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Collection Farmhouse Research in Bavaria between 1935 and 1945

Part of the holdings of the archive for building research were created during the time of National Socialism. In Bavaria since the end of 1935 an "Ausschuss für Bauernhausforschung" (committee for farmhouse research) had existed under the aegis of the "Bayerischer Heimatbund" (Bavarian Homeland Association). In early October 1937, with ministerial decree the "Landesstelle für Bauernhofforschung" (regional office for farmhouse research) was founded and incorporated, in 1938, as a separate department in the newly founded "Landestelle für Volkskunde" (regional office for folklore). At first, the artist and architect Rudolf Hoferer (1892–1943) was entrusted with its management, from August 1943 the architect Mathilde Tränkel (1908–2006) was in charge. It was the aim of the organisation to gather the scattered written and visual documents concerning farmhouses as well as to record and research in situ the still existing but threatened old stock of farmhouses by means of plans with measurements and photographs.

A short while later, farmhouse research in Bavaria became part of the work of the national socialist "Mittelstelle Deutscher Bauernhof" (mediation office German farmhouses) in the "Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Deutsche Volkskunde" (work association for German folklore). It belonged to the "Rosenberg agency" in Berlin (management: Erich Kulke) as well as to the "Bauernhofbüros" (farmhouse bureaus) of the "Fachgruppe Bauwesen e.V. im NS Bund Deutscher Technik" (specialist group architecture inc. in the NS federation for German technique) in Münster (management: Gustav Wolf). The employees of the Munich "Abteilung Bauerhofforschung" (department farmhouse research) worked for both enterprises that were run across the entire "Reich" and were, at least in part, paid by the Rosenberg agency. Work focused on recording exemplary rural farmsteads for the creation of a "Stammrolle der deutschen Althöfe" (muster roll of old German farmsteads) in the German Reich.

Karl Erdmannsdorffer (1903–1974), Theodor Heck (1896–1976), Wilhelm Döderlein (1903–1964) as well as Tilla Rank (1902–1996) and Luitgard Vogel (1914–2010) were among the employees together with many others who had already recorded buildings in the countryside. In 1943, the plan and photo library was moved to south-eastern Bavaria. By the end of 1944, the work on farmhouse research was largely abandoned. A short while previously, in the summer of 1944, students of the Technical University Munich on a holiday placement had drawn around 800 plans of farmhouses in Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria and in the Upper Palatinate.

The other part collections of the "Archiv für Hausforschung" available on bavarikon

>> This collection is part of the inventory of the Archiv für Hausforschung (Archive for Building Research) of the Institut für Volkskunde (Ethnological Institute).