Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1842-1945 (Creation)
Level of description
Fonds
Extent and medium
Global extent : 1923 files, about 50 linear meters
Context area
Name of creator
Administrative history
The Prussian Consulate in Jerusalem was established in 1842. From 1868 it operated as the Consulate of the Norddeutsche Bund and during the years 1871‐1913 as the Consulate ‐ and since 1913 as the Consulate General ‐ of the German Reich. In 1844 a German Consular Agency was established in Jaffa, which acted as a branch of the Consulate in Jerusalem. In 1870 the office in Jaffa was recognized as a Vice‐Consulate. A professional consul was appointed in Jaffa in 1895 and the status of the office was altered accordingly to include jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters. In Haifa a Consular Agency began functioning in 1877 which became a Vice‐Consulate in 1908. With the conquest of Palestine by the Allied armies in 1917 the consulates were closed and German interests were handled by the Spanish Consulate. In 1924 a German Consular Representative was attached to the Spanish Consulate and in 1925 a German Consul for Palestine was re‐appointed. The Consulate was closed in 1939 at the outbreak of World War II.
During its first 25 years, the Jerusalem consulate was subordinate to the administrative authority of the consulate-general in Beyrouth; it was placed under the direct supervision of the foreign ministry in Berlin in 1868 and officially elevated to the rank of “consulate-general” in 1913.
During its 97 years of activity, the territorial limits of the consulate in Jerusalem underwent several changes. During the Ottoman period, the jurisdiction of the consulate was coextensive with the administrative domain of the sanjak (district) of Jerusalem, which included Jaffa and the Gaza area. In 1871, the sanjaks of Acre and Nablus were added, but a decade later the sanjak of Acre, including Haifa, was transferred to the authority of the German consul in Beyrouth. In 1883, the new sanjak of Ma’an (southern Transjordan) was brought under the jurisdiction of the consul in Jerusalem.
Archives held at ISA (Jerusalem) with a duplicate in Berlin.
Repository
Archival history
As this is a German consular archive, the fonds should be kept in Berlin. However, it would appear that the fund was abandoned at the outbreak of the Second World War, when German consular activity ceased in Palestine. The fund was reportedly sheltered in a monastery in Jerusalem. The seizure in Nazareth in October 1955, by an Israeli police officer, of a part of these papers would have brought to light the fact that they were the object of a clandestine sale by the kilo. Sixteen years later, the Israeli State and the State Archives of Israel (ISA) recovered substantial fragments of them by commercial means.
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Documents of German consulates in Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Haifa, including records of relations with the Ottoman authorities, tax matters, the acquisition of property, Jewish immigration, civil and criminal cases, representation of German interests by the Spanish Consulate (1917‒1926), and a variety of other subjects. Collection reflects Germany’s takeover of the Austrian Consulate in 1938.
Only the remnants from the archives of the consulate in Jerusalem from the years 1842-1939 (including several files of the Austrian consulate which were turned over to the German consulate upon the annexion of Austria in march 1938) are described here, but the fonds also contains remnants from the archives of the Jaffa consulate (1870-1917) and the Haifa consulate (1877-1918).
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
Fond is closed.
System of arrangement
The files were renumbered by the National Archives of Israel. The online records contain the titles of the proceedings, so that one can find them from the finding aids published in 1976 in German.
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
The documents can be consulted with the agreement of the National Archives of Israel.
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Alternative identifier(s)
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
Genre access points
Description control area
Description identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation revision deletion
February 2018.
Language(s)
- German
Script(s)
Sources
Archivist's note
Authors : Isabelle Chave, Wojszvzyk Elise, David Labude