Millions of documents belonging to former members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) have been made public in Germany. This has reignited a crucial debate in the country about preserving the memory of the crimes of the Third Reich, writes the BBC.
The Third Reich fell more than 80 years ago, but questions of family history and individual responsibility for the crimes of Nazism are still unhealed wounds in Germany. The debate gained new momentum in late February, when millions of documents belonging to members of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) became available to the public.
More than 10 million people were members of the NSDAP, led by Adolf Hitler. The membership register kept in Munich was barely saved at the end of the war. 50 tons of documents were sent to a recycling plant for destruction, but the factory director disobeyed the order and handed the archive over to the Americans.
Until recently, to determine a person’s membership, it was necessary to submit an official request to the Federal Archives. But a few months ago, the US National Archives published a digitized database, and in April, the newspaper Die Zeit launched an online search engine.
The search engine has been used millions of times, according to the newspaper. German historian Johannes Spohr notes that many have become interested in the past, seeing the rise of right-wing forces or simply staying at home during the pandemic and sorting through old papers.
However, the topic remains extremely painful. All of the BBC’s interlocutors asked to remain anonymous. “It’s about loyalty to relatives, even after their death,” Spohr explains.
The meaning of membership in the Nazi Party is still a matter of debate. Some claim that their ancestors joined the party for purely “professional” reasons, so as not to lose their jobs, while others try to understand the real ideological motivations.
Some former members of the NSDAP (National Socialist Party) claimed that they were recruited into the party without their knowledge. For example, the current German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, spoke this way about his grandfather, the mayor of Brilon.
However, as Zeit emphasizes, historians are unanimous: no NSDAP member appeared in the party “automatically” and could not have been unaware of it, since membership required the candidate’s personal signature. “Not all party members were personally involved in crimes. However, everyone who decided to join the NSDAP thereby supported the Nazi regime, which was responsible for the war, the Holocaust, and many other crimes against humanity,” explains Zeit journalist Christian Staas.
According to historian Christian Spohr, membership in the NSDAP meant that a person actively sought to join the National Socialists. To join the party, you had to apply to the local branch and wait for a positive decision, and not everyone was accepted.
However, it is not possible to understand from the party card alone how active a person was in party work or whether he had committed crimes; additional research is needed for this.
