Original German Pre-WWII NSDAP Membership Book for Fritz Beine of Bochum, Germany Original Items

Original Item: One-of-a-kind. The National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), commonly known in English as the NSDAP, was a political party in Germany between 1919 and 1945. It was known as the German Workers’ Party (DAP) before the name was changed in 1920. The party’s last leader, Adolf AH, was appointed Chancellor of Germany by president Paul von Hindenburg in 1933. AH rapidly established a totalitarian regime known as the Third Reich.

All members who joined the NSDAP “party” were given Membership books, which would contain their picture, personal information, and basic information about they party. It also contains pages listing when they paid their Partei-Beiträge (party dues), indicated by stamps, as well as further contributions to the party. It also would contain information regarding any changes in their residential location, as they were required to notify the Ortsgruppe (local group) when this occurred. This tracks the various locations the other was stationed during the NSDAP period.

This NSDAP membership book is named to Fritz Beine, born 28. November 1893., and a resident of Bochum when the book was issued 1. Juni 1931, which was also where he was born. His Stand oder Beruf (Status or profession) is unfortunately not able to be read due to how stylized the writing is. There are party dues listed from 1932 to 1935, so it is possible that Beine left the party, or that he was issued a new membership book.

Of note: the persons filling out the books often wrote using Kurrentschrift, an older form of Germanic script writing, which is why the all the “u” letters are written as “ŭ”. In this script the lowercase “n” and “u” are identical, so the latter gets the arc shaped mark over it. This is not indicative of an umlaut or other diacritical marking.

Really a great piece of German WWII identification material, ripe for further translation and research!