Philipp Jakob Ludwig Gärtner

Born: January 15, 1864 in Wiesbaden
died: February 8, 1953 in Wiesbaden

The importance of estates for the transmission of local history is generally recognized today, even in specialist circles. The Wiesbaden City Archive holds a particularly valuable bequest under the shelfmark "NL 1". These are the collections of Ludwig Gärtner, which he described as "Wiesbaden memories (books and pictures)".

In his will dated June 16, 1949, he bequeathed the estate to the city of Wiesbaden with the express condition that nothing from it should be "removed and given to other places". On the other hand, he requested that the collections be supplemented by "new publications in the field of local literature or works that are not yet included" (....).

For over half a century, Gärtner had collected everything relating to the history of Wiesbaden. He had already begun his collecting activities during his 41 years of service as a highly respected civil servant in the higher judicial service at the Wiesbaden court cashier's office. The collections initially comprised a library of around 900 volumes. However, Gärtner also collected prints, engravings and lithographs as well as posters, photos and postcards.

The valuable visual material almost completely illustrates the historical development of Wiesbaden over the last 400 years. An important part of the estate is the extensive collection of newspaper cuttings. In 36 volumes, it covers the period from 1900 to 1953 and provides an overview of the most important events and the most significant personalities of these decades. An essential basis for research into Wiesbaden's city history is also the card index he founded in 1911 and continuously maintained, with almost 15,000 bibliographical references to Wiesbaden's history (the so-called "Gärtner card index"). Gärtner not only dedicated his collecting activities to Wiesbaden's city history, but also compiled many documents from the time of the Duchy of Nassau.

Ludwig Gärtner made an important contribution to Wiesbaden's city history with the collection he left to the city archives. Three weeks after his 89th birthday, he died in the municipal retirement and nursing home in Wiesbaden-Biebrich, where he spent the rest of his life. Just two days earlier, he had been working at his usual hour in his archive, which had found a temporary home in a room on the top floor of the Biebrich town hall.