The German Maps at the East Africana Collection, University Library of Dar Es Salaam

Abstract

The documents originated by the German colonial administration in German East Africa are located in two main archives: the Tanzania National Archives in Dar es Salaam, where they are identified under the name “German Records,” and the Bundesarchiv in Berlin, where they are collected under the classification R 1001. This note aims to provide some general information regarding a part of the German Records, referred to as “German Maps,” which is collected at the University Library of Dar es Salaam. The German Records are a part of the holdings of the Tanzania National Archives, which also include the records of the British administration and various documents of the post-independence period. The German Records are a very well-known source for the history of the German presence in East Africa and they can be divided in two main categories: the documents of the Central Administration, cataloged with the numbers G 1-G 65, and the Private Archives, with the classification G 66-G 86. These records are very well cataloged and easily accessible thanks to the work of archival reorganization done by Peter Geissler between 1967 and 1969. His work was published in 1973 in a two-volume guide with the title Das Deutsch-Ostafrika-Archiv: Inventar der Abteilung “German Records” in Nationalarchiv der vereinigten Republik Tansania, Dar es Salaam. This guide offers a very useful overview of the records of the German colonial administration and is available for consultation in the Reading Room of the Tanzania National Archives. Also available in the Reading Room is a manual catalog which, in some cases, could be helpful in finding some documents that, owing to print errors in the edited catalog, have become difficult to find.

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