Dear Colleagues,

We have all heard the reports of scholarly catastrophe in Europe: the fire in the Anna Amalia Library in 2004; the collapse of the City Archive of Cologne in 2009. They are immeasurable scholarly losses: two valuable collections of rare books and archival documents, unique sources from the past that can never be replaced.

I write today to alert you all to developments that threaten another great cultural treasury. The City Archive of Augsburg is now one of the most important city archive in Germany, housing the greatest collection of documents for a single city from the period between the early eleventh and the early nineteenth century. On the basis of its serial collections alone, it is arguably the most valuable city archive for research in the late medieval and early modern periods, when Augsburg was one the greatest cities of the Empire and of Europe, a metropolis of commerce and culture, home to Fugger and Welser as well as to Breu and Holbein, site of the Augsburg Confession and the Religious Peace. Located in a nineteenth-century Bürgerhaus, however, this great archive is at great risk. The current situation meets modern standards for neither study nor preservation.

Those of you who are familiar with the City Archive know from personal experience that the reading room is small, stuffy and shabby. It lacks sufficient space for regular users. It lacks up-to-date catalogues to access the collections. It lacks sufficient, secure electrical outlets to permit the use of personal computers by all users. Such conditions are not only an inconvenience for scholars but also a strain for both staff and collections

Far more important is the current situation of the collections themselves. As a result of their sheer size, the collections far outstrip the available shelf space, so that a large percentage lays, uncatalogued and unshelved, in cartons in the basement. Given the age of the structure and surrounding construction, that basement is given to periodic flooding with predictable and consistently lamentable results for the documents. Shelved documents are, in fact, no more secure, because there is no automated fire-suppression system. Given the age of the electrical and heating systems in the house, the threat of an uncontrollable fire is a real and constant presence. All of these conditions contribute to an environment in the stacks that has encouraged a proliferation of so-called bookworms. These pests enter archives and libraries through poorly fitting windows and doors and proliferate where dust, dirt, heat, darkness, and poor ventilation prevail. The mature female insect lays her eggs on the edges of books, or in the crevices between quires, and the hatched larvae burrow into the books, riddling them with tiny tunnels. Thus, even as flood and fire threaten the collections of Augsburg’s City Archive, the documents as of this writing are quite literally being eaten away.

These are deficiencies, for which the archive’s committed, professional staff cannot entirely compensate. Though its number has increased in the last few years—to say nothing of the level of its professional training—and its achievements in matters of conservation, organization and exhibition have won well-deserved praise, it cannot be expected to contend with the challenges that confront them.

The situation has reached crisis. Plans are now in hand to close the City Archive for three years, beginning next summer, to permit the fumigation of the building. Not only will the collections be unavailable for use, but the measures themselves will prove futile. Experts have already reported the building so infested and so unsuitable that the only hope for Augsburg’s unique historical record is to find it a new, safe home.

These developments are not new, but the city government of Augsburg refuses to act. It has recognized the problems by undertaking exploratory studies to move the archive to a new location, where its collections can be appropriately stored and studied, but it has not rescued the City Archive, claiming budgetary restrictions. Fiscal considerations may be part of the explanation, but a failure to appreciate the cultural and scholarly importance of the historical record also plays a role. The city government has, for example, acquired millions in new debt to underwrite the construction of a new football stadium, among other “cultural” projects. In brief, the political leadership neither knows what is in its archive, nor accepts responsibility for it.

This is where each of us can help. I have been asked by our colleagues, Professor i. R. Dr. Rolf Kießling, Lehrstuhl für Bayrische und Schwäbische Landesgeschichte der Universität Augsburg, and Professor Dr. iur. utr. Christoph Becker, Lehrstuhl für Bürgerliches Recht, Römisches Recht und Europäische Rechtsgeschichte der Universität Augsburg, to organize a letter-writing campaign among American colleagues to save the City Archive. Let me therefore ask each of you who see the scholarly importance of the Augsburg City Archive and the human importance of cultural memory to write to the Bürgermeister of Augsburg, urging him to preserve the archive by moving it without delay to its planned, new home in the renovated structure of the Augsburger Kammgarn-Spinnerei. Letters should be sent to:

Oberbürgermeister Dr. Kurt Gribl
Maximilianstrasse 4
D-86150 Augsburg
GERMANY.

By writing, we have the opportunity to help prevent a catastrophe, rather than merely to read and grieve about it after the fact.

Thank you for your help. Please contact me, if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Thomas Max Safley

Professor Dr. Thomas Max Safley
Department of History
208 College Hall
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6379
USA
tel. 215.898.2186 / 8452
tsafley@history.upenn.edu