Selected records of postwar East German investigative court cases and trials to Nazi war crimes

Document | Digitized | Accession Number: 2004.300 | RG Number: RG-14.068

Overview

Description: Prosecutions in the Soviet-Occupied Zone of Germany (subsequently German Democratic Republic) against perpetrators of Nazi-era crimes. Victims were Jews, the mentally ill, prisoners of war, and other groups in ghettos, partisan areas, camps, and killing centers. Perpetrators were in the SS, the Einsatzgruppen, police battalions and regiments, the euthanasia program, the court system, ghetto and camp administrations, the Wehrmacht, and the latter's Field Police (Feldgendarmerie) and Secret Field Police (Geheime Feldpolizei).
Subtitle: Records ZUV
Date: inclusive: 1945-1990
Credit Line: Forms part of the Claims Conference International Holocaust Documentation Archive at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This archive consists of documentation whose reproduction and/or acquisition was made possible with funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Language: German
Genre/Form: Registers.
Extent: 49,449 digital images : TIFF and JPEG ; 17.6 GB.
1,388 microfiche.
1 CD.
Extent: 239 boxes
System of Arrangement: Arranged in 497 series. Each criminal case applies to one series number. The case number, the regional office, and principal defendant are listed for each trial

Conditions on Access: This material can only be accessed in a Museum reading room or other on-campus viewing stations. No other access restrictions apply to this material.
Conditions on Use: According to “Gesetz über die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehem. DDR” dated Sept. 2, 2002 (fax copy on file at IAPD), no restrictions on scholarly use provided privacy regulations are adhered to; media users to be referred to BStU.
Copyright Holder: Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik Arkhiv

Topical Term: World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities--Germany. War criminals--Germany. Trials--Germany. War crimes--Germany. Forced labor--Germany--History--20th century. Jews--Germany--History--1933-1945.
Geographic Name: Petrovka (R.S.F.S.R.) Liepāja (Latvia) Aizpute (Latvia) Schkede (Latvia) Baranavichy (Belarus) Warsaw (Poland) Eisk (Russia) Rīga (Latvia) Görlitz (Dresden, Germany) Rivne (Zakarpatsʹka oblastʹ, Ukraine) Kaliningrad (Kaliningradskai︠a︡ oblastʹ, Russia) Semmenstedt (Germany) Berlin (Germany) Dresden (Germany) Kielce (Poland) Skarżysko-Kamienna (Poland) Częstochowa (Poland) Schlieben (Germany) Terezín (Severočeský kraj, Czech Republic) Olomouc (Czech Republic) Herzsprung (Germany) Leipzig (Germany) Ortowice (Poland) Poltava (Ukraine) Mielec (Poland) Torgau (Germany) Halle an der Saale (Germany) Obejan (Ukraine)
Corporate Name: Auschwitz (Concentration camp) Gusen (Concentration camp) Buchenwald (Concentration camp) Neuengamme (Concentration camp) Flossenbürg (Concentration camp) Baturino (Concentration camp) Sachsenhausen (Concentration camp) Ravensbrück (Concentration camp) Neu Rohlau (Concentration camp) Oederan (Concentration camp) Dachau (Concentration camp)

Holder of Originals: Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik Arkhiv
Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: Records were created by the courts and prosecutors' offices in East Germany. The former East German Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit or MfS) had taken (over time) into custody a substantial number of the judicial records. After the reunification of Germany, from 1990 onward, the records from the Stasi archive of the German Democratic Republic were collected in the Archives of the Federal Custodian for the materials of the Security Service of the former GDR (Die Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, BStU) in Berlin, Germany. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's International Programs Division acquired selected records from the Federal Custodian for the materials of the Security Service of the former GDR in Mar. 2004. The Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the first part of the collection in June 2004, other accretions in Jun and Oct. 2005, Feb. and Nov. 2006, Jan. 2007, May 2009, April 2010, Nov. 2013 and Feb. 2015. Ongoing project.
Special Collection: Claims Conference International Holocaust Documentation Archive