Second life in book covers and file folders – a journey through time with parchment and paper waste

An exhibition by the Department of Archival and Library Science at the University of Public Service in Bavaria, curated by Amelie Knittel On display from February 10 to March 7, 2026, at the Bavarian Main State Archives. The reuse of used items is not a modern phenomenon: people have been recycling and upcycling since ancient times. In the 17th century, parchment was reused for envelopes, early printed materials were used as book spines, and after World War II, people often wrote on the back of already printed paper. The exhibition takes visitors on a brief journey through the various ways in which parchment and paper were reused in an administrative context and the curiosities that arose as a result. Around 20 exhibits from the Bavarian Main State Archives and the Munich State Archives illustrate in particular the nature of the reprocessing, the circumstances surrounding this process, and the contents of the items that were given a second life. On display from February 10 to March 7, 2026, in the main building of the Bavarian Main State Archives, 1st floor, Schönfeldstraße 5, 80539 Munich. Opening hours: Monday to Thursday 8:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. Friday 8:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Closed on Shrove Tuesday, February 17, 2026. Special opening for Archives Day on Saturday, March 7, 2026.   Admission is free.   Click here for the exhibition catalog. Guided tours for groups can be arranged at oeffentlichkeitsarbeit@gda.bayern.de.   Fig.: Exhibition poster; Nicole Edwards, GDA. Posted on February 10, 2026.   Related files Pressemitteilung_Makulaturen.pdf  Ausstellungskatalog_Makulaturen.pdf  

16.07.2019: Establishing an emergency network of the Landshuter Archives, Libraries and Museums

The Director-General of the State Archives, Dr. Margit Ksoll-Marcon, the Mayor of the City of Landshut, Mr Alexander Putz and the aegis of the Seligenthal Monastery, Sister M. Petra Articus sign on the 16th. July 2019 at 10 a.m. in Landshut State Archives, Libraries and Museums (“Landshuter Archives, Libraries and Museums”). The agreement includes: joint trainings and exercises, the preparation and exchange of emergency plans, and the permanent exchange of those responsible with each other and with external partners such as the fire department and the technical aid. For the hopefully never-ending emergency, the archives secure mutual support to bundle resources, as well as to ensure faster and more effective recovery and initial supply of the affected archives, books and exhibits. For the institutions involved, the protection of the cultural goods they hold against fire, water, external violence or other unpredictable events is one of the most important tasks. The past has shown that the staff of the individual institutions are often overwhelmed without external assistance, which has shown great disasters such as the Elbhochwasser 2002, the fire in the Weimar Anna-Amalia Library 2004 or the collapse of the historical archives of the city of Cologne 2009. Due to the fire of the Trausnitz Castle on 21 October 1961, which also seriously affected the state archive Landshut, which was then housed there, the city of Landshut and the Landshut archives had to make their own experiences with great fire disasters and damage to archivia and building material. The Landshut emergency association, established by the signing of this agreement, expressly invites the representatives of other cultural institutions in the Landshut city area to cooperate in the future. You can find a contribution to the Landshut emergency network in the Mediathek of Local Television for the Lower Bavarian Government District: ° https://landshut.niederbayerntv.de/mediathek/video/notfallverbund-landshuter-archive-bibliotheken-und-museen/ For more information on the work of emergency associations in Germany, see: http://notfallverbund.de/ On. 16.07.2019

02.12.2022: Constitutional Order for Director-General of the State Archive a.D., Dr. Margit Ksoll-Marcon

Among other things, Margit Ksoll-Marcon conceived and initiated various exhibitions on the history of the Bavarian Constitutions during her professional career. The aim was always to permanently anchor the Constitution as the basis of our community in the historical consciousness of the population. For many years, a further focus of their work was cross-border cooperation with Czech archives, making it an invaluable contribution to the confrontation with the alternating common history of the people in the Czech Republic and Bavaria and thus to international understanding. Margit Ksoll-Marcon has acquired great merits to preserve and share the constitutional history of the Free State. Press release of the Bayerische Landtag: https://www.bayern.landtag.de/current/certificate/constitutionalmedaille/hirung-der-verfassungsorden-2022/ To the funerals: https://www.bayern.landtag.de/fileadmin/Internet_Documents/press/W%C3%BCrdungen_Ordenstr%C3%A4ger_2022.pdf Constitutional Orders: https://www.bayern.landtag.de/current/labelling/constitutionalmedaille/ Posted on 5.12.2022

