Dr William Owen Hassall (Ministry of Economic Warfare Library): Papers

PRO 30/95

1941-1948

This series consists of a collection of the unregistered files of Dr W O Hassall, dating from the period he spent as librarian in the Ministry of Economic Warfare and the Control Office for Germany and Austria, on loan from the Bodleian Library, between 1941 and 1946.

The files relate to the ministry library's attempts to amass as much material as possible from UK held sources relating to economic life, industrial developments, town maps and street plans in Germany and German occupied Europe. This information was used by the ministry and other civilian and military agencies with which it was in close contact for the prosecution of the war. Later material relates to the targeting of possible sources of material and evaluation of captured material as it fell into the hands of the advancing allied armies.

By the time of their arrival at the Public Record Office a number of the files originally listed as being part of the collection were no longer present. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) records co-ordinator examined the records at the PRO in June 1987, removing a number of duplicates and sorting some loose papers into Dr Hassall's original loose file covers.

The surviving files are arranged according to the numbering system used by Dr Hassall, which ran from 1 to 148, and in which files were allocated the next available number when they were 'opened'.

Those of the Control Office are in FO 935

Records of the Ministry of Economic Warfare are in FO 837

Public Record(s)

English

• Control Office for Germany and Austria, 1945-1947
• Ministry of Economic Warfare, 1939-1945

19 file(s)

Bodleian Library, Oxford University , in June 1987

Topics

Archives and libraries

Trade and commerce

Europe and Russia

Maps and plans

Operations, battles and campaigns

Personal and family papers

After his service with the Ministry, Hassall returned to Oxford and his post at the Bodleian, and his papers were returned to him there by the Foreign Office German Section (successor to the Control Office) in March 1948. The papers stayed at the Bodleian Library until June 1987.

A selection review was carried out by the PRO in 1995 to 1996, at which time a number of files containing copy lists of books held or wanted by the Ministry or on loan to other agencies were disposed of.