The task of the Archives is to constitute a meaningful scientific tradition covering all governing bodies of the Max Planck Society, its Institutes and other facilities. The aim of archiving consists in mapping scientific and administrative acting and in making the documents available and scientifically exploitable for the long term. For this purpose, all types of documents are first evaluated according to special archival principles, as defined in the Statute of the Archives (Section 4 Paragraph 1), in order to ascertain whether they are of archival value. If so, they are acquired and ordered. In doing so, the Archives see themselves as a service facility for historic research and for the internal administration of the Max Planck Society at the same time.

One of the important aspects of the constitution of a scientific transmission is the acquisition of personal papers of Institute Directors, Institute employees and other scientists who are related to the Max Planck Society. 

Further information can be found under the following categories:

• Max Planck Institutes
• Personal Papers of MPI Directors and Employees

 

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_{fig.: Relocation of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry during World War II, Hans Götte while unloading the removal crates after having arrived in Tailfingen; Archives of the Max Planck Society: stack in the former “Tower of lightning” of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics; Different data carriers from transfers}