05.11.2019: Historical Missing Books in the Bavarian Main State Archive and the State Archive Munich

“Get away from the Inn on 27.1.76” or “taken up in Copenhagen on 11.11.75” – two fates of thousands of people from Bavaria who are reported missing every year at the police services. Most missing persons are found alive, individual cases end tragically. Unknown dead and unknown helpless people to register and identify is a difficult task of the police. These processes are coordinated in the field of personal identification of the Bayerische Landeskriminalamt. In August 2019, the Bayerische Landeskriminalamt handed over three large cartons with a total of 57 so-called missing books from 1926 to 1985 to the Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv. After a more precise analysis of their origin, the eleven older volumes from the period before 1945 were submitted to the State Archive Munich. These volumes come from a time when the Missing Books were still held centrally by the Munich police office for the whole of Bavaria. The State Archive Munich is responsible for its transmission. Thus, a central source with evidence of all persons missing in Bavaria, unknown dead and unknown helpless persons (VuT) from about 60 years is available for historical research. What was documented on paper in thick volumes by 1988 has been recorded electronically since then – these digital documents will also come to the Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv one day. The archiving of the missing books is an expression of the excellent cooperation of the Bavarian police authorities with the Bavarian state archives. Consciousness for the permanent preservation of historically valuable administrative documents shapes the contact between the police authorities and the competent archives. It is now the task of the Bayerischer Hauptstaatsarchiv and the Staatsarchiv München to develop the newly acquired missing books, to treat them conservatively and to make them accessible to interested researchers in accordance with legal requirements. If the National Criminal Office needs the one or the other band again, because all the last missing persons so far could still be clarified, there is the possibility of returning. As part of a press appointment in the Bavarian Main State Archive, the missing books were presented and historically classified. Posted on: 05.11.2019 Related files: Pressemitteilung

Cooperation of the State Archives of Bavaria with the Arolsen Archives

The detention centre in Munich-Stadelheim acted as a “central detention centre” in the Nazi justice system and is one of the main places of the Nazi injustice in Munich with over 1000 known executions by 1945. The 844 so-called execution files of the JVA München-Stadelheim, which have been stored in the State Archive Munich since 1975, contain more than 50 unsubscribed letters from execution candidates to particularly close persons. The then prison administration and the detention centres held these letters back. The execution files are freely accessible to all scientific and private research projects, the distortion information is available online via the Finder database of the State Archives of Bavaria. In order to take account of the particular importance which the execution files or the suicide letters of the executed still have, as sources of history for the NS injustice, but also as personal evidence for the descendants of the executed, the files were systematically checked, digitized and the original letters mentioned were identified. The Arolsen Archives are the international centre of Nazi persecution with the world's most comprehensive archive on the victims and survivors of National Socialism. They specialize in tracking the biographical traces of NS victims up to their relatives living today. In the case of execution victims from Munich-Stadelheim, these traces lead not only to German, but above all to Polish and French families. The aim of the cooperation agreed in April 2025 is the networking of the files of the State Archive Munich with the transfer of Arolsen Archives to 17.5 million victims of National Socialism. The Arolsen Archives will try to identify addressees of the suicide note and other survivors of the executed, to contact them and to hand them copies of the original letters on request. The project is accompanied by a conciliation campaign and public events. This connects the letters beyond the existing free archival accesses. First results were presented at the press conference on 23 July and the project progress was explained. More information about the Arolsen Archives can be found here. BU 1 v.l.n.r.: Dr. Julian Holzapfl, Head of the State Archive Munich; Floriane Azoulay, Director of Arolsen Archives, International Center on Nazi Persecution; Dr. Anke Münster, Arolsen Archives, International Center on Nazi Persecution, Head of Public Relations/ Project Management; Dr. Bernhard Grau, Director General of the Bavarian State Archives BU 2 v.l.n.r.: Dr. Bernhard Grau, Director-General of the Bavarian State Archives; Floriane Azoulay, Director of Arolsen Archives, International Center on Nazi Persecution; Dr. Anke Münster, Arolsen Archives, International Center on Nazi Persecution, Head of Public Relations/ Project Management; Dr. Julian Holzapfl, Head of the State Archive Munich BU 3: Dr. Julian Holzapfl, Head of the State Archive Munich presents original files Posted on 23.07.2025.

