Records of the Central Office of the Judicial Authorities of the Federal States for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes (B 162)

Copyright Holder: Bundesarchiv (Germany). Außenstelle Ludwigsburg Contains selected records relating to the investigation and prosecution of crimes committed under the National Socialist regime from 1933-1945. Includes interrogation reports of perpetrators, testimonies of witnesses, and court decisions. Records document violent crimes, including: mass crimes against Jews and others committed by members of the SS and security police within the killing squads in Poland and in the former Soviet Union, as well as crimes in numerous ghettos, concentration and extermination camps (such as Auschwitz, Majdanek, Belżec, Treblinka or Sobibὀr) across occupied Europe. Also contains files detailing the murder of political opponents and the homicidal crimes within the so-called euthanasia-program, materials on the "Röhm murder;” the pogroms against Jews in Nazi Germany in 1938; the crimes against forced laborers in the numerous forced labor and POW camps, as well as in other institutions for detention. The Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes is Germany’s main agency responsible for investigating Nazi war crimes since 1958. The mandate for the Central Office was and remains to collect and examine all relevant records on criminal acts of the Nazi regime. The facts ascertained are then handed over to the public prosecutor who institutes the formal preliminary and criminal proceeding. The public prosecutors are also obliged to forward all findings they obtain to the Central Office and to notify legal measures and decisions pronounced during the proceedings. Since its formation, the Central Office has helped track down and prosecute almost 7,000 Nazi criminals and collaborated with the agencies of other nations to track down war criminals. In 2000, the Federal Archives established a branch office located at the residence of the Central Office of the Judicial Authorities of the Federal States for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg. The task of this branch is to preserve those records which are no longer required by the Central Office and make them accessible to researchers.