6533b86efe1ef96bd12cac6f

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Opawski epizod w dziejach staropolskich ksiąg sądowych. Przyczynek do relokacji archiwaliów polskich w czasie II wojny światowej

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In March 1939, the Czech State Archive in Opava (Zemsky Archiv v Opave), temporarily renamed Landesarchiv, was transformed into Reichsarchiv Torppau, one of the two higher level archives established in lands annexed to the Third Reich on the basis of the Munich Agreement. Its basie aim was to document the history of the so-called Sudetenland, with particular consideration of the role of the German nation in its civilization development. This task was to be supervised by the new head of the archive, Walther Klemens Latzke from Vienna, a historian and archivist, a declared Nazi and a member of the NSDAP sińce 10 December 1931. During his 3 years of work in Opava, he displayed skills in archive organization and competence in research activities whose aim was to prove the superiority of the German race and Germanize the former Austrian Silesia and part of the Katovitz district. His other asset was the knowledge of 10 languages, including Polish and Czech. No doubt, then, that after mobilization in 1942, he managed to get to line troops, and having served as an interpreter for a short time, he was delegated to the State Administration of Archives, Libraries and Museums in Kiev and the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce dedicated to appropriating works of art and archival materials in the Eastern territories. While working in these institutions, in the years 1943-1944 Latzke took part in the action of removing from the Eastern territories, gradually regained by the Red Army, the most valuable collections of archives and libraries from Kiev, Lviv, Mińsk, Dorpat, Tallin, Riga and Vilnius. Professionally connected with the Reichsarchiv Troppau sińce 1938, he transferred the vast majority of those archival materials to Opava. In winter 1945, they were secured from military actions and deposited in castles, palaces and monasteries near Opava and Pilsen. This saved from destruction the archival materials brought from Ukrainę, Belarus and Baltic states, many of which are of fundamental importance in research concerning the history of the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. These included Old Polish court registers from the territories of Podolia, Bratslav region, Kiev region and Volhynia kept in Kiev, as well as family and property archives of the Polish nobility. In summer 1945, all the archive records were revindicated by the Soviet authorities and taken back to Kiev. What remained in Opava was only the photocopies of four registers from Kamianets-Podilskyi and lists of some archival materials, which are a valuable source in research on the war history of Polish archival materials. They also document the way of their cataloging by Russian (Ukrainian) and German archival services. The longest list, concerning Old Polish court registers from the i6th-i8th centuries, was published in fuli as an integral part of this article.