New search engine reveals if ancestors were in Nazi party
Posted by cos@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 43 comments
Posted by cos@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 43 comments
not_not_in_the_NSA@reddit
It's certainly important to have a record of who was in the Nazi party. But I really don't think it should be relevant to many people on a personal level anymore. Just because a grandparent or great grandparent joined doesn't mean you personally should feel responsible or guilty in any way. I understand if a parent was a member it might help you understand your upbringing some more.
This also seems like something people will use as an ad hominem against those they disagree with in politics or just general public figures.
fishscaleSF5@reddit
It could be used to track families with ill-gotten wealth from their Nazi affiliation or collaboration. Anecdotally, my ex came from a very wealthy family and implied her grandfather had been a Nazi collaborator in Ukraine, fled the country once the war ended, changed his name, and subsequently invested an whackload of money into real estate that has grown into the hundreds of millions since. I obviously have a bias because she sucks, but it would be awesome to see that wealth clawed back and redistributed for reparations.
Worldly_Anybody_9219@reddit
It grinds my gears that so many Nazis not only got away with their crimes, but their families profited off their ill-gotten gains. Switzerland anyone? It's especially irritating because the same pattern will repeat itself with Trump's horrible clan profiting from him looting the US to enrich himself.
Fearless-Feature-830@reddit
Me when I found out my ancestors were slave owners
ztuztuzrtuzr@reddit
Basically everyone's had slave owning ancestors since the practice has existed for thousands of years on basically every place on the planet
eeeking@reddit
The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at University College London has a website where you can look-up British slave owners who were compensated when slavery was abolished: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
It can be a bit awkward if someone from the Caribbean with an unusual English surname (inherited from the person who enslaved their ancestor) looks up their name. Today there are many public figures in the UK descended from slave owners, the descendants of whose slaves are also in the UK...
FiveOhFive91@reddit
Me when I found out my great grandma didn't want to be my great grandma and was kidnapped from the Cherokee people and I shouldn't tell people I'm part Cherokee
sight_ful@reddit
Why do you think it follows that you shouldn't claim that part of you?
Fearless-Feature-830@reddit
Daaaamn really?
A couple of my ancestors came from Scotland and married native women, so there’s some of that on my dad’s side. I’m kinda related to Osceola (by marriage) lol
NetworkLlama@reddit
I had relatives in both the North and th South. The only one I've seen on Confederate rolls went missing in Texas before his first muster in late 1864 when most people could see the outcome, mysteriously reappearing after Lee's surrender. I'd like to think he did it out of principle. In reality, he was probably pro-slavery but unwilling to fight a lost war.
JudahBotwin@reddit
Same, but at least the land is now under a man made lake.
Luckily I had several ancestors that fought in the Revolutionary War, so not all of them were shitheads.
vastle12@reddit
You say thing like that but the Canadian parliament gave a Nazi a standing ovation a couple of years ago and they covered up all the names on ww2 memorial because a bunch of people were also Nazis.
Professional-Syrup-0@reddit
Sadly those are just normal Canada things to do.
GianfrancoZoey@reddit
Not to be pedantic but it wasn't a WW2 memorial it was a 'Victims of Communism' memorial. The Nazi presence on it wasn't at all an accident - they were the main victims of communism from that time and Canada (like many Western countries) had offered safe haven to many Nazis and Nazi collaborators. The organisations who were donating to get names added were founded by those fascists who fled after WW2
EllieVioleta@reddit
It will also be used by neo nazis themselves. Being a grandchildren of a nazi is a good thing for them.
Buster_Bazz@reddit
I'm pretty sure the kinds of people who use "Nazi" as an ad homemim against others most likely was doing so before this article was published, and probably will continue to do so irregardless, as a justification to enact violence against anyone they believe are evil.
roughtimes@reddit
Exactly this. My family did have Nazis. Lots of people tried to hide this fact over the years. It's important to remember the past and the shame associated.
kapuh@reddit
I don't know what this actually is because it's behind a paywall but just a few weeks ago this portal has been relased, doing the same thing:
https://catalog.archives.gov/search-within/12044361
I assume the one by Zeit is easier to search since those are basically huge .pdf files.
I recommend downloading first.
Professional-Syrup-0@reddit
What’s behind the Zeit paywall is the same archive the US government released.
Britstuckinamerica@reddit
[Here] (https://www.zeit.de/wissen/2026-04/nsdap-mitgliederkartei-karteikarten-familienmitglieder-suche) is a link to it which was oddly missing from the BBC story, though it's only for Die Zeit subscribers
kaschperli@reddit
What bunch of bullshit after every living person who could proof that this paper is lying already died.
