I discovered, in Nazi Party membership records recently digitized by the United States and made available through a search tool created by German newspaper Die Zeit, two relatives who were members of the NSDAP, the Nazi Party.
One of them, Hubert, my great-grandfather's brother, joined in 1937; information about him is scarce, and a nephew told me that he "was never really part of the family."The other, Ewald, my third cousin, was an engineer and was fired from a TÜV branch (a company that conducts safety tests for the German state) after joining the party and serving as a blockleiter—a block leader responsible for monitoring neighbors and passing information on to authorities.
I also consulted the denazification questionnaires Ewald filled out after the war, in which he claimed he had joined for economic reasons and said he had been removed from the position after conflicts with Nazi superiors.
Letters from neighbors and the local priest described him as someone who had never acted as a National Socialist, and the British classified him as a mere "follower."
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