Bundesarchiv, Ludwigsburg (Unterlagen der Zentralen Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung nationalsozialistischer Verbrechen)

The Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes, a joint facility of the regional State Justice Administrations, (Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung nationalsozialistischer Verbrechen) was established in Ludwigsburg in 1958. It is responsible for the investigation of crimes committed against civilians and prisoners under German rule between 1933 and 1945. In 2000 the Federal Archives established a branch of the Department B (German Federal Republic) in Ludwigsburg in the building where the Central Office is still located. Its main task is to secure the documents and card indexes of the Central Office, to describe and to open the formerly closed files to the public. Moreover, the Federal Archives in Ludwigsburg display a permanent exhibition regarding how Nationalist Socialist crimes are subsequently dealt with and offer students and teachers a special set of instructive learning offerings as an extramural learning location.

To fulfill its task the Central Office has collected a huge amount of documents and copies from archives all over the world and produced a large card index. The Bundesarchiv makes these sources available to researchers and the public, thus providing extensive information on the German prosecution of war crimes and Nazi trial proceedings. Since the Central Office played a significant role in most of the Western German Nazi trials and preliminary investigations since 1958, the Ludwigsburg branch of the Bundesarchiv holds interesting records for the analysis of the Nazi reign of terror. The collections include extensive administrative records of the Nazi era, thousands of statements of suspects, witnesses and victims as well as other trial and prosecution records such as indictments and judgements.

Research within the records of the Bundesarchiv can be exercised through finding aids (books, file index) and/or the huge database called Invenio which is accessible online under: https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/ All information about using records or services of the Bundesarchiv is available through the website: http://www.bundesarchiv.de/benutzung/index.html.en Archival User Service can be reached by telephone: +49 (0)7141/8992-83