Collection Feldhaus

The remains of the library of the State Office for the Cultural History of Technology (about 8,000 volumes) were handed over to the Kassel State Library after World War 2 and were kept there as the Feldhaus Collection. In 1976, the Landesbibliothek and the Murhard Library were transferred to the library of the newly founded University (then Gesamthochschule) of Kassel, and the Feldhaus Collection was incorporated into its holdings under the call number 36.

Within the framework of the project Cultural Tradition in Research Information Systems, the German Research Foundation supported the systematic library indexing of the library of the State Office from 1999 to 2003, which was thus made accessible to the public again.

The holdings are fully recorded in KARLA and can be ordered for use in the reading room of the Special Collections or via interlibrary loan. Particularly valuable items are being successively digitized and made accessible via the online archive ORKA.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, general interest in researching and presenting the history of natural sciences and technology in museums intensified in Germany. A milestone in this development was the opening of the Deutsches Museum in Munich in 1925, the planning and construction of which had dragged on for nearly a quarter of a century.

In Kassel, too, there had been efforts since about 1926 by the Historical-Physical Working Group to establish a Technical Museum. However, these plans did not take further shape until the mid-1930s, after Paul Adolf Kirchvogel had entered the service of the state museum as a scientific assistant under the director Prof. Karl Luthmer and soon thereafter also assumed the duties of the managing librarian of the Kassel industrial hall.

Kirchvogel was in charge of the extensive collection of globes, clocks, telescopes, mathematical and geodetic instruments of the astronomical-physical cabinet. Thus he was in charge of probably the most valuable pieces of the old technical collections of the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel. These date back to the time of Landgrave Wilhelm IV (1532-1592), who was extremely interested in mathematics and astronomy. Highly specialized designers and clockmakers worked at Wilhelm's court, helping the landgrave to build one of the most modern observatories of its time. Under Wilhelm's successors, too, interest in natural history and technical issues was lively at the Kassel court and contributed to the successive expansion of the related collections.

Paul Adolf Kirchvogel and Karl Luthmer revived the Working Group for the History of Technology in Kurhessen in 1936 and, with the help of Prof. Luthmer's excellent connections, pushed ahead with plans for a technical museum in Kassel. [1]

In September 1937, Franz Maria Feldhaus approached Kirchvogel and offered to donate his archive and reference library to the state under certain conditions. Feldhaus, a researcher and writer, had spent more than 30 years in Berlin compiling one of the largest private archives on the history of technology. His conditions for the donation were: the employment of his wife for life in the archive, and unrestricted access for him to the archive and library.

At this time, Feldhaus was in an existentially difficult situation: In 1936, the TH Aachen had, under political pressure, revoked the honorary doctorate he had been awarded in 1924. The Reichsschrifttumskammer had also expelled Feldhaus, which in effect amounted to a professional ban. At the end of 1938, the agreement between Feldhaus and the state governor Wilhelm Traupel was perfect, and Feldhaus moved with his wife and archive to Kassel. Traupel freed up rooms for the new state office for the cultural history of technology in the Kulturhaus at Königsplatz 59, the former Palais Schlieffen. Paul Adolf Kirchvogel brought the library of the Kassel Industrial Hall and its complete collection of all German patent specifications to the new office; the State Office for the Cultural History of Technology thus also became the official issuing office for the patent specifications of the German Reich Patent Office. The budget of the State Office provided for two staff positions: Margarete Feldhaus was kept on as administrative assistant, and Paul Adolf Kirchvogel took over as curator.

On April 3, 1939, Governor Wilhelm Traupel inaugurated the State Office for the Cultural History of Technology. At the same time, the Gauleiter for Kurhessen-Nassau Karl Weinrich opened an exhibition German Housing in Town and Country in the Kulturhaus, which was jointly organized by the Landesbauernschaft and the Handwerkerschaft. In their speeches, Traupel and Weinrich emphasized the connection between crafts and technology. Lord Mayor Gustav Lahmeyer welcomed Feldhaus to Kassel and presented him with the plaque of the city of Kassel in gratitude for his donation. Traupel received the plaque in silver for the creation of the Kulturhaus. In addition to Traupel, Weinrich, Lahmeyer, Feldhaus and Kirchvogel, the new director of the Kassel State Library Dr. des Coudres, Regierungspräsident v. Monbart, Landesbauernführer Seidler and Kreishandwerksmeister Stühler were also present at the opening. The Kurhessische Landeszeitung reported in detail on the event in its April 4 issue.

In 1940, Kirchvogel published an article in the journal Technikgeschichte des VDI ( History of Technology of the Association of German Engineers) on the objectives of the state office and cited the following as examples of his work to date: a small exhibition on the history of stage technology on the occasion of the conference of the Deutsche Bühnentechnische Gesellschaft (German Stage Technology Society) at the Staatstheater Kassel in 1939 and a collection of old craftsmen's coats of arms for the Amt für Berufserziehung der Deutschen Arbeitsfront (Office for Vocational Education of the German Labor Front) in Berlin. About the ongoing work of the State Office he wrote: "Environment, time and space, these are the three examination factors, are the touchstones, according to which the development of the individual technical cultural stages must be examined. Accordingly, the goal of science education in technohistory must be the developmental resolution of the interrelationships of technical creative power in relation to a given 'time-space-environment'. Criteria of epistemological, psychological and sociological nature will then have to serve as secondary means of examination. For the solution of these tasks, extensive material has been collected in recent months in the State Office, which will find its expression in the foreseeable future in the publication of chronological tables, which are based on these principles and which can thus also serve as a teaching guide for the future classification of the history of technology as a compulsory subject at the technical universities." [5]

"The beginning of the war did not allow the successfully started work to come to fruition. In December 1945, the then provincial governor dissolved the provincial office for what were said to be post-war reasons." - this is how Kirchvogel was to resignedly summarize the seven years of activity of the Landesamt many years later. [7] After the end of the war, in view of the destruction of the Kulturhaus, Governor Häring was determined to dissolve the Landesamt as such, despite the surviving holdings; according to Kirchvogel's recollection, Häring at the time "considered all cultural institutions to be out of place in the state administration." Then, in August 1945, a commando of the U.S. Army confiscated the patent document collection. Franz Maria Feldhaus recovered the card indexes of the State Office through the military administration, and the remains of the library returned home to Kassel and were temporarily housed in the basement of the State Art Collection. [8] Franz Maria Feldhaus moved with his wife to Wilhelmshaven in 1947 and began publishing again in the 1950s. After his death in 1957, his widow continued to run the archive for a while. From 1966, the Feldhaus archive was in the care of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and is now part of the Historical Archive in the German Museum of Technology in Berlin. [9] Paul Adolf Kirchvogel returned to the astronomical-physical cabinet of the Landesmuseum, which he made known through exhibitions and scientific work. Kirchvogel retired on April 1, 1971, but was to continue in charge of the cabinet for another four years. The Association of German Engineers awarded him the Medal of Honor in 1973 in recognition of his work in the history of technology. Until 1981, Kirchvogel continued to deal with the history of technology and provided information in response to inquiries to the State Museum; then he handed over his collected documents to the Hessian State Archives in Marburg.