Mayor's ring
© City of Hilden

City Archive

City archive exterior view

The City Archive Hilden is a historical memory, information facility and service provider for the administration of the city and its citizens. It preserves legally and historically relevant documents of the city administration and affiliated institutions as well as important Hilden personalities, companies and associations. Through extensive collections and bequests, it documents the life of the town and makes it possible to research it. The holdings range from the end of the 18th century to the immediate present and comprise approx. 572 m.

The holdings are available to the public for use. For this purpose, the archive material is properly stored, secured and indexed.

  • Research in the city archive

    The use of the City Archives is available to all interested parties.

    Users are advised in a problem- and service-oriented manner and are given access to the archive records within the framework of the legal possibilities. The municipal archive is open to users four days a week by appointment.

    For research purposes, please send as detailed a request as possible together with the completed application form by e-mail to archiv@hilden.de

  • Archive pedagogy and historical education work

    In cooperation with other archives and educational and cultural institutions in our region, projects, exhibitions and events are carried out.

    The educational partnership between the municipal community elementary school "Wilhelm-Busch-Schule" and the City Archive Hilden, which was first established in 2017, was renewed for three more years in 2020.

    Through internships, interested pupils and students can gain an insight into working with archival materials and into the archivist's job description.


Civil registers of the Hilden city archive

(Status: April 2025)

With the amendment of the Civil Status Act on January 1, 2009, the city archive was offered civil status documents from the Hilden registry office for archiving, for which no retention periods apply.

These are:

  • Birth certificates older than 110 years
  • Marriage certificates older than 80 years
  • Death certificates older than 30 years

These documents have been kept in Hilden since 1810. The town archive is digitizing the civil status documents and making them available here bit by bit. We are currently offering the death registers for the years 1811-1994 for download.

We are currently entering the names from the certificates in Excel tables. We have already completed this for many years, but there is still a lot of work ahead of us. We would be very happy to receive volunteer support. Anyone who would like to help us type up the names is welcome to contact us by e-mail at archiv@hilden.de.