When Margrit Braig-Kienzle, 77, used the new database for Nazi Party memberships, recently created by German newspaper Die Zeit, she was shocked to come across her father’s name. “My first thought was: This can’t be true”, Margrit says. Her working-class father became a party member at 21 years old and was described as “politically unreliable” in the family for years. Margrit says she now doubts what’s true or not.
The new online tool allows people to search through millions of Nazi Party memberships, needing only a name, with options to narrow down results by date or place of birth. In cooperation with archives in Germany and the US, the newspaper launched the database at the beginning of April.
Margrit continued that she feels “betrayed” by her father. “When he spoke about the Nazi era, it always sounded as if he had been a victim”. Many in that generation never acknowledged what they had done during the Nazi era and remained silent, she added. Since then, she revealed that her children have tried devising explanations as to why he might have joined.
However, others using the database have been surprised by their lack of relatives in the Party. Annette, 62, said that her family did not seem “averse to the ideology of the past”. Yet, she found that it was only her father and one of his brothers who were members of the Party. Annette revealed the troubles she has had discussing this matter with her mother, who views it as a “highly emotional matter” and “best left alone”.
The impression Annette has received from her mother’s generation was that they had “closed a door after the Nazi era in order to be able to look to the future again”. She added that: “behind the door lie a multitude of issues that need to be addressed. Yet people prefer not to do so because it stirs up too much shame, pain, and guilt.” Annette concluded that she doesn’t think she will bring up with her mother what she has found from the database.
How the Nazi party membership records survived the fall of Hitler's Germany
The membership cards were stored in the Nazi headquarters in Munich and were almost destroyed during the last days of the Second World War. They were saved by a nearby paper mill director, Hanns Huber, who defied orders to have them pulped, claiming he was unable to do so due to coal shortages or broken machines.
After the war, Hanns handed them over to the Americans, who kept them at the Berlin Document Center for almost 50 years. In 1994, the US made microfilm copies of the original documents before handing them over to the German Federal Archives after reunification.
The US National Archives website released the digitised microfilm collection online in March 2026. The documents were indexed two years ago, but not fully accessible to the public due to legal privacy protection periods. The deadline is 100 years after a person’s birth or 10 years after their death. Although the collection of Nazi party membership records on the US National Archives website is freely accessible to browse and has a search function, finding records is not straightforward.
As many families struggled to find records, German weekly newspaper Die Zeit, stepped in and used AI to turn the collection into a more efficient, searchable database. It is only accessible to subscribers of the newspaper, but there is currently a deal for new subscribers where you can access the database for €1 for four weeks before standard payments are charged.
