Federal Archives of Switzerland

The main building of the Swiss Federal Archives

The Swiss Federal Archives (SFA ) ( fr. Archives fédérales Suisses (AFS ), it. Archivio federale svizzero (AFS ) ) in Bern has the statutory task of historically important documents of the Swiss Federal Assembly, the Federal Council, the Federal Administration and the Swiss representations abroad secure to open up, to mediate and evaluate. It does so under the Federal Act on Archiving contribute to legal certainty, for the continuous and efficient administration and makes state action understandable. It is attached administratively to the Federal Department of Home Affairs (DHA ). Director of the Federal Archives since 2004, the historian Andreas Keller neck.

History and Holdings

The oldest parts of its collection back to the set up on December 18th, 1798 Central Archives of the Helvetic Republic, followed the archives for the mediation period ( 1803-1813 ), the Diet period ( 1814-1848 ) and the State ( since 1848 ). Also various private archives of persons of national importance are stored in the Federal Archives. Most of these documents are freely accessible. For more recent documents in most cases, a protection period of 30 years. To gain insight into still protected documents, an inspection request may be submitted to the Federal Archives. Then that location is usually responsible for the approval, which prepared the document.

Currently located in the Bundesarchiv 60,000 meter analogue and over 15 terabytes of digital documents. By converting the federal to the digital business administration ( GEVER ) almost only documents will be archived in digital form in the future. Analog stocks that are in particularly high demand are partly digitized and made ​​available online.

The archive is housed in a 1896-1899 built under Theodor Gohl archive and library building at the Archivstrasse 24 in Bern Church 's field headquarters. Until 1931 the archive shared the premises with the Swiss National library. 1980 to 1985 the building was completely renovated and extended to an underground magazine tract, stored in the now by far the largest part of the collection.

Head of the Federal Archives and the predecessor institutions

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