The origins of the Archives can be directly traced back to 1282, when a collection of official papers under the auspices of the
Margrave of Brandenburg was first documented. Formal organization of the stocks occurred in 1468, and in 1598 the
Elector of Brandenburg appointed
Erasmus Langenhain "Registratura Archivorum" to bring systematic order to the sovereign's documents, official records and files. Today's
GStA PK traces itself back to this professional tradition. In the middle of the 17th century the holdings became a personal repository of the first
King of Prussia under archivist and granted the honorific title "Privy State Archives". In 1803, the Archives were expanded with the addition of Prussian governmental, judicial and regional documents and renamed the "Prussian State Archives". Until 1883, when
Brandenburg, then the only Prussian province without an own provincial archive, founded the
Brandenburgian Provincial Archive, the Privy State Archives also collected all the records from that territorial and political entity. By 1901, the institution had developed precise standards for the preservation of public records that have had a pronounced effect on the archival profession. During
World War II, the majority of the holdings were evacuated to abandoned mines at
Stassfurt and
Schönebeck between 1943 and 1944 to protect them from
Allied bombing. As the
Soviet Army advanced on
East Prussia, the
Königsberg State Archives were evacuated to
Göttingen. After the war, holdings that wound up in the
Soviet occupation zone were moved relatively unscathed to a newly created German Central Archive housed in
Merseburg,
East Germany. The original Dahlem headquarters building wound up in the US sector of Allied-occupied
West Berlin. In 1946 it became the main archive for
West Berlin's government and included partial stocks from the historic collection. In 1963, these came under the jurisdiction of the
Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and the Archive was again named the "Privy State Archives". From 1978-1979 the Königsberg collection was relocated to Berlin. After
German Reunification, from 1993 to 1994, the
GDR Archives maintained in Merseburg were also brought back to Berlin and the historic record was again complete. ==Collection==