Large photo collection for storage in the city archive
The photo collection of the Rosenheim City Archive has been significantly expanded. It has received the estate of Rosenheim journalist and press photographer Werner Krämer for permanent storage.
Krämer, who died in 2021, made an important contribution to the documentation of Rosenheim's contemporary history for decades. His daughter, Brigitta König, has now presented the city archive with 24 bulging moving boxes containing not only her father's photo archive, but also a remaining stock of photographs by photojournalist Hans Dietrich (1900-1974). Krämer had already donated the majority of Dietrich's photographs to the city archive in the early 1990s.
The estate also contains numerous newspaper articles and other documents on local and regional history, which Werner Krämer had meticulously collected.
This addition to the archive holdings has enriched Rosenheim's visual heritage with thousands of photographs. Among other things, they document the political, cultural and social life of the town in recent decades. Dr. Christian Höschler, Head of the City Archive, thanked Brigitta König for donating the material: "We are delighted that this unique treasure has been entrusted to us. We will ensure that the estate is stored safely so that it is preserved for future generations."
The acquisition of the material marks the start of a major project for the team at the city archive: in particular, the extensive photographic material must be professionally packaged and indexed in the city archive's central database. In addition, the digitization of the material will be an important measure for the preservation of the collection. This will make it possible to research individual photographs in a targeted manner at a later date.
However, it is already clear that Werner Krämer's estate contains countless photos that are suitable for publication in the near future, for example as a print in the "Pictures from Old Rosenheim" calendar.
"Archive material as cultural heritage must be visible, accessible and usable - which was entirely in the spirit of Werner Krämer," says Dr. Höschler.
As a central source of information and documentation on Rosenheim's history, the Rosenheim City Archive holds over 3,500 linear meters of collection material. An important part of this historical heritage is an extensive photo collection with around 20,000 positive prints and around 350,000 negatives. Images from this collection are regularly published in local history publications.