Hi Kurt,

The U-boot archive does not have personnel records. They also only have limited crew lists and then mostly for officers. The place you want to contact for information on your relative is WASt. See [ubootwaffe.net] for information on contacting WASt. They are the German government agency with access to what personnel records still exist.

You will probably have to have your relative’s date of birth or some information that will uniquely identify him though. For example, the “serial/entry Crew of 1938” info in the crew list section of ubootwaffe.net for Wilhelm Rosenbaum indicates that Wilhelm Rosenbaum was an officer not an enlisted man and that he joined the German navy in 1938. The only other entry that might be him is for K Rosenbaum who served on U-596 as the rest of the entries are for men that died. There is no indication of rank for him so he might be an officer or an enlisted man. Also note that the crew lists on ubootwaffe.net are incomplete but they are probably the most complete crew lists available anywhere.

If finding your relative and asking him isn’t possible then finding his birth certificate or death certificate should give you the information you need to give WASt. It is worth asking them anyway even if you can’t come up with that information though but you will have to give them something to go on.

Also note that if your relative died in the U.S. and you can find his Social Security number you might be able to find his date of birth in the Social Security Death Index database. See [ubootwaffe.net] for info on that.

Regards,

Ken Dunn