SS Numbers & Research Resources

[John P. Moore]

Several recent discussions concerning SS Numbers on AHF gave me the idea to share some of my research experiences with those numbers here on Feldgrau. Approximately 25 years ago during my one and only visit to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, D.C. a knowledgeable archivist informed me of some special record groups that he thought might be of interest to me. They turned out to be goldmines of useful information for my research. The most important group of documents was a 3,256 page listing of all SS officers that was copied to microfilm in 1984 per the order below. The archivist provided me with ordering information for the microfilm which I promptly ordered upon my return home. Interestingly, another very experienced researcher who works at NARA nearly every day was unable to locate these records at NARA several years ago after I told him and several other interested researchers about these records.

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[John P. Moore]

The covers of the books looked like this. Possibly this was what was referred to as the "Black Book"

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[John P. Moore]

This Berlin Document Center letter from 15 May 1946 describes the contents of these documents

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[John P. Moore]

This is the first page of names. I used this data to identify officers of the Waffen-SS and to construct an outline for the A - Z officer list that later became my Führerliste der Waffen-SS publication. Of course, data from hundreds of other sources was used to supplement the rudimentary data on this Berlin Document Center list, whose accuracy was less than 100%.

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[John P. Moore]

next page

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[leib1]

Hi John thanks for sharing,is the first number the party number ?
Best Regards Jamie

[John P. Moore]

Jamie - The first number on the left under the name is the SS Number and the Party Number is to the right of that number.

A very good source for SS numbers is the Web site of Lukasz Najbarowski. He has assembled a collection of both officer and enlisted SS numbers that is the most comprehensive that I have seen.

http://www.dws-xip.pl/reich/biografie/n ... umerA.html

Here is another page from the BDC document

John

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[leib1]

Thanks