Staatsarchiv Schaffhausen

Art. 47 para. 4 of the Constitution of the Canton of Schaffhausen stipulates that the cantonal authorities must permanently document and archive their actions in order to guarantee legal security. The tasks of the State Archives are derived from this requirement. They are regulated in detail in the Archive Ordinance.

As the "memory of the canton of Schaffhausen", the Schaffhausen State Archives are responsible for archiving documents of the cantonal offices and dependent institutions of the canton. It also takes over documents from the cantonal courts. As a historical archive, it also safeguards the records of the city-state of Schaffhausen up to 1830.

Of the documents that are created each year in the administration, not all can be permanently preserved simply because of their mass. The State Archives therefore examine documents from the administration and the judiciary for their lasting value for future generations, both from a legal and a historical point of view. A representative cross-section is formed from the documents on offer, which sometimes comprises only 1-2% of the documents on offer. Since the history of the canton is not only reflected in administrative records, the State Archives also takes over records from associations or private individuals.

The transfer to the State Archives turns the written material into "archival material", which is indexed in an archival database. This is the basis for using the archival records, which can also be researched online. The specialist staff advise users on their research and make the archive records available for consultation in the reading room. The State Archives also take various conservation measures for the long-term preservation of the archive material.

The Schaffhausen State Archives are presumably the only Swiss state archives still housed in a 17th century archival building. Those who work and research here can thus do so using today's technical possibilities in an archive building that has preserved a piece of cultural and administrative history in its architecture in a special way.

The history of the archive building dates back to 1610, when a treasure vault was established at the current location of Rathausbogen 4. In 1669, under the direction of city architect Heinrich Peyer, an archive room was built, which today is open to the public as a reading room for anyone interested. The iron door richly decorated with painted ornamentation and the Renaissance sandstone supraport with the painted coats of arms of the estates, mayors and councillors are considered special features of art history. The stucco ceiling is presumably by the well-known Schaffhausen stucco artist Samuel Höscheller.

Due to the steadily growing mass of written material, the archive building was extended several times in the past centuries. In 1732, the so-called "Censurube" of the neighbouring building was added to the archive and used for decades as the archivist's office. In 1885, the building was partially demolished, rebuilt and enlarged under the direction of cantonal architect Johann Christian Bahnmeier. In 1936, the building was raised by one floor.

Today, the archive building houses the reading room, offices and part of the stacks.

The spectrum of historical records ranges from around 6,000 documents to official books and files to a growing number of digital, digitised and hybrid documents. The total archive material comprises about 4 linear kilometres.

Since there has long been insufficient space for the approximately 4 km of archival material in the building at the Rathausbogen, the State Archives manage two external storerooms.