2026-03-22 19:26
publication
2026-03-22 19:26
The National Archives of America (NARA) made the files of NSDAP members available online, causing a sharp increase in user interest. The high number of visitors means that the website is temporarily unavailable – wrote the website of the daily “Die Welt”.
NARA has made available online a complete digital copy of the central register of members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) and the register of its local structures. As a result, over 16 million digital objects containing the data of millions of Germans belonging to the Nazi Party from 1920 to 1945 were found online. From 1933, the NSDAP was the only legal party operating in the totalitarian Third Reich.
From shared resources you can use it without prior registration, searching millions of entries, including: in terms of family history and genealogical research. According to the website of the daily “Die Welt”, shortly after the launch of the website, the great interest of users led to the website being overloaded, making it unavailable at times.
The core of the collection is the so-called “Master File”, combining several main files. It includes, among others: a directory of local groups with approximately 6.6 million membership cardscontaining data such as name and surname, date of birth, profession, date of joining the party and place of residence. It is supplemented by a central directory of approximately 4.3 million cards created between 1929 and 1943, which also includes leading Nazi officials, including Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Rudolf Hess.
The collection also included: over 200 thousand questionnaires from NSDAP members from the Berlin metropolitan area and materials about organizations associated with the regime.
As emphasized by the German Historical Museum, in 1945, every fifth adult German belonged to the NSDAP, which had a total of 8.5 million members.
Historians warn, however, that information about party membership found in the archive does not determine the attitude of a given person during the Nazi period. As it was emphasized, joining the NSDAP itself was an expression of support for the system. The lack of a name in the register does not mean the lack of links with Nazism, noted the dpa agency.
From Munich Iwona Weidmann (PAP)
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