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This search engine tells you if your ancestors were Nazis

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The Editor

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There are questions we’d rather not ask. Yet, a German media outlet has created a research tool that lets us find out if our ancestors were Nazis. We can finally discover which side of history we are on. So, are you ready to have a clear heart?

The German media Die Zeit allows us to check whether our ancestors were on the right or wrong side of history. Should we thank them? The answer will surely depend on the outcome of your research.


12 million family secrets just a click away

Even though all the resources used by the software were already accessible (after some hefty administrative processes), they looked more like a jumble of indecipherable data. Luckily, Die Zeit took the time to decode them for us. With over 12 million documents related to party memberships nazi between 1925 and 1945, this software tells us in a few seconds whether or not "grandpa was in the resistance."

We can say we’ve been quite lucky, because at the orig...

All these membership forms for the NSDAP were meant to be destroyed. But the person in charge of their destruction, Hanns Huber, thankfully decided to disobey by keeping them and handing them over to the Americans. Since March, everything has been available online, which has created a huge buzz in the United States, causing the server to crash multiple times.  


© Die Zeit


Type a name, uncover a Nazi

Thanks to artificial intelligence and the hard work of Die Zeit, all you need is a subscription to search for a name. Then, the magic of digital technology provides us with more information (name, date, membership card, and sometimes even a photo). Since its launch, millions of people have used this service, with 2.6 million searches recorded just a few hours after its debut.

Of course, these data should be taken with a grain of salt: a membership card doesn't reflect the level of involvement of the individuals concerned, and some documents have indeed been destroyed. Note: if the name you are searching for starts with a letters between Fa and G or between Ka and O, you won’t be able to sleep soundly: these are the segments of names that haven’t been found.