Reichsfilmarchiv

The Empire Film Archive was opened in 1935 a national film archive in the German Empire during the time of National Socialism, with its headquarters in Berlin.

History

The Empire Film Archive was opened at the Harnack House in Berlin- Dahlem on 4 February 1935 in the presence of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels with great fanfare. It gained a high international reputation quickly. As in Paris in 1938, the Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film ( FIAF ) - an international association of film archives - was founded, was the Reich Film Archive is one of the four founding members.

After they marched into Berlin in April 1945, the Soviet troops took the Reich Film Archive in their violence and confiscated all film materials. In the Federal Republic joined in 1947 the archive was founded by Hanns Wilhelm Lavies of Film Studies at the succession of the Reich Film Archive and the German Democratic Republic, the National Film Archive of the GDR.

At the time of opening the archive already had more than 1,200 films, which came partly from the National Archives in Potsdam, were asked for part of the film industry had to. By legal purchase, to a considerable extent but also by forced delivery and seizures in the occupied territories, on the portfolio grew until the war ended on 17,352 movies.

After the war, went most of the stocks that were stored in the bell tower at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin partly lost. 6400 selected films arrived in the Soviet film archive in Krasnogorsk near Moscow and from there into the Soviet cinema, where they were played for the part until 1956. 1955 could take over some of the stocks the newly founded State Film Archive of the GDR.