Ministerstvo vnitra I., Praha

  • Ministry of Interior I., Prague
  • NAD 1075
Identifier
1075
Language of Description
English
Dates
1918 - 1948
Level of Description
Fonds
Languages
  • Czech
  • German
Scripts
  • Latin
Source
EHRI

Extent and Medium

The fonds consists out of 2147 linear meters of processed and inventoried documents. 214 linear meters are unprocessed and inaccessible.

Creator(s)

Biographical History

The Ministry of the Interior was established in 1918, and drew on the official agenda of the former Austrian Governor's Office. Its jurisdiction included matters of the state administration, organization of state and self-government authorities, issues of citizenship, and emigration and state security forces. The office consisted of 18 departments and this pattern was maintained throughout its existence (1918-1939, 1939-1945, and 1945-1948). At the time of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the German population was excluded from its jurisdiction, falling under the specifically established German authorities and headed by the Office of the Reich Protector. After the 1942 administrative reform, some of the powers were transferred back from the German authorities to the Protectorate network of district and provincial authorities (headed by the Ministry of the Interior), and the leading posts of many offices were taken over by German officials. After the Second World War, the jurisdiction of the Ministry was restored in the form it had had during the pre-war Czechoslovakia, and was headed by a member of the Communist Party, Vaclav Nosek. This facilitated the Communists' seizure of power in 1948.

Archival History

Documents from the agenda of the Ministry of Interior were transferred only gradually to the former Central Archives in Prague. The files of individual departments and the agenda of the Presidium were put to storage in the archives in several stages in the 1950s. The files of the security forces were originally stored in the so-called Study Institute of the Archives of the Ministry of Interior, and only since 1989 they have been stored in this fonds (marked AMV).

Scope and Content

Documents of this fonds illustrate the broad scope of the agenda of the Ministry of Interior. It included, apart from the security and administrative matters, also minority and language issues, citizenship, population register, press and censorship issues, and also the agenda of the then non-existing Ministry of Social Welfare. The most valuable documents can be found mainly in the presidial part the fonds, where the events of the period can be studied from the situation reports of district and provincial authorities. Documents relating to the history of the Holocaust can mainly be found in the files of the second registry period (1939-1945) and include the issues of emigration, Jewish associations, Jewish refugees from the Sudetenland, Aryanization of Jewish property, and the establishment of ghettos. From the period after 1945, they also include the return of the survivors from concentration camps and their integration into the society, or the granting of the Czechoslovak citizenship.

System of Arrangement

This extensive fonds is divided into six basic structural parts: 1. The Presidium, 2. The Old Registry, 3. The New Registry 1936-1953, 4. The Border Files, 5. The L Department, 6. Amendments. Over the years, this fonds was provided with a total of 21 finding aids (inventories, catalogs, lists), some of them being available to researchers online at ww.badatelna.eu. Chronologically, the sources of this fonds are followed by the fonds II of the Ministry of Interior (1945- 1968).

Rules and Conventions

EHRI Guidelines for Description v.1.0

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