The German Association of Social Workers are working on their archival history. During May 2017 the Association invited IFSW’s Official Archivist Fiona Robertson and Nigel Hall, IFSW Human Rights Commissioner to their offices in Berlin to report on the outcomes of their visit to the IFSW Archives in Basel where they had found papers on the development and relationship of German and international social work.
Led by Dr Claudia Wiotte-Franz and Michael Leinenbach a very detailed paper on German social work history between 1836 and 1932 was presented, followed by a meeting with a wider group to consider this and the process of safeguarding German archives generally.
Together the group is developing a plan and policy for moving the process of handling and integrating their extensive historical records from a variety of social work sources and locations, and how to make these publicly accessible. Of importance is the history of the women’s trade union movement and the contribution of the Catholic and Protestant churches in developing the social work profession in Germany.
This is an exciting development for the IFSW archives and in due course some of this material will be made available through the IFSW website.