Bundesarchiv, Berlin-Tegel (Abteilung PA)

In accordance with Article 77 of the Geneva Convention of 27 July 1929 on the treatment of prisoners of war (POW) and shortly before the beginning of World War II, the High Command of the Wehrmacht opened the Wehrmacht Information Office for War Losses and POW´s (WASt) on 26 August 1939. It provided information on foreign prisoners of war and registered German Wehrmacht casualties (wounded, sick, dead, missing in action), including personal status checks and official grave evidence.

In August 1943, the Wehrmacht Information Office was moved to Thuringia and continued its work under the supervision of the American Military Commission after the occupation of Thuringia on 12 April 1945. On 1 July 1945, immediately before Soviet troops took over in Thuringia, the Americans transferred the WASt to Fürstenhagen near Kassel. At the end of January 1946, the WASt returned to Berlin and the French department of the Allied Control Commission took over the administration.

According to the administrative agreement of 9 January 1951 between the Federal Government and the Land Berlin the Information Office (WASt) became an authority of the Land Berlin. The entire agency with all employees, records and tasks was transferred to the Bundesarchiv on 1 January 2019 and now forms the department PA (for personal information on WW I and WW II). In May 2022, it moved from Berlin-Reinickendorf to Berlin-Tegel.

Post-war legislation has considerably expanded the original task of the WASt. Due to its unique material the Information Office is approached by both private individuals and authorities with cases concerning the Wehrmacht service and its effect in numerous areas.

The department PA of the Bundesarchiv holds all the personnel records of the former Wehrmacht Information Office on German war casualties and prisoners of war. Moreover, the Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt) received many comprehensive records of other military and para-military organisations, e.g. the German Navy and the Reich Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst), as well as records of German prisoners of war in British, American, French and Belgian custody in the first post-war years. In December 1990, it took over further files of the former Wehrmacht that had been stored in the Military Archives Potsdam and the State Archives of the former GDR, branch office Dornburg near Zerbst/Anhalt. With the closure of the Central Records office (Zentralnachweisstelle (ZNS)) of the Federal Archives in Aachen-Kornelimünster at the end of 2005, the WASt received even more personnel files.

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

Archival User Service can be reached by telephone: +49 (0)3018/7770-1158