German newspaper 'Die Zeit' allows you to find Nazi ancestors in seconds
Many witnesses write to the newspaper explaining their surprise at the discovery that their relatives were affiliated with the NSDAP
BarcelonaThe German newspaper Die Zeit has made available to its readers an online search engine that allows you to find out in a matter of seconds if there is a Nazi in your family. The search engine is based on historical files of members of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), and by entering first and last names, you can find out if the person in question was affiliated with the regime. The search engine provides information from different archives. Between 1925 and 1945, 10.2 million Germans joined the NSDAP. Shortly before the end of the war, the party leadership ordered the destruction of all files – about 50 tons of paper – by transferring them from their headquarters to Munich, to a paper mill in the Freimann district. However, the miller Hanns Huber stopped the destruction upon realizing what he held in his hands.
In the autumn of 1945, the Americans recovered these valuable documents and in early 1946 transferred them to the Berlin Document Center. According to Nazi Party researcher Jürgen Falter, approximately 44% of the central archive and 77% of the regional archive have been preserved. This corresponds to about 4.5 million names in the former and 8.2 million in the latter. In total, it is estimated that around 90% of all former NSDAP members can be found. Until now, the NSDAP registry could only be consulted by requesting it from official archives, and it was a slow, bureaucratic, and inaccessible process. According to Die Zeit, the aim is not to point fingers at anyone, but to better understand the country's past and how the Nazi regime functioned. By providing everyone with a tool to access a historical archive, research is facilitated, but it is also a way to confront the family and collective past.
For many, it has been a surprise to discover that their grandfather, great-grandfather, or great-uncle was affiliated with the party. “The fact that my great-grandfather was a member of the NSDAP had been silenced, it had never been spoken of in the family,” explains one of the many testimonies that have written to the German newspaper after the investigation. “I have already found two close relatives, contrary to the family legend that no one in our family was involved. Changing perspective at 71 is a terrible shock,” assures another witness. In Germany, information about a person is only made public 100 years after their birth or 10 years after their death. Therefore, much information was inaccessible until recently. In fact, the names of the victims are much better known, and there is much more awareness in this regard, than about the perpetrators.
