Arbeitsstab für Karten- u. Vermessungswesen, Brüssel.
No authorized corporate name heading exists, but some OCLC records use the
following name heading:
Germany. Heer. Arbeitsstab für Karten-und Vermessungswesen
I wonder if that is correct, though:
One really surprising thing is that the prefix “Kriegs-“ or the word
“Krieg“ or the abbreviation ”Mil.” do not appear anywhere in the corporate
name. That was, as far as I have seen, standard practice for corporate
names of the various mapping operations of the Wehrmacht.
Might this mean this is a Brussels interagency working group set up by
various German corporate bodies that had a broader set of purposes?
Just based on the material it produced I would say the primary purpose
undoubtedly would have been to provide maps useful to the military and
military administrators that were part of the occupation government and
extracting resources and were concerned with mapping the infrastructure.
But there are other reprinted maps which do not fit the pattern, including
lots of maps of the Belgian Congo, so the purpose might have been broader:
The Arbeitsstab mined Belgian mapping collections broadly and used existing
Belgian resources to reprint and publish maps, extract useful information
for a variety of purposes, etc.
The items in OCLC all date from 1940 to 1942 and are chiefly reprints of
Belgian maps. But some sets were resized and edited to conform to German
standards, like
24510Belgien : ǂb Deutsche Heereskarte.
255 Scale 1:50,000.
500 German map based on Belgian 1:40,000 Series.
OCLC #44817798
What is really surprising is the level of interest in reprinting maps of
the Belgian Congo, its mineral-rich Katanga province, and also particularly
in Ruanda-Urundi (= present-day Rwanda and Burundi) an area administered by
Belgium under a League of Nations mandate after WW I, formerly part of
German East Arica. There are ethnographic maps that were reprinted and
hydrographic maps of Lake Kivu, etc. Undoubtedly someone was mining Belgian
collections with the intention to extract as much information as possible
about Ruanda-Urundi, maybe becauseit was assumed that region would fall
back under German control at an eventual peace settlement.
One 500 note in an OCLC record for a 1942 map gives a slightly different
name heading. That might indicate a change in who oversaw this body, and
how it transitioned into a body under sole military control.
"Druck: Arbeitsstab f. Kriegskarten-u. Vermessungswesen beim Mil. Befh. in
Belg. u. i. N. Fr."
That record lists “Mil. Geo-Gruppe beim Mil. Befh. in Belg. u. i. N. Fr.”
as issuing body.
OCLC #556753133
A collection record from the German Federal Archives in the Archives Portal
Europe contains an outline of the structural setup of the German army’s
military mapping organization for Feb. 16, 1944
For Brüssel (= Brussels, Belgium) the record lists a major presence of
mapping-related resources:
Kriegskarten- und Vermessungsamt 9 mit Heereskartenlager 579 und 586
There is no reference to the “Arbeitsstab für Karten-und Vermessungswesen”
but it was almost certainly defunct by that time.
Source:
https://www.archivesportaleurope.net/ead-display/-/ead/pl/aicode/DE-1958/type/fa/id/DE-1958_32569730-da32-4b15-878b-b115ffe7562a
Collection identifier: BArch RH 5
Collection name: OKH / Chef des Kriegskarten- und Vermessungswesens
1921-1945
Location: Bundesarchiv (Abteilung Militärarchiv, Wiesentalstraße 10, 79115
Freiburg, [log in to unmask])
Another related collection is fragmentary.
Little of the administrative record of subaltern offices and individual
mapping units survived World War II.
https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/LGRGIAXSX2NGCS64FNPM523UOLKXRBKI
Dienststellen und Einheiten des Kriegskarten- und Vermessungswesens des
Heeres (Bestand)
Bestandssignatur: BArch, RH 43
--Heiko
Heiko Mühr
Map Metadata and Curatorial Specialist
Earth Sciences & Map Library
50 McCone Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
[log in to unmask]
On Mon, Dec 3, 2018 at 6:08 AM Zellmer, Linda <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am wondering if anyone on the list knows anything about the Arbeitsstab
> fur Karten und Vermessungswesen. I gather it was part of the German Army
> during World War II. My Library has a map of Belgium (1937) that they
> apparently reprinted in 1941.
>
> Any information on this group would be greatly appreciated. Linda Zellmer
>
> --
> Linda Zellmer
> Government Information & Data Services Librarian
> Liaison to Natural & Physical Sciences & Agriculture
> 415 Malpass Library
> Macomb, IL 61455
> [log in to unmask]
> Phone: 309-298-2723 <callto:309-298-2723>
> Fax: 309-298-2791 <callto:309-298-2791>
>
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