- Reichsfilmarchiv
The Reichsfilmarchiv ("Reich Film Archive") was the state film archive of the
Germany of theThird Reich . The first German national film archive, it was opened in 1935, and based inBerlin . It ceased to exist in 1945, when its film stock was either destroyed or seized by the Soviet army.History
The "Reichsfilmarchiv" was opened on
4 February 1935 inHarnack House , Dahlem, Berlin, in the presence ofAdolf Hitler andJoseph Goebbels , with an enormous flurry of propaganda. It soon gained a high international reputation. When the "Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film" (FIAF ) was established as an international joint film archive inParis in 1938, the "Reichsfilmarchiv" was one of the four founding members.After their arrival in Berlin in April 1945, Soviet troops seized the "Reichsfilmarchiv" and took possession of all its surviving film material. In 1947 its place was filled in
West Germany by the "Archiv für Filmwissenschaft " ("Archive of Film Science"), set up inMarburg by Hanns Wilhelm Lavies, while inEast Germany it was succeeded by the "Staatliches Filmarchiv der DDR " ("State Film Archive of the DDR"), established in 1955.Collections
At the time of its opening the film archive already held more than 1,200 films, some transferred from their previous place of deposit in the "
Reichsarchiv Potsdam " ("Imperial Archives, Potsdam"), others provided by the film industry. By the end of the war in 1945, not only through the normal channels of acquisition, but also very largely through seizure and confiscation in the occupied territories, the collection had grown to 17,352 films.After the end of the war most of these films, many of which had been stored in the bell tower of the
Berlin Olympic Stadium , were lost. 6,400 selected films eventually found their way into the Soviet film archive inKrasnogorsk nearMoscow and from there into Soviet cinemas, where some of them were still showing up to 1956. When in 1955 the State Film Archive of the DDR was founded, it was permitted to take over a proportion of the collection.External links
* [http://mitglied.lycos.de/araldo/russland.htm Kinotechnik als Hobby: the fate of the remains of the "Reichsfilmarchiv" after 1945] de icon
* [http://www.harnackhaus-berlin.mpg.de/ Harnack House] de icon
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