Deutsche Dienststelle, government office of Berlin
The Deutsche Dienststelle is a federal archive in Berlin that holds personnel records of soldiers from both World Wars and their relatives. Its holdings cover millions of index cards, service documents, and papers recording ranks, units, and the fate of those listed.
The institution was founded in 1939 under the name Wehrmachtauskunftstelle to inform families about losses and the capture of their relatives. After the war it was renamed Deutsche Dienststelle in 1946 and remained part of Berlin's administration until its collections were transferred to the federal archive in 2019.
The archive holds personal records of millions of soldiers and is visited mostly by family members looking for information about relatives who died or went missing in wartime. Those who use the reading rooms find themselves in a calm working space where personal and collective history sit close together.
The archive can be visited in person, though the reading rooms offer a limited number of workplaces, so contacting staff in advance is a good idea. Those who cannot visit in person can submit requests by mail, phone, or through the online database Invenio.
Among the holdings are extensive records of prisoners of war from France, Britain, Belgium, and the Soviet Union, not just German soldiers. This makes it one of the few archives in Germany where families from several countries can trace the fate of their relatives from the same collection.
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