German Military History ? Research Resources ? State Handbooks and Rank Lists

[Dave Danner]

This is part of a series of links to books digitized and available on Google Books which I have collected. I hope the books will be useful or interesting to you (and ideally both ).

Many of the books here are downloadable, but many can only be read online. All of the books I have identified here, however, are fully available (there are many more books which appear to have been digitized but are not available for either reading or downloading).

This series of books are military rank and seniority lists and their civilian equivalents, the state handbook.

• Handbuch ?ber den preussischen Staat (1874) - This is a monumental resource for Imperial German information for that period. Like military ranklists, this includes decorations. Also, since this covers all state agencies, it includes the Kriegsministerium so it has some military use as well. But it also covers the officials of the court, the government ministries and agencies and the governments of the provinces. And it has an index of names. There are some pages badly scanned, though. For this book, the full 1100+ pages are readable online, but for some reason, when you download the PDF, it only downloads to page 372.
• Vollst?ndige Dienstaltersliste (Anciennet?tsliste) der Offiziere der K?niglich Preussischen Armee (1888) - 1888 Seniority list for the Prussian Army; 22.0 mB
• Vollst?ndige Dienstaltersliste (Anciennet?tsliste) der Offiziere der K?niglich Preussischen Armee (1891) - 1891 Seniority list for the Prussian Army; 23.7 mB
• Vollst?ndige Dienstaltersliste (Anciennet?tsliste) der Offiziere der K?niglich Preussischen Armee und des XIII (K?nigl. W?rttemb.) Armeekorps (1897) - 1897 Seniority list for the Prussian Army; 27.3 mB
• Mecklenburg-Schwerinsches Staatshandbuch (1897) - 39.5 mB; As with the Prussian handbook, covers court, government and military officials. Includes yet another system of abbreviations for orders and medals
• Mecklenburg-Schwerinsches Staatshandbuch (1878) - 24.5 mB; Same as above, but since this edition is closer to the Franco-Prussian and Russo-Turkish Wars, a more interesting selection of Iron Crosses, Mecklenburg-Schwerin Military Merit Crosses and the like.
• Staatshandbuch f?r das K?nigreich Sachsen 1877 (1877) - The Saxon version, also pretty close to the wars of unification; only readable online.
• Militaer-Handbuch des Koenigreichs Wuerttemberg, 1889 (1889) - 414 pages, 9.87 mB; An actual ranklist, with awards, assignments and everything.
• Hof und Staatshandbuch des K?nigreichs W?rttemberg 1902 (1902) - Here and below are W?rttemberg version of the state handbook. Also, these are the only 20th century ones I found so many of these guys were likely W?rttemberg officials up to the First World War.
• Hof und Staatshandbuch des K?nigreichs W?rttemberg 1905 (1905)
• Hof und Staatshandbuch des K?nigreichs W?rttemberg 1906 (1906)
• Hof und Staatshandbuch des K?nigreichs W?rttemberg 1907, 2. Teil (1907)
• Hof und Staatshandbuch des K?nigreichs W?rttemberg 1908 (1908)
• Stamm- und Rang-liste des Kurf?rstlich Hessischen Armee-corps vom 16ten Jahrhundert bis 1866 (1866) - 225 pages, 7.5 mB; Electoral Hesse, absorbed by Prussia after the Austro-Prussian War. This is a historical Stammliste of the Kurhessische units, but also a ranklist as of 1866 of these units.
• Kleines Staatshandbuch des Reichs und der Einzelstaaten (1883) - 8.1 mB; Covers the leadership of the smaller states in less detail than the other handbooks.

There are quite a few other ranklists that Google appears to have digitized, but are not available online or to be downloaded, but this is quite a bonanza of free books so I'm not complaining too much.

[Riley1965]

Dave,

Thanks for the list!!! I've bookmarked it. This is a great tool to have

Doc

[Chip]

Dave,

Thanks for sharing these links. This is wonderful information, but I am so surprised that Google has had these obscure books digitized. These types of reference books have been locked away in secure parts of old libraries for many years with no access to them and little understanding of what they were and where they were. This type of disemination will secure the future of these works and make the possibility of them being destroyed by fire or natural disaster that much less.

Finally, this effort helps our hobby in that the rare and valuable tomes are available to the masses and thus the dependence of the collecting community on a few experts is lessened. This is important, I think, as it helps us to avoid some of the great losses the community takes when one of our reseachers is suddenly no longer with us. I think of our medal collecting friends and all the information that was almost lost when our esteemed mentor passed on.

