Metadata: W. Schimmelpfeng Information Office – German Intelligence Agency
Collection
- Country:
- Poland
- Holding institution:
- State Archive of Wroclaw, Kamieniec-Ząbkowicki branch
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiwum Państwowe we Wrocławiu, Oddział Kamieniec Ząbkowicki
- Postal address:
- Plac Kościelny 4, 57-230, Kamieniec Ząbkowicki
- Phone number:
- (+48 74) 8173540
- Web address:
- http://www.ap.wroc.pl/
- Email:
- kamieniec@ap.wroc.pl
- Reference number:
- PL 84/635
- Title:
- W. Schimmelpfeng Information Office – German Intelligence Agency
- Title (official language):
- Biuro Informacyjne W. Schimmelpfeng – Niemiecka Wywiadownia Sp. z o.o.
- Creator/accumulator:
- W. Schimmelpfeng Information Office
- Date(s):
- 1901/1945
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 190 linear metres (90,000 folders)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The available records of the W. Schimmelpfeng Information Office date from the years 1901–45; the remaining units, from before 1901, are being edited. The fund is incomplete, with entire unit groups lacking for individual localities (for instance, documents regarding enterprises whose names begin with certain letters). Territorially, the collection covers localities in Lower and Upper Silesia (including the present-day Polish-Czech borderland), Lusatia, portions of today’s Lubuskie Voivodeship (incl. Zielona-Góra [formerly Grünberg in Schlesien]) as well as parts of the pre-World War 2 Voivodeships of Krakow (a particularly abundant section), Lwów and Tarnopol.
The units comprise a brief history of the business company or a curriculum vitae of the owner, information provided by informants, credit debt, earnings (for natural persons), goodwill or corporate value (as at the report date), a questionnaire filled out by the owner as requested by the Office (for enterprises), newspaper cuttings (e.g. notifying the company’s registration), obituaries of the owners, merger/wind-up or bankruptcy announcements and, at times, balance-sheets (as published in the press). Information can also be found on the establishment date, transfer, inheritance, dissolution and Aryanisation of the company. Biographies of the owners, assets/liabilities status (income vs. indebtedness) as well as family status are included. The owner’s background is at times remarked on the envelope or in the respective documents (freehand annotations: ‘Nichtarier’/’nichtarisch’ [‘non-Aryan’]), along with information on takeover through Aryanisation. This enables the tracing of histories of the Jewish enterprises and their proprietors. The proportion of units related to Jewish businesses varies by share of the Jewish community in the locality’s population.
For Reichenbach in Schlesien/Reichenbach im Eulengebirge (renamed since 1946 as Dzierżoniów), the fund comprises the following units describing Jewish enterprises: Georg Cohn Geschäftsführer (ref. no. 822/31), Frau Cohn (ref. no. 822/320); Ludwig Danziger Modenwaren (ref. no. 822/33); Magdalene von Einem geb. Kassel Rentiere (ref. no. 822/58); A. Fleischer G.m.b.H. (ref. no. 823/12); Willy Fleischer (ref. no. 823/13); Ephraim Glatzer Garnagentur (ref. no. 823/50); Siegfried Grossmann/Max Warschauer (ref. no. 823/72); Paul Herrnstadt Vertretungen (ref. no. 823/124); Hermann Hirch Kunstgewerbehaus (ref. no. 823/135); Helene Reis (ref. no. 825/37); Unger & Wolff Holzhandlung (ref. no. 826/50); Herbert Unger Kaufmann (ref. no. 826/51); Gustav Wachsner Landwirt (ref. no. 826/58); Breslauer Engrosslager Iwan Weissfeld (ref. no. 826/73); Albert Weÿl Fabrikbesitzer (ref. no. 826/79); Leni Cohn (ref. no. 827/17); “von Einem & A. Schoeler“ Agenturen (ref. no. 827/36); A. Fleischer Baumwollspinnerei, Buntweberei, Farberei, Apreturanstalt (ref. no. 827/48); Willy und Ernst Fleischer Kaufleute (ref. no. 827/51); J. Gruschka & Co Sport und Berufsbekleidungs-Einzelhandlung (ref. no. 827/79); Wilhelm Jacob (ref. no. 45/89).
- Archival history:
-
The collection originally served as the documentation for the Information Office established and run by W. Schimmelfeng. The Office operated pursuant to a 1,500-article set of in-house rules and regulations titled Vorschriften der Auskunftei W. Schimmelpfeng; economic reports or statements were prepared with use of press releases and public commercial registers.
After World War 2, the (unedited) collection became part of the then-emerging State Archive of Wroclaw. In 1992, the collection was transferred to the Archive’s branch in Kamieniec-Ząbkowicki. The fund is presently being edited; hitherto, the editorial work has been done by Dr B. Grygorcewicz and Dr K. Drożdż.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The founder of the company whose documentation is available in the fund was Wilhelm Schimmelpfeng, a merchant, who opened in 1872 in Frankfurt am Main an office he called ‘Auskunfts und Kontrollbureau über geschäftliche insbesondere Kreditverhältnisse’. The business initially focused on checking credit information (creditworthiness, economic analysis).
A branch office opened in Berlin before the year ended. Shortly afterwards, more branches were set up – in Hamburg, Dresden, Leipzig, Cologne, Hannover, Munich, and Breslau (now Wroclaw). The subsequent years saw the opening of branch offices in more cities and countries. More came in the early years of the twentieth century, in Constantinople as well as in Denmark, Italy, and Portugal; later on, also in St Petersburg in the Russian Empire. Bratislava and Prague were the locations in the area of Czechoslovakia. 1913 saw the emergence of affiliated offices of the Petersburg branch – in Warsaw, Riga, Moscow, and Odessa. By 1914, the company expanded to Serbia, Greece, Romania and as far as Egypt, Australia, and Japan. In 1897, the year of its twenty-fifth anniversary, the company boasted nearly 600 members of staff and branch offices in twenty countries across Europe. With ten clerks employed at the two Office agencies in 1872, the number of staff increased steadily, numbering 100 in 1881, 353 in 1890, 1,157 in 1901, 1,750 in 1906 and as many as 2,500 in 1913. After the founder died in 1907, his sons Richard and Hans-Adolf took over the company’s management.
- Access points: locations:
- Dzierżoniów
- Subject terms:
- Plunder
- Plunder--Aryanisation
- Trade and commerce
- System of arrangement:
- The records are arranged alphabetically, by name of city/locality, and therewithin – alphabetically, by name of business (company) owner. The information on individual companies/partnerships, persons, and institutions are gathered for each of them separately in open half-envelopes forming a sort of file or catalogue.
- Access, restrictions:
- The collection is available in the reading room of the State Archive of Wroclaw, Kamieniec-Ząbkowicki branch.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute
- Author of the description:
- Anna Grużlewska, Leszek Ziątkowski; University of Wroclaw; 2015
