NSDAP membership files on US NARA website

For a long time, they were a closely guarded secret. Now the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has made the NSDAP membership files (Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party that existed from 1920 to 1945) available online, largely preserved, for the whole world to see. The NSDAP membership files have been made fully accessible for the first time since World War II.

According to NARA, these files are copies of biographical records of the Berlin Document Center’s (BDC) National Socialist German Labor Party (NSDAP) materials and constitute the BDC’s principal sources concerning membership and activities of the NSDAP.

The records for the most part document three basic categories of information, such as membership in the NSDAP; membership in specific professional organizations sponsored by or associated with the NSDAP, and activities of the German Nazi judiciary system.

The NSDAP membership records, sometimes collectively known as the “Master File,” consist of central and special registries and card indexes. Within the “Master File” included are Anträge, Ortsgruppenkartei, Zentralkartei, Party Census (Berlin), Warnkartei, NSDAP Schwarze Listen, and Mitglieder-Sammelstelle der NSDAP. These files record essential biographical and Party membership data for each individual.  More information about the NARA collection on the German Nazi archival collection can be found here: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/12044361

Historical sensation

As reported by NARA, it is possible right now to browse, without registration, “millions of cards with names, dates of birth, membership numbers, dates of joining, and in some cases also portrait photographs of National Socialist Party comrades, both male and female” on the NARA website here:

https://catalog.archives.gov/search-within/12044361

The publication provides insight—though incomplete, because not one hundred percent of the files have survived—into the records of those Germans who, at least on paper, supported the rule and crimes of Germany until 1945.

Many German families remain silent about their ancestors. Today, they can investigate their relatives more easily than ever before.

The German weekly calls the publication of the files a “historical sensation.”

Were the (great-)grandparents Nazis?

By 1945, about 8.5 million Germans—both women and men—had joined the NSDAP. For each member, the party kept several personal data cards: one in the central register in Munich and another in local registers in the places where members lived and belonged to the party.

NSDAP bureaucrats filled out the cards meticulously. The fact that they survived the war is owed to one man: Hanns Huber, director of a paper mill in Munich-Freimann, who, shortly before the end of the war, ignored the party’s order to destroy tons of files and instead hid them in waste paper.

This way, about 80 percent of the files were preserved at least in the local registers maintained for territorial units called “Gau”. After the war, they were confiscated by the American army and transferred to a specially established archive in West Berlin, the Berlin Document Center.

There, the Allies used the files during denazification procedures. This made it almost impossible to deny membership in the NSDAP. In the 1990s, the Americans returned the documents to the German state, making copies for themselves; today they are located in the Federal Archives in Berlin-Lichterfelde.

Germany and “privacy protection”

The German Federal Archives have already digitized these files in the central register and the local registers, but so far cannot make them publicly available online because of the NSDAP members’ right to privacy. In Germany, this protection expires only ten years after a person’s death or 100 years after their birth.

For the youngest NSDAP members (year of birth 1928), this would mean that the last deadlines will expire in 2028. “The goal of the Federal Archives is, of course, to make the entire register available after the protection periods have expired,” a spokesperson said. However, she did not provide an exact date.

Americans outpace German archives

Now the German Federal Archives have been overtaken by the American National Archives. Americans copied the microfilms in the 1990s and have now almost completely digitized them. They made the lists available online at the end of February 2026.

“The American archive did not create media hype around the publication, even though the dataset is not only historically important but also extremely extensive—nearly 16.3 million digitized documents,” wrote *Der Spiegel*.

Not easy to search among millions of files

Using the search engine on the site, in theory, you can reach an NSDAP membership card with just a few clicks. However, the search interface is not easy to use. “Those expecting a user-friendly database may be disappointed,” writes the German weekly.

“It looks simple, but the search does not work as easily as in Google,” says historian Martin Clemens Winter from the University of Leipzig in an interview with the German weekly. In recent weeks, he has intensively used the digitized NSDAP membership files as part of his research on the Leipzig armaments company HASAG. In the sources, he managed to find several company employees and supervisors from their forced labor camps about whom he previously had no data.

Winter warns that one “should not have overly high expectations” of the American archive. Although full-text search allows millions of entries to be searched and automatic text recognition can even decipher old German handwriting, the system does not work flawlessly. “I see the danger that especially laypeople may be disappointed when they find nothing,” Winter says.

On the Bluesky platform and on his blog, Winter has repeatedly posted tips, discoveries, and context. One user on Reddit has also compiled initial instructions on how to use it. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/comments/1rqvwns/nara_has_put_the_membership_card_file_of_the/

Key information: date of joining the NSDAP

In the files, the date of joining the NSDAP is particularly important. Someone who joined before the seizure of power in 1933 was more likely to have been a convinced German Nazi. The party viewed such a person to be an “old fighter.”

If a family member does not appear in the membership files, it does not automatically mean that the person was not involved. About 20 percent of the documents from local registers were lost. Also, not every German with nationalist or antisemitic views automatically joined the party. Sometimes there were long waiting lists, or admissions were suspended. For example, Austrians and Sudeten Germans could not become members until 1938.

Now it is easier to obtain information about the past

To resolve the question of whether ancestors were German Nazis, effort and research may still be required. However, the digitized membership card index at the NARA significantly facilitates the start of the search.

Maria Szonert Binienda

See also:  https://www.dw.com/pl/usa-miliony-akt-nazist%C3%B3w-do-wgl%C4%85du/a-76401572