The Central state Archive in Dresden has recently acquired new archival material relating to Africa. Although of modest proportions, this material would certainly be of interest for specialized studies. It consists of two parts: records of the firm Hermann Schubert, and the papers of the German colonial politician Oskar Wilhelmn Stübel.

Hermann Schubert's firm was established in 1862 as a small textile factory in Zittau. It grew rapidly and in the first third of the twentieth century assumed a leading role in the world market for sewing thread. In 1907, in collaboration with the colonial authorities of the German Reich, it established a cotton plantation in the Rufiji District of German East Africa (today southern Tanzania) known as Schuberthof. Partly due to a lack of experience in growing cotton, the plantation sustained considerable losses and was abandoned after World War I.

Records concerning Schuberthof form part of the papers of the firm Hermann Schubert/VEB Textilwerke Zittau. They are of a fragmentary nature; all that has survived are reports of the plantation to the firm's headquarters for 1909, and documents relating to a visit of the firm's head to German East Africa in 1907. The latter includes travel notes, reports on conversations with Walter Rathenau and the secretary of State for Colonies, as well as glass plates with snapshots of a tourist nature.

Oskar Wilhelm Stübel was born in Dresden in 1846. He studied at the universities of Leipzig, Berlin, and Heidelberg, obtained his doctorate in Leipzig, and entered the Saxon civil service.