Updates to Pamyat Naroda

[Der Alte Fritz]

Pamyat Naroda record:

Штат № 04/551 Стрелкового полка стрелковой дивизии (военного времени) [Establishment No 04/551 Rifle Regiment Rifle Division (Operational Army)]
original link:
https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=262168438 which does not produce a document now

[Art]

Funny, looks like the entire folder is not available now. I've got this document downloaded, if somebody needs it.

[Der Alte Fritz]

Correct the entire folder with the entire 04/550 documents has gone. I tried a word search to see if it was still there but re-numbered however there is nothing like it.

[Gary Kennedy]

I think it went off air a while ago, a year back possibly. I did scavenge everything I could use from it as I recall.

Gary

[Dann Falk]

On a related note, I keep seeing TsAMO documents quoted by a Russian author that I cannot find in the archive. Its like entire sections are blocked for people living outside Russia.

[Der Alte Fritz]

Depends who the author as there are different levels of access. Russian accredited military historians get complete access, I think David Glantz had this but general readers get much more limited access. For instance there is a book on the basic statistics of the rear for the war which is unavailable except for accredited researchers.

[Art]

On a related note, I keep seeing TsAMO documents quoted by a Russian author that I cannot find in the archive. Its like entire sections are blocked for people living outside Russia.

To explain things in the most graphic manner:

Untitled.jpg (82.41 KiB) Viewed 5586 times

Actually this disproportion is even larger.

[Dann Falk]

Thanks for the feedback.

The author is Valeriy Zamulin, and he is doing great work, mostly on the battle for Kursk. He gives a reference like f 341 OP 5312 d 246.1

The ".1" extension doesn't work for me.

Maybe someday more records will be digitized and made available to outside researchers.

[Art]

I suspect it must be not 1 but l. (abbreviation from "list" = page). That folder (246 of the 7 Guards Army) is available online.
As for completeness, I guess, I've been already talking about it somewhere, of documents of the armies/fronts they mostly digitized those belonging to the operational sections of their staffs. Digitization of the folders of the central directorates of the NKO and military districts didn't even start.

[Sharposhnikov]

Last I heard from some people in Moscow (last year), they've digitalized a little over 5,000,000 'documents', but the TsAMO includes over 19,000,000, so they have a long way to go.
Also, the quality and quantity of documents varies wildly among the various units and HQ.
I have managed to download, for example, the entire Journal of Combat Activities for Western Front for October, November, and December 1941, averaging 200 pages each month, and over a thousand pages of Operational Summaries, Reports, Combat Reports, and Combat Orders from 5th, 33rd, and 43rd Armies of Western front during October, but only 3 Operational Summaries from 16th Army - and those because they had been misfiled and showed up in a folder from 5th Army! Rokossovskii's 16th Army in October 1941 is, simply, a digital Black Hole of documents, whereas every other army in Western Front has at least some Reports, Summaries or Orders available.
Especially in 1941, the distribution of typewriters to staffs seems to have been very haphazard: numerous documents are handwritten, even formal Summaries and Reports up to Army Level. For instance, 33rd and 43rd Armies' Journals of Combat Activities for October 1941 are all handwritten - but, of course, both HQ barely escaped total destruction in the Vyazma pocket early in the month, so the fact that there are Journals at all is probably a minor miracle.

[ViKinG]

"Depends who the author as there are different levels of access. Russian accredited military historians get complete access, I think David Glantz had this but general readers get much more limited access. For instance there is a book on the basic statistics of the rear for the war which is unavailable except for accredited researchers."

Is there a way to get more access as a regular researcher?

[Der Alte Fritz]

Become an official Russian government historian

[ViKinG]

Easier said than done i'm afraid.

[Art]

Here you have a former official Russian historian (deputy director of the Institute of Military History/Russian Defense Ministry - I don't know how more official you can get) complaining about unwelcome attitude in a military archive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odg2aKU ... t=1h18m25s
Imagine what they say to fellows from NATO states.
On the positive side as mentioned by Miroslav Mororozov in this fragment wartime documents of the Soviet Navy are digitized as well, so they must become available online someday.

Regarding levels of access etc you have three types of document:
a) classified
b) unclassified but containing private and confidential information
c) unclassified and without any confidential information

From legal point of view c) are supposed to be accessible to any researcher, b) are accessible only to relatives of the person in question, a) are accessible only to those having security clearance. In practice things tend to be more complicated.
Honestly speaking I don't see any practical point in having documents as old as 1945 still classified (except a very tiny part). On the other hand declassification is still in progress, and you have more and more documents becoming accessible.

[Yuri]

I started working in this archive more than twenty years ago since 1998. I was not and will not be a professional historian.
In 2007 or 2008 I helped one of members this forum (citizen the US) with writing doctoral dissertation on topic about struggle for city Novorossiysk in September 1942 year (in section gratitude this dissertation identifies a and my surname). By the way, that year I was in this forum "awarded" was banned. I helped others-both Russian citizens and foreigners (including German citizens). Money for it from anybody and never took - even for compensation of the expenses for copying.
Without any serious problems, I got access to the 500 Fund (trophy documents Fund). To do this, I only had to write a letter to the head of the historical Department of the General staff and to obtain resolution from the employee of that office. In the General staff stayed no more than 15 minutes (including time to write a statement).
Tighter access to documents began after 2010, when laws were passed on confidential data of citizens. The initiative to adopt such laws has nothing to do (or rather very little to do) with the documents of the military archive.
Why not all documents are available?
The main reasons for the denial of access to documents. The most important two. If at least one sheet in a folder contains any chemical weapons information, the entire folder is not available. However (without going into details) and in this case it is possible to read the document you need if necessary, if this is not this the document that contains data on chemical weapons.
Second reason. This is if the folder has an encrypted code and then its decrypted text. This case was when I studied the documents about the 1st Polish infantry division in the USSR named Kosciusko.
viewtopic.php?f=55&t=9839&start=45

If you work in the archive is not for Commerce and (speaking in Russian) not to collect "fried facts" then the archive staff will help you, not hinder. They despise all sorts of businessmen from history and all "the collectors of fried facts". And in my opinion rightly so.

There is no such access for foreign citizens