Thanks to Google and you!

Chip

[David M]

Am I doing something wrong? I can only find fragments and not download the entire book.... probably just me...

David

[Carol I]

Thanks Dave for the links, they seem quite interesting. However they appear to be unreachable for the European users (see in Austro-Hungarian Military History ? Research Resources as well). Can this be solved from the settings of the browser?

[David M]

As you understand, I would be most interested in the Kurhessian Stammliste 16th-1866!!

[Great Dane]

Can this be solved from the settings of the browser?

Apparently the ability to download or not is based on your IP-address. If you can 'imitate' a US IP-address it will work.

/Mike

[David M]

Apparently the ability to download or not is based on your IP-address. If you can 'imitate' a US IP-address it will work.

/Mike

Hi Mike

How would I do that? If someone could help me out by downloading it and mailing to my gmail account.....that would be veeeeeery helpfull

[Ed_Haynes]

Depending on copyright and the conditions set by the source, the terms and limits of access vary greatly.

When useful, Google Books is very useful, but you may find more frustration that joy. More an example of what may someday be possible than anything else?

[Great Dane]

Hi Mike

How would I do that? If someone could help me out by downloading it and mailing to my gmail account.....that would be veeeeeery helpfull

Use one of those 'anonymous surfing' apps out there...

I needed an anonymizer when I bought the HD version of the Terminator 2 DVD. Each time you wanted to see it, it had to contact a license server and if you were not a US or Canadian resident (it checked your IP address) - bad luck and your money was wasted...

/Mike

[Dave Danner]

Depending on copyright and the conditions set by the source, the terms and limits of access vary greatly.

When useful, Google Books is very useful, but you may find more frustration that joy. More an example of what may someday be possible than anything else?

Google Books, being U.S.-based, appears to default to U.S. copyright laws. Under U.S. laws, all of these works are in the public domain because their copyright expired or they never were copyrightable.

The ranklists, seniority lists, state handbooks, and the like, for what it's worth, are also not under copyright in Germany, their country of origin. Under ? 5 of the Gesetz ?ber Urheberrecht und verwandte Schutzrechte (Law of Copyright and Related Protections), they are official works and not protected by copyright.

Not that this helps get around Google's defaults.

Edited March 31, 2007 by Dave Danner

[Carol I]

Use one of those 'anonymous surfing' apps out there...

Thanks, Mike. I gave it a try with https://proxify.com/ and it is possible to read them page-by-page (no download though).

[Great Dane]

Carol I, remember that - like Dave mentions - not all the sources are downloadable but some are only viewable online (no matter if you are in the US or not)...

/Mike

[Carol I]

Carol I, remember that - like Dave mentions - not all the sources are downloadable but some are only viewable online (no matter if you are in the US or not)...

Thanks Dave, but what I meant to say is that although the "Download PDF" option does appear on the page, when clicking on it only a blank page appears. I suspect that the "Download PDF" button is not linked directly to the PDF file and thus it might get out of proxify's settings.

[Ulsterman]

this is what it looks like. i can download it and try to put it on a Cd for you if you like Dave.

Ulster

[Ulsterman]

this is what it looks like. i can download it and try to put it on a Cd for you if you like Dave.

Ulster

[Ulsterman]

pg. 2 let me know dave

[Ulsterman]

page 3:

Edited March 31, 2007 by Ulsterman

[Great Dane]

Thanks Dave, but what I meant to say is that although the "Download PDF" option does appear on the page, when clicking on it only a blank page appears. I suspect that the "Download PDF" button is not linked directly to the PDF file and thus it might get out of proxify's settings.

The button is directly linked to the file. If I right click the button and choose "Save target as...", I get the pdf file. Did you try that?

Could be you are experiencing the old MS IE 6.0 + Adobe PDF bug: "Opening a PDF file within Internet Explorer 6.0 sometimes shows only a blank page"...

If it still doesn't work, Ulsterman's offer seems like the way to go...

/Mike

[Carol I]

Could be you are experiencing the old MS IE 6.0 + Adobe PDF bug: "Opening a PDF file within Internet Explorer 6.0 sometimes shows only a blank page"...

Then this must be the reason. Thanks Mike.

[Paul C]

I can't believe this! I did some quick searching the the number and types of books that available in PDF format is incredible! I am going to be downloading forever! Thanks Dave.