21.03.-20.05.2022: From the national park to the bee colony. 50 years Ministry of the Environment in Bavaria.

The small exhibition “From the National Park to the Beevolksbegehren” shows the diversity of the tradition of the environment stored in the Bavarian Main State Archive. 50 years of the Ministry of the Environment in Bavaria”, which until 20. May 2022 can be seen in the Bavarian Main State Archive. The Bavarian Ministry of the Environment was established in the European Nature Conservation Year 1970 by decision of the Bavarian Landtag. Since then, the environmental policy field has developed into a political-social long-term task with the aim of creating as much as possible equivalent and good living conditions throughout Bavaria. This includes a lively and healthy environment. Priorities in the history of the Ministry of the Environment were early environmental initiatives and educational measures, legislative initiatives such as the inclusion of environmental protection as a state goal in the Bavarian Constitution and the Bavarian Environmental Pact in 1995. There were also challenges such as environmental scandals, protests against the reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf, citizens' initiatives and popular desires. They also demonstrate the emergence of a new political culture of resistance and direct democracy. Place of exhibition: Schönfeldstraße 5, 80539 Munich, 1st floor Opening hours: Monday to Thursday: 8:30 am to 6 pm Friday: 8:30 to 13:30 Sundays and holidays, as well as Easter, 15th to 18th April closed The entrance is free. The exhibition is a catalogue in the series Small exhibitions published: 65: From the national park to the bee colony. 50 years Ministry of the Environment in Bavaria. An exhibition of the Bayerischer Hauptstaatsarchiv, Munich [1 December 2020 - 26.3.2021]. Conception and editing: Johannes Moosdiele-Hitzler, Thomas Paringer (Staatliche Archive Bayerns - Kleine Exhibitions 65), Munich 2020, ISBN 978-3-938831-99-1, 72 pp., numbered sw-Abb. € 4,00. Here is the archiving agreement between the Landesbund für Vogelschutz and the Bayerischer Hauptstaatsarchiv. Posted on 21. March 2022, updated on 26.4.2022.

07.10-14.11.2021: Night lights. From dark to light

On Thursday, 7. In October 2021, Dr. Rolf-Dieter Jungk, head of office in the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and Art, opened the light show “Nighter. From the dark to the light.” The show is a cooperation between the Bavarian State Archives and the Digital Media Artists Thomas Mahnecke and Angelika Meindl. The realization is promoted by the Bavarian State Ministry for Science and Art as part of the program Kultur.Digital. What to see in a state archive? What is hidden in these buildings? In the dark, the facade of the ↗State Archives Munich (Schönfeldstraße 3) into a colorful outer platform. The light show “Nighter. From the dark to the light“ brings outstanding cultural goods from the broad tradition of all the state archives of Bavaria to the public space. They become visible and experienceable. Organizer: Directorate-General for State Archives of Bavaria, Schönfeldstr. 5, 80539 Munich Artistic implementation: Thomas Mahnecke and Angelika Meindl When: 7 October to 14 November 2021, 7pm to 22pm The show is part of the programme for the Light Week 2020 of the City of Munich from 5 to 12. November 2020: ↗https://lichtwoche-muenchen.de/kalender/details/lichtshow-nachtlichter-vom-dark-ans-licht/ ↗Special opening (Long Night of Munich Museums): October 16th, 7 pm to 1 pm. The approximately 15-minute show runs daily from 7 p.m. to full and half an hour. Free admission An acoustic accompaniment via app is available for the light show, which can be reached in the following way: Please download the App "LIVE VOICE" on your mobile terminal. Now enter the code 217698 or click the following link: https://livevoice.io/listen/217698). Important notice: The light show contains stroboscope effects that can trigger epileptic seizures. Submitted on 7.10.2021