It would be much more efficient to develop a search tool to find the tiny handful of ancestors who weren’t in the party.
New online search tool in Germany reveals if ancestors were Nazi Party members – In partnership with American and German archives, the weekly ‘Die Zeit’ has launched a searchable tool granting access to more than 12 million documents, cataloging the bulk of Nazi Party (NSDAP) memberships from 1925 to 1945.
Completely clueless as to what happened in Germany and environs during what appears to have been a rather turbulant period roughly between 1939 and 1945, a young German historian has written a book in which he asks his readers to ask their grandparents if they might possibly know.
“Whatever it was, it must have been a pretty big deal,” the historian said. “And as my studies now indicate, immediately after this whatever it was event, conversations about it between parents and children appear to have been nearly impossible as it was, well, hell if I know. That’s part of the mystery. And that’s why I’ve written this book.”
Time is running out. The answer to how a cultured, civilized nation did something “I dunno” (text slightly altered here) lies in the minds of the dying generation that took part, many of whom are ready and willing to talk at the end of their lives.
Observing Hermann 