Military History Research Office (Germany)

Coat of Arms of the MGFA

The Military History Research Office (German: Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, MGFA) is an office of the Bundeswehr located at Potsdam, Germany.

Following a reorganisation in 2013, MGFA was consolidated with the German Army Social Sciences Studies Center (Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut der Bundeswehr to become the Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the German Army (Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr).

Mission

The Military History Research Institute was the central federal institution in Germany for all questions about German military history. Its mission included empirical, archive-based research in accordance with the accepted rules and standards of general historiography. It was a member of the network of historical research institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany outside universities. The institute fostered the cooperation with a large number of research institutes in Germany and abroad and contributed to topical debates among experts in military history.

The Library

The library holds extensive collections on national and international military history and other related research areas, social, legal and economic history, as well as political and military science. Research literature is one of its focal areas. Secondary literature on the military history of modern times, in particular the 20th Century, has continuously been acquired in the past decades. The new publications in this research area continue to be our main focus in acquisition today.

Although the library is comparatively young (40 years), it nevertheless comprises a considerable number of more ancient books. In the past years, antiquarian purchases, donations and bequests could be added to the current specialized literature. In many cases our libraries at Freiburg and Potsdam received books from the dissolved stocks of older libraries, as has been the case with the Officers Library of the Royal Bavarian 1st Heavy Cavalry Regiment, the War Historical Department of the University of Heidelberg, the Kiel Naval Academy, the Society for Reading and Relaxation in Bonn, the Austrian State's Archive in Vienna and the Stockholm Royal Military Service School. These collections date mainly from the 18th and 19th centuries. A great number of works from the 16th and 17th centuries have been compiled in a separate rare books section.


The private libraries bequested from the estate of the uniformologist Herbert Knötel Jr. (1893 to 1963) and of the expert in science and history of the ground forces Hans Bleckwenn (1912 to 1990) are special valuables of the library. The latter is probably the most complete private library on the history of the Prussian Army of the 18th Century. Its main focus lies on army organization, development of uniforms and the science and history of weapons of the time of Frederick the Great. The collection also contains very rare uniform manuscripts as well as an extensive image collection on European military affairs. The library also holds approximately 1600 unit histories of the ancient army up to 1918 and older ranking lists of the German and the Austrian armed forces from 1788 on. It further possesses an extensive collection of military regulations from the German Imperial Army up to the National People's Army. In the past years the library has succeeded in further enlarging its biographical collection. Thus, the users of the library have more than 8000 memoirs and literary portraits of persons of importance in military history from the 18th to 20th centuries at their disposal.

Finally, the library subscribes to numerous international magazines and can further make available a large number of historical periodicals of the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which are available as a complete series only in our library.

Museums

Three military history museums are under the administrative and technical command of the MGFA. These are the Militärhistorische Museum der Bundeswehr in Dresden which is in command of the Luftwaffenmuseum der Bundeswehr at the former RAF Gatow in Berlin, and the Königstein Fortress.

Timeline

Reorganisation

Effective as of January 2013, MGFA was reorganized and consolidated with the German Army Social Sciences Studies Center (Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut der Bundeswehr to become the Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the German Army (Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr, ZMS-Bw) in Potsdam. As of 26 November 2013, the web addresses www.mgfa.de and zmsbw.de direct to the same site.

Official website in German: Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/14/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.