Could have been made 30, 50 years prior if such a list was trustworthy, while those who are blamed now we're still alive.
And of course every politicians name whose grandparents or great grandparents were in the nsdap are suddenly clean.
Professional-Syrup-0@reddit
The US government put these cards online, Zeit scraped them and made their own database out of them.
Which makes me wonder if this is part of the US administrations push on European “free speech”.
HockeyHocki@reddit
afaik people were pressured or coerced into joining but the membership cards are not fake
reddit_is_geh@reddit
It's hard to say if it's coercion or whatever... It's not like many people were actively against the Nazis as we like to believe. That's mostly just revisionist history to allow people to save face.
But Germany was basically is a status spiral. "The Status Game" is a fascinating book on this subject. But basically your status is derived from commitment and loyalty to the group. So people, if they want to raise status, have to do anything and everything they can to push the cause. Turning people in as "not actually committed as they claim" (eating their own), is a status move. Taking out others for not being committed (sort of like cancelling), is a status move. Obsessing over the ideology and getting infinitely granular and technical, proves how much you are committed.
The thing is, the people in these status traps often are genuine believers. It's just human psychology. When you're entire tribe is behind a cause, you're naturally going to adapt to your surrounding.
What I found interesting after that book was that while MAGA is definitely a cult of it's own, it's not as rigid and stuck in a status trap as we saw in the "woke" communities. Those much more reflected people in a status trap. Taking down their own, cancelling, more concerned with "signaling" their commitment to the cause, even if their actions would hurt the cause. Because the goal wasn't the cause, but rather, gaining status from within.
The_decent_dude@reddit
Eh, after 1933 the Nazis actively tried to stop people from joining the NSDAP, wanting to prevent people from joining just for the associated benefits.
I'm sure many notable people were pressured to join the party but average people who joined the NSDAP did so out of their own free will.
Theodosian_Walls@reddit
do you have a source?
jt289@reddit
I remember Richard Evans saying this in The Third Reich in Power - I think it’s mentioned in the prologue. Definitely a reliable source!
The_decent_dude@reddit
Here is a source, its unfortunately in German but I cannot find any English language sources. I suppose Germans and Austrians are far more inrerested in this than other people.
https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/nsdap-mitglied-wider-willen-100.html
big_cock_lach@reddit
In Germany this was sort of the case, they still let people joined and wanted people to do so, but they did begin to heavily restrict membership instead of accepting anyone and everyone.
For the occupied territories this wasn’t the case at all because they needed and wanted occupied people to join their cause.
sleazysuit845@reddit
You sound worried about family history
Zemledeliye@reddit
Funny how these things are always pushed right when Israel is carrying out genocidal actions...
Elloitsmeurbrother@reddit
Funny how the sun always rises on the days when Israel is carrying out genocidal actions...
Aallotonvastaus@reddit
Cant do it because of the pay wall. Can you do it on my behalf? My name is Donald John Trump.
BrodaReloaded@reddit
They would have thrown a buffoon like him out for being a disgrace to the German people
DensePoser@reddit
Is there also a search engine that reveals if someone's ancestors were Zionists?
C1andestino@reddit
Still need a translator if you don’t speak German.
Logical-Database4510@reddit
Yeah unfortunately pay walled.
Was interested to see if any of my extended family bears the shame. My grandfather and his brothers fought for the US in the Pacific front, but I have no doubt his cousins likely were Nazis based on what he told me.
BBlasdel@reddit
Thank you for the link
Amanda-sb@reddit
I read a book a few months ago "Exorcising Hitler" and it says that by the end of the war 90% of the population were on the party, however after the war they were categorized to see who were a hardcore nazi and who were there for other reasons.
NetworkLlama@reddit
It wasn't anywhere close. At the close of the war, there were 8.5 million NSDAP members out of around 70 million people in Germany, plus some still in Poland. I think you're misremembering, because that book is cited from time to time in r/AskHistorians without any pushback that I've seen.
Amanda-sb@reddit
Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me
happymudkipz@reddit
It's a bit odd of a project to me. I suppose it makes sense given how Germany deals with the holocaust, but I don't see why it'd matter. The people in the article only seem to make themselves or their memories less happy to noone's benefit or justice.
PlantainPractical928@reddit
I very much see the benefit in it as its now far more accessible. So people who want the truth about their family history and not some watered down story can look it up.