The Bamberg State Archives is one of eight state regional archives in Bavaria. It catalogs and secures the records of all state middle and lower authorities and courts in the Bavarian administrative district of Upper Franconia from the beginning of the 19th century to the present day (with the exception of the independent city and district of Coburg -> Coburg State Archives). It also holds the holdings of the territories located in the eastern part of the Franconian Imperial District from the time of the Old Reich.

The core of the Bamberg State Archives goes back to the archives and registries of the Bamberg Abbey, which was founded in 1007. In the course of the secularization of the ecclesiastical states and the abolition of the monasteries in 1802/1803, the holdings of the cathedral chapter and the mediate monasteries and convents were also transferred to the premises of the old Hochstiftsarchiv in the Neue Residenz in Bamberg. Here, at the former seat of the prince-bishops, the last Bamberg Hochstiftsarchivar Paul Oesterreicher worked hard to establish the electoral archive, which became the royal Bavarian archive in 1806.

The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in 1806 brought the takeover of the archives of the Franconian Imperial District and three knightly cantons (Baunach, Gebürg, Steigerwald) to the already bursting house. With the purchase of the Prussian principality of Bayreuth by the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1810 and the subsequent transfer of the archives and official records from Kulmbach (Plassenburg) and Bayreuth to Bamberg, the foundations for the rich old holdings of today's Bamberg State Archives were completed.

Although the seat of government of the Mainkreis (from 1817: Obermainkreis, from 1838: Oberfranken) was moved from Bamberg to Bayreuth in 1810, the state archives remained in the cathedral city.
The Bavarian archive reorganization of 1812 marked a turning point: with the establishment of the General Imperial Archive in Munich, the state archive in Bamberg lost its independence and was temporarily demoted to an external archive. Important documents and codices up to the arbitrarily determined cut-off year of 1400 had to be sent to Munich, but returned to Bamberg in 1993 as part of the Bavarian inventory consolidation.

In 1905, the Bamberg State Archives - then still known as the “District Archives” - were given their current location in the Hain with a representative archive building in neo-baroque style. Its capacity had already reached its limits in the 1930s, but was subsequently expanded by two storage buildings (1961 and 2019). The building complex in its current form thus also reflects a piece of archive construction history of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The total holdings comprise almost 2.8 million archival records covering more than 27.5 linear kilometers (as at the end of 2023), including around 80,000 documents and 2,300 maps and plans in addition to files and official records. Non-governmental documents such as estates, association documents and archival collections such as posters, pictures and photos, leaflets, seals and printed matter supplement the official records. These holdings are constantly being expanded through active collecting activities. Particularly noteworthy are the numerous archives of nobility and estates (e.g. Guttenberg zu Guttenberg, Giech zu Thurnau, Würtzburg zu Mitwitz, ...) as well as important estates from politics (including Karl Stein von Altenstein, Karl Theodor Frhr. v.u.z. Guttenberg), science (Benedikt Krafft, Erich Frhr. v. Guttenberg) and nobility (Oskar von Schaumberg, Otto von Waldenfels, Emil Marschalk von Ostheim, ...).

In addition to traditional use in the reading room, the Bamberg State Archives promote free access to all suitable holdings and finding aids. Currently, around 450,000 archive records can be searched online and over 5,000 digital copies have been made available (-> https://www.gda.bayern.de/service/findmitteldatenbank/Archiv/4). As an open house of history, the State Archives maintains close cooperation with the universities of Bamberg and Bayreuth as well as the various history associations in Upper Franconia and beyond. By means of our own exhibitions - most recently posters from the 1924 election campaign -, themed guided tours, archival education and digital mediation services, we aim to draw attention to the unique archive holdings we hold and encourage research.

Holdings of the State Archives Bamberg on Archivportal-D.

Kontakt

Staatsarchiv Bamberg
Hainstraße 39
96047 Bamberg
E-Mail: poststelle [at] staba.bayern.de
Telefon: 0951/98622-0
Weitere Informationen finden Sie auf der Homepage der Staatlichen Archive Bayerns (www.gda.bayern.de)
Öffnungszeiten:
Mo-Do 8-16 Uhr
Di, Mi 16-18 Uhr
Fr 8-12.30 Uhr