Documentation Centre Dresden

We help trace the whereabouts and track the persecution of people who were deprived of their freedom or lost their lives during the periods of National Socialist dictatorship or Communist tyranny in the Soviet Occupation Zone or the GDR.

Every year, we answer enquiries from relatives, researchers, journalists and public bodies on roughly 700 people.

As a scientific research organisation, we evaluate historical documents and communicate the results to the public, mainly via online databases of personal information.

Thanks to our work, we help prevent persecuted people from fading from memory, and encourage families and society to confront the past.

The Dresden Documentation Centre has the largest collection of personal information in Germany about German civilians and soldiers convicted by Soviet military courts.

On behalf of the Federal Foreign Office, we support efforts to rehabilitate those who were persecuted for political reasons.

The Dresden Documentation Centre is run by the Saxon Memorial Foundation. It is funded by the Free State of Saxony and the Federal Foreign Office.