A new search engine that allows users to search Nazi party records in order to find out whether their ancestors were card-carrying members has been accessed millions of times since it was launched earlier this month.
The huge database has been made available by the German newspaper Die Zeit in a bid to “end the silence born of misplaced shame,” according to an editorial from the publication. It is run in conjunction with archives in Germany and the United States.
Founded after World War I, Hitler’s party did not really gain in popularity until the economic collapse of the Great Depression. There was a sharp rise in support for it during the 1930 elections, and when Hitler was elected three years later he abolished all other parties, creating a mass movement that controlled all aspects of German life.
By the late 1930s, the “vast majority of Germans supported Hitler and the Nazi state,” according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
According to Die Zeit, 10.2 million Germans joined the party in the 20 years from 1925 and at its height at the end of World War II it had about 9 million members.
In the final days of the war, the Nazis sought to destroy the party’s vast collection of membership cards but they were saved at the last minute and later handed to the Americans. They were then stored in the Berlin Document Center but were later transferred to the German Federal Archives, with copies also at the US National Archives, the newspaper reported.
Hellbound and Down 