The floods came so quickly that historical documents could no longer be saved: the city archive of the city of Stolberg is badly damaged and its valuable content is threatened with decay.
Stolberg – Valuable historical documents from the Stolberg City Archives (North Rhine-Westphalia) are in danger. During the storm, water had flooded the cellar, documents and other writings threatened to go moldy.
“Our entire city history has flooded, all the archive material was in the water,” said Stolberg’s mayor Patrick Haas (SPD) on Monday the German press agency dpa. “Now you have to try to save what can be saved.” The “Spiegel” had previously reported.
There are numerous helpers on site, and the Cologne city archive has also sent experts for support – after the collapse of its city archive in 2009, the cathedral city has experience with securing materials under adverse conditions. A cultural property protection container, which the cathedral city had bought last year, was expected from Cologne on Monday afternoon. Documents are to be cleaned and secured in it. The documents must be flash frozen so that no decomposition process begins. Among other things, it is about documents from the Middle Ages, but also about normal building applications – the latter are important, for example to approve future expansions, explained the mayor.
The local politician emphasized the importance of the archive for his city. “The historical roots are very important to the people,” he said. “We have a long history in the city and we were just thinking about building a historicum in order to be able to offer people modern archive rooms and exhibitions.” Such plans are now off the table for the time being. “Now we are thinking about whether we will still have archive material and thus evidence of our city history that we can show in the future.” Dpa
