Archive

The company archives are the memory of Allianz and the central storage for historical information and objects from its corporate history. It is structured in a hybrid form. Next to a digital archive, which is being developed at the moment, you can find about 2.5 km of shelf length filled with the most important sources from the history of Allianz.

These include documents on the establishment and organizational development of the company, reports, magazines for employees and customers, estates, collections of subsidiaries, historical stock sheets, policies and many other papers. Collections of advertising material, books and insurance signs, a media archive as well as an extensive collection of objects widen the view of the company and its time. The archive inventory documents the history of Allianz over a period of more than 130 years, secures it for the future and is open to researchers.

For inquiries, please contact Gerd Modert, the company historian of Allianz SE:

„A good photo is a photo you look at for more than a second.”
(Henri Cartier-Bresson, legendary French photographer)

Pictures are what make history vivid. The archives of Allianz involve an extensive media collection. Over 100,000 photographs and slides, an inventory of movies, and many thousand advertising prints and objects offer an insight into the media world of Allianz, from its foundation until today.

Early advertising films form a special treasure of the archives. They document how Allianz started to let moving pictures talk for the company. Please take a few seconds to look at the image gallery and check if and on what your eye pauses.

In 1666, London was in flames. As a result, so-called fire marks – usually made of lead – were introduced to mark buildings insured against fire. Thus they pointed the way for the fire departments, which were operated by the insurance companies at that time.

A unique collection of such fire insurance signs is among the finest holdings of the historical archives of Allianz. It was documented by U.S. expert William Evenden in his handbook on the history of fire signs.

Around 1600 signs from all over the world provide an insight into the extensive activities of Allianz and its group companies through the ages. In keeping with this, the archive's advertising collection contains numerous promotional materials for Allianz’s fire insurance products.