Does anyone know whatever became of....

[PVH]

....Wilhelm Godde of the KMS Scharnhorst?

I can find no information on line regarding his whereabouts after the war.

Thanks

[alan newark]

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 4&start=90

Axis History ref to him on Prinz Eugen?

[alan newark]

Ahemmm.

I believe that Prinz Eugen should read Scharnhorst.

I am casting around looking for, e.g., possible genealogical sites' refs, Obituaries, other possible sources ref Godde.

Found a Johannes Wilhelm Godde born in the 1890's in Recklinghausen. That guy would have been in his early 40's in 1939..

I would check - unless you have info that he survived the war - the German War Graves Registration service or check Dienstelle WASt to see if they have a personnel record for him?

You might not get an early reply and WASt do sometimes ask that searchers be a relative or have reasonable assumption that the person being researched has been dead for a while.

Apologies for SNAFU..Al:->

[hucks216]

Ubootwaffe.net have him as surviving the sinking of the Scharnhorst and being made a PoW..

[alan newark]

Hi

As you probably know many U-boot personnel were sent to POW camps in the USA and Canada but if Godde was, at the war's end, held in a British camp then there is a good prospect that WASt have his POW Frageboge and other camp records.

I can say this because several years ago, following complaints from (mostly elderly and not well off) correspondents I challenged the then UK Public Records Office, now the National Archives, as to why they were reportedly offering so little encouragement to enquirers making searches about German POWs?

The standard PRO reply was that the POW records had been destroyed in the 1960's, that the bulk of remaining administrative files held little information about individual POWs and that enquirers would either have to employ a commercial researcher or visit the archives in person. This information was included in the PRO's printed and on-line leaflets about POWs.

As a freelance journalist I wrote asking why such enquirers, many of whom were looking for German fathers or grandfathers, were being so shabbily treated? I initially received the same treatment but then said that the PRO could either collaborate with me or I would take the matter to my MP, their local MP, the Government Minister responsible for the PRO, etc, and then the Press.

What I needed to know was:

(a) when, where and why were such important documents destroyed, on whose orders were they destroyed and who took the original decision to do so..when was that decision taken

(b) in what quantities were POW records destroyed and what categories were destroyed

(c) did anyone ask the German authorities if they wanted these records..If not, why not? If Yes and the Germans expresed interest, why were the documents not sent to Germany? If the Germans did not take the documents, why not?

I advised the PRO to have a staff historian investigate the matter and asked for the results of that investigation.

The result was that the UK's German POW records, tens of thousands of Fragebogen, index cards and other records, including death records, had not been destroyed in the 1960's but had, in fact, been sent to the German Red Cross in Hamburg. From there, the records were later sent to the WASt in Berlin. The new information was subsequently included in the PRO's printed and on-line leaflets.

So, all we need to do now is find out where Godde ended WWII. Though you could just, meanwhile, write to WASt anyway. There is also the hope that NARA in the USA either hold German POW records or also sent these records to Berlin?

Hope you get your man. I will keep looking, too.


Al:->

[alan newark]

Goede William C. Germany 2/2/98 Naturalization Record Vol B (1898), 108

US NARA Naturalization ref. Note Goede spelling. Note1898 DoB. Could be Recklinghausen individual?