Bequest Michael Zimmermann

In 2005, the historian Michael Zimmermann (1951-2007) offered his pre-death legacy as a gift to the archive of the Fritz Bauer Institute. The documents concern the persecution of Sinti and Roma during the period of National Socialism. Michael Zimmermann was a member of the Fritz Bauer Institute's conception commission and became the founder of the Institute's study group "Sinti and Roma" in 2001. His extensive bequest regarding the history of the genocide of Sinti and Roma originated mainly in the years 1985 to 1993 when he worked as a research associate at the DFG project "Verfolgungserfahrungen deutscher Sinti und Roma unter dem Nationalsozialismus" headed by Micha Brumlik, Lutz Niethammer and Helmut Baitsch at the University of Heidelberg, and during his habilitation project "Rassenutopie und Genozid. Die nationalsozialistische 'Lösung der Zigeunerfrage'" financed by the DFG. The bequest Michael Zimmermann contains after description, demetallization and filing 39 archival units with a total extent of 1.4 running meters. Since it did not have an inner structure the processor Johannes Beermann-Schön created an entirely new order during the description in August 2016. It follows the "rules for the description of personal papers and autographs" (RNA, Regeln zur Erschließung von Nachlässen und Autographen). The original file titles had often been too ambiguous or too broad for the actual content of the files. They were therefore corrected carefully while making sure to find a wording close to Michael Zimmermann's original title. The holding is now structured in three sections: "opus" ("Werk"), "correspondence" ("Korrespondenz") and "collections" ("Sammlungen"). The section "opus" ("Werk") covers records drafted by Michael Zimmermann himself. It also includes several archival units of interviews with Sinti survivors, an extensive inventory of relevant archival holdings, as well as a compilation of incidents at Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp regarding Sinti and Roma. The section "correspondence" ("Korrespondenz") contains the exchange of letters between Michael Zimmermann and German and international archives for the DFG projects "Verfolgungserfahrung deutscher Sinti und Roma unter dem Nationalsozialismus" and "Rassenutopie und Genozid. Die nationalsozialistische 'Lösung der Zigeunerfrage'". The section "collections" ("Sammlungen") is the biggest part of the bequest. It covers material collected by Zimmermann regarding the persecution of Sinti und Roma during the period of National Socialism. There are original archivalia, as well as replicated archivalia of other archives, rare publications, typescripts of friendly researchers and handwritten excerpts of archival holdings he consulted. Occasionally, there also are correspondences and conceptional drafts regarding the two DFG projects.