Archive

Letter of appointment for Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777), who later became the first president of the Göttingen Academy, by King George II in 1736. Personnel file in the Göttingen University Archives.

The Academy’s archive was established in 1756 for internal use by the Göttingen Professor of Philosophy and Literary History, Georg Christoph Hamberger (1726–1773), during his tenure as Academy Secretary. Organised into 17 subject groups (‘fascicles’), it originally contained all the records accumulated by the Academy up to this point, including founding and constitutional documents, administrative records (presidents, directors, secretaries), member lists, documents related to the Academy’s publications, manuscripts and writings of members and correspondents, prize questions and answers, contracts, documents related to disputes, and financial matters.


This arrangement remained largely unchanged until the reorganisation of the records between 1940 and 1944 with the aim to make the Academy’s historical documents accessible for scholarly use. The five subject groups established at that time still define the structure of the archive today: Chron (meeting minutes, annual reports, correspondence, materials on the history of the Academy, etc.), Stat (statutory establishment), Etat (accounting, foundations and bequests, funding approvals), Pers (personnel files of members and staff), and the largest subject group, Scient (scientific enterprises and projects, scientific periodicals and publications, prize questions and foundations, etc.). Additional records can be found in the manuscript section and the library archive of the Lower Saxony State and University Library (SUB) Göttingen, as well as in the University Archive Göttingen.

Since 2018, the archive has been housed as a deposit at the SUB and can be accessed in the reading room for manuscripts and bequests in the Historical Building at Papendiek 14, 37073 Göttingen. Access permissions must be requested either from the SUB (for records before 1900) or from the office of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities (for records after 1900). Available finding aids include an overview of the holdings and a comprehensive index of persons in the form of a card catalogue.


For inquiries about records before 1900:
Steffen Hölscher
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen     
Lower Saxony State and University Library Göttingen
Department of Special Collections and Preservation
Papendiek 14, 37070 Göttingen
hoelscher@sub.uni-goettingen.de  

For inquiries about records after 1900:
Annelies Stolle
Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Theaterstraße 7, 37073 Göttingen
annelies.stolle@adwgoe.de