Archival Services

Facts & Files was commissioned by the Berlin Museum of Natural History from 2020 to 2022 to inventories archival records and coordinate the archive project. A second archive project was finished by spring 2023.

Facts & Files was conducting archival services for the General Secretariat of the German Red Cross from 2013 to 2022.

Facts & Files was commissioned in 2021 by the Berlin Commissioner for the Study of the SED Dictatorship to conduct a study on archives from the SBZ or GDR in Berlin.

Launched in 2011, the “Europeana 1914–1918” project is a pan-European collection of personal memorabilia from the First World War

Facts & Files was handling press relations and organised the collection days during which documents and other objects could be digitised.

In 2020 the Free State of Saxony celebrated 500 years of industrial culture.

The project “Saxony at Work. Digital Industrial Culture” collected and transcribed historical sources online.

Facts & Files curated an open air exhibition at the Panoramapunkt Berlin.  

The exhibition’s topic is the history of the legendary Berlin square Potsdamer Platz.

Provenance Research

The aim of the project at four East Frisian museums was to reconstruct the provenance of over 600 objects, which have so far mainly been classified as “seafarers’ souvenirs” from China. The analysis of the marks on the objects revealed that many items described as “Chinese” actually originated from Japan. The research unfolded that a large proportion of objects are export and mass-produced products as well as everyday objects.

Since August 2002 Facts & Files has been inventorizing objects of the collection of the Jewish Museum Berlin.

commissioned by the Berlin State Archive

Starting January 2020, Facts & Files had been investigating the provenance of the holdings of the Berlin State Archive’s library. This academic reference library contains about 150,000 records.

Research at German Archives

Facts & Files inventories records for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Washington D.C. within the framework of the “USHMM International Acquisitions Program”.

Provenance Research

The research project aimed to reconstruct the art collection of the Wiesbaden pediatrician Georg Koch and his wife Lotte, née Seeligmann. The project started in January 2021. The works of art, among them works by Alexej Jawlensky, Christian Rohlfs and Emil Nolde, were packed into the lift vans, and “disappeared” in the port of Hamburg in 1942.

Research Project on German Victims of Stalinism

“Shot in Moscow…” was an international research project, supported by the Foundation for Examination of the Dictatorship in East Germany.

As part of the application for recognition as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 2012, Facts & Files prepared a study of the area’s High Middle Ages history. In 2018, the Naumburg Cathedral became World Heritage site.

Provenance Research

Herbert M. Gutmann (1879-1942) collected paintings, porcelain, tapestries, and antiques. Mr. Gutmann was a collector of Dutch landscape as well as French and German Rococo paintings. Mr. Gutmann also collected Asian porcelain, Persian sculpture and porcelain.

Provenance Research

The project on the collection of David and Lola Leder, Chemnitz/Berlin, began in June 2021 and ended in August 2022. The project aimed to reconstruct David and Lola Leder’s art collection, research the provenance and whereabouts of artworks from the collection, and identify artworks.

From August 2020 to February 2022, the provenance of objects from the collection of Julius Riemer, which is no part of the Municipal Collections of Lutherstadt Wittenberg was researched. The objects belonged to the Berlin zoologist and mammalogist Oscar R. Neumann before.

Provenance Research

Since 2002, Facts & Files has been conducting research on the art collection of the Berlin factory owner Richard Semmel, who collected Old Dutch masters as well as works by French artists, mostly impressionists paintings.

On behalf of the University of Cologne, Facts & Files had prepared a report which looks at the entanglement of the National Socialist regime with the university’s charitable foundations, honorary titles and grants awarded to academics and institutes.

commissioned by Professor Michael Wala of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Facts & Files is commissioned to conduct research on intelligence and counterintelligence operations of the Ministry for State Security at the archives of the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security of the former German Democratic Republic.

Julio Metal was a banker and investor, who lived in Berlin and Vienna. His property was “aryanized” after 1933. He fled to the USA in 1938. His granddaughter produced the podcast “Recovering Julio” about the history of her family and Julio Metal.

Citizen Science & Crowdsourcing

Europeana Transcribe is the crowdsourcing platform for European cultural heritage on Transcribathon.eu to for enriching, transcribing, annotating or geo-tagging of historical documents.

Facts & Files was commissioned by the Robert Havemann Association in 2021 with a concept for a feasibility study for the “Forum for Opposition and Resistance”.

The Hagen Family owned the banking house Hagen & Co. in Berlin, Germany. When the Anti-Jewish laws were enacted the bank house was forced into liquidation by January 1, 1938. The family was forced to sell property, including paintings, books, and other works of art.

Facts & Files was commissioned in 2020 by the district office Steglitz-Zehlendorf to archive the papers of Karl Fischer and to compile an exhibition concept on it.