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In the twenty-five years of its existence, the archive of the German Maritime Museum has become a significant collection whose approximately 19,000 technical drawings, 140,000 photographs, 5,600 printed art leaflets, 1,600 posters, 5,600 nautical charts and large number of files and documents of all kinds provide sources for a wide range of maritime-historical research intentions. Among the archive's users are not only historians, but also amateur researchers, journalists, film makers and ship model builders. Numerous publications – monographs and essays – are based wholly or in part on the corresponding sources from the museum. For a fee, a scientific information service team carries out research assignments and responds to extremely diverse requests for pictorial material. There are a few aspects which have a negative effect upon the operation of the archive: It is housed in rooms which are to some extent unsuitable for the purposes of accommodating an institution of this kind; what is more, the archive is understaffed. Without the extensive aid of volunteers, it would not have been possible to take complete stock of the archive material and make it accessible to the public by means of a systematic catalogue. The posters, art leaflets and a proportion of the technical drawings have recently been catalogued electronically, making these objects all the more accessible and allowing searches to be carried out according to a wide range of criteria.

In the archives of the German Maritime Museum, filed under Classification Number III I X 12 m, is a bundle of personal papers throwing light on the events connected with the accidental death in 1907 of the school ship cadet Werner Bolm. Two years earlier Bolm had been hired as an apprentice on board the four-masted bark HERZOGIN SOPHIE CHARLOTTE of the Norddeutscher Lloyd. His first voyage took him to Honolulu and Iasted from July, 1905 until October, 1906: Serious sea damage off Cape Horn had forced the ship to dock for an extended time in Montevideo. ln mid-November, 1906 he set off on his second training voyage, this time to Australia. On March 25, 1907, in the port of Sydney, Cadet Bolm fell from the mizzenmast and was fatally injured. His superiors and comrades carried him to the grave in Sydney. Among the surviving papers are letters sent to Bolm's parents by the shipowner, the captain and the crew as well as a "Iist of effects", i.e. of Bolm's personal belongings. T his enumeration provides a complete survey of the equipment of a school ship cadet around the turn of the century. The file closes with a Ietter from the shipowner notifying Bolm's parents that half of the fees paid for the second year of apprenticeship would be refunded.