Establishing a security copy of the archive of the Berlin Mission
The archive of the Berlin Mission contains valuable documents on 165
years of African history, in particular on South Africa.
These documents are of high historical value, as there are hardly any
other documents of equal age on the history apart from the missionary
sources.
They are also of importance in present-day decision-making, as they can
be used, for example, to reconstruct the land rights of the African
population.
Due to inappropriate and unsuitable storage conditions in the past, these
documents are threatening to disintegrate.
Since April 1991, the Berlin Society for Mission History, the Seminar für
religions- und Missionswissenschaft sowie Ökumenik (Department for
Religious Studies, Missiology and Ecumenism) at the Humboldt University of
Berlin and the Institut für Afrikanistik (African Studies Institute) at the
University of Leipzig are conducting a project to make the archival
collection fully accessible and to produce a secure copy of the whole
collection.
The first step in this process was the cataloguing of all documents in a
data base and to improve their storage conditions. This was the
precondition for the following step, the production of the security of the
documents.
The project is being supported by:
Hans Merensky Foundation, South Africa
Evangelisches Missionswerk in Deutschland
CommerzbankStiftung
Daimler-Chrysler-Sfiftung
The project desperately needs further financial resources. The Berlin
Society for Mission History has organised a fund for donations. Donations
are tax-deductible in Germany. We request donations to be paid into the
account of the “Berliner Gesellschaft für Missionsgeschichte”:
Bank für Sozialwirtschaft, Bank Code 100 205 00, Account Number 329
5300, Message line: Archive Fund.
1. About us
