In addition to the German Federal Archives, the Foreign Ministry Archives, and the archives of the Foreign Missionary Bureau of the German Evangelical Churches, the compilers of this guide to the sources on Latin American history in West Germany describe various archival holdings relative to Latin America between the late fifteenth century and 1914, housed in 171 centers in ten West German states and West Berlin. The 61 main collections described are federal and state archives, university libraries, research institutes, museums, and some historical societies.
The thoroughness and potential usefulness of this guide can be illustrated by surveying the Latin American materials located in Bavaria, the most inland of German states, and hence, an unlikely center of German manuscripts on colonial and early national Latin America. Nevertheless, Bavaria’s 11 state archival centers possess considerable material on trade, consular activity, cultural affairs, and emigration. Thirteen additional non-state collections (including the Siemens firm archive) in Bavaria contain significant holdings on economic, religious, cultural, and emigration matters. The Bavarian state and two university libraries, the German National Museum, and the Frankish Genealogical Society hold still further materials.
Two other features of the guide are, first, a list of addresses for about 100 Industrie- und Handelskammern (Chambers of Industry and Commerce), which, possessing archives of commercial activity, will undoubtedly contain materials relevant to Latin America (when they have not been destroyed in World War II); and second, an extensive, yet selected, bibliography of books, articles, and German dissertations on German-Latin American relations. In the future, researchers interested in Germany’s role in Latin America between ca. 1500 and 1914 would be well advised to begin their search with a long visit to this carefully indexed guide.
