growth,
without these records ever having been in that
order before.9 The principle can be summarized as
commonness of purpose on the basis of common
origin. Brenneke proposed to replace the more
biological understanding of organic development as
expressed in the manual ofMuller, Feith and Fruin
by a more historical meaning which would
acknowledge particular historical influences on the
actual shape of a fonds. The original order of a
fonds is not necessarily the best way of representing
the organic structure. Every fonds must therefore
be analyzed and arranged according to its intrinsic
criteria. Often the archivist will have to create the
order which most clearly shows the relations and
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networks among the various elements of the whole.
Thus Brenneke formulated a purpose and function
of archival work, namely to analyze fonds and to
establish finding aids. Finding aids must provide
non-verbal access to the signs and indicators which
clarify and explain the relations between the records
as well as the reasons for their existence.
The highly developed Prussian administrations are
at the background of this archival theory. This
administrative structure, characterized by the
impersonality of tasks together with individual
responsibility for decisions, founded on specialized
professional qualifications10 was the image of the
Prussian administration by the end of the 19th
century that Max Weber was looking at.11 It
developed in a country which had acquired its
power and political importance rather late, and
which was thus less influenced by older admini
strative traditions than other territories in Germany
or other European countries. Geographically and
administratively it was far removed from the central
powers of the Holy Roman Empire, so that the
comparatively young administrative structures were
less influenced by Roman Law and there are still
traces which can be considered as an heritage of
Germanic law. A characteristic element of the
German legal tradition is the fact that paper or
parchment played a less important role. In cases of
private purchases or contracts the authenticum, the
legal proof was in the head, in the memory of the
participants. Authenticity was with the people, not
with the paper. The notarized certification as in the
Roman tradition was not felt to be necessary. So
instead of the Latin saying 'quod non est in actis
non est in mundo' Germanic law would have said
'what I cannot remember is not in the world.' In
the words of Hugh Taylor it is perhaps correct to
characterize this sort of written witness, which is
only support, not authenticum, as conceptual
orality.12
The records had to provide posterity with support,
not with proof, of the communications oriented
towards the common purpose and so they had to
make processes work. Administrations do not
document society, they change it where changes are
felt to be necessary and affordable. Consequently,
their records do not document an image of society,
they only contain that information on outside facts
or phenomena which is needed for the common
purpose - no more, no less. They show, however,
how the processes work and thus they provide the
context necessary for an understanding of the
factual information.
The archival theory which was based on experien
ces gained before World War 11 with such admini
strative structures and which was formulated in the
lessons of Brenneke, Meisner and others at the IfX
in the 1930s had no influence on the German
debate of the last fifty years. Postwar Germany
rejected approaches to appraisal and sometimes
even description based on the principle of
provenance claiming that it belonged to the 19th
century. Developments abroad were also not
recognized.
It is really astonishing that for instance Schellen-
berg's ideas found no resonance in Germany, where
they seemed to originate.'3 Not until the 1980s
were there any references to his ideas in German
archival literature, even though his bulletin on the
Appraisal of Modern Public Records was available
in a German translation. Bodo Uhl explains this
phenomenon by the fact that German archivists
were first and foremost historians and thus they
were too much concentrated on the content of
sources to realize the applicability ofSchellenberg's
concept.'4 The political taboos in postwar
Germany with regard to Prussia probably also stood
against the linking up with the ideas of the 1930s.
The conditions of the Cold War reinforced
content-oriented appraisal on both sides of the Iron
Curtain. Since the late 1960s the 'Entspannungs-
Politik' hampered public criticism about socialist
states and free professional discussion between East
and West which, as far as archives were concerned,
always had political implications. Not until 1989
did an open professional debate seem to become
possible without an implicit or explicit
demarcation line between political enemies or
friends.
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