How do we find WWI German Military Records for the last person in his nuclear family, himself?

Question

The Military Record (Kriegstammrolle: personnel record books of Bavarian Military rosters) for Josef Berg (b. 07 Mar 1863 • Karlsruhe, Baden, d. 01 Jan 1915 • Karlsruhe, Germany) shows he died a few days before Jan. 1. from a  wound.

His existence is verified in a transcript as being in my family line as:

". . .  [in] a second note underneath that first; dated on 1898, October 19th: Josef Berg, evangelical, by profession carpenter, married with Friederike (called “Frieda” Bär) since the 10th of October in 1891, declared, that he was the biological father of Anna. [He was] the son of the unmarried woman Christina Berg living at Karlsruhe and coming from the village Hüffenhardt, belonging to the administration district of the town Neckar-bischofsheim. DOB 7 Mar 1863 Birthplace Karlsruhe Religion Evangelical - Lutheran DOD 1 Jan 1915 in Karlsruhe; marriage 10 Oct 1891." (And he lived around the corner from his mother Christina Berg, who was a von Berg, noted by the archivist below.)

 

Citation: Daniela Testa Stadt Karlsruhe, Kulturamt, Stadtarchiv & Historische Museen Markgrafenstr. 29 76124 Karlsruhe Tel: 49 721 133 4229 bzw. 4277 Fax: 49 721 133 4299 Mail: daniela.testa@kultur.karlsruhe.de
I have located a record (Deutscheverlustlisten) of the death of a Josef Berg In an Infantry Regiment Nr 69; [B]erthes am 27, 12, 14 (27, Dec 1914) Battlion I, Companie 1 (see col 3 of the page) in which noted is Uhrbu(umlaut-u)tte, Schleiden --leicht vervundet,. How would I find his likely place of assumed burial and verify if he is or is not my relative, the Josef. Berg.

[RE: THIS INVALID COMMENT: The original from that site is on page 5431 (a rt. page) - available at Ancestry.com via 31924_bO42319-00311.jpg.

EDIT Nov 5, 2016: the death of "a Josef Berg" just above has been shown to me as clearly not my known ggf. Pardon me,please for not knowing enough.]

I STILL do need to find my ggf's death records.

Comments

There is an updated Bundesarchiv web site, Don't know if they have anything new though:

https://ersterweltkrieg.bundesarchiv.de/genealogie

Answer 1

The following websites might help:

http://www.volksbund.de/graebersuche.html

http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/Verlustlisten_Erster_Weltkrieg/Projekt

https://www.bundesarchiv.de/bundesarchiv/organisation/abteilung_ma/index.html.de

https://www.dd-wast.de/de/startseite.html

For Bavaria:

http://www.erster-weltkrieg.clio-online.de/site/lang__de-DE/40208788/default.aspx

Comments

Helmut, Again you are "to the rescue"! I'll begin research this evening. So much to do, so little time. (double meaning here. I wish my sons were more interested.)

Answer 2

You can find scans of the "Verlustlisten" of WW1 at http://des.genealogy.net/eingabe-verlustlisten/search .

I checked there for Josef Berg and it returned 93 matches. However, none of them was listed as comming from Karlsruhe.

There I also found Josef Berg from Ahrhütte, Schleiden. He was reported wounded in January 1915 and missing in July 1915. But Ahrhütte is a location in North-Rhine-Westphalia, south of Euskirchen. It is located 180 miles northwest of Karlsruhe. So I doubt that this is a match for your Josef Berg.

Comments

Jochin, Thanks! --Wouldn't the German army send its soldiers anywhere needed or wanted? Trains had long been in existence and today these distances aren't seen as long.

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You are right, of course, the army was mobile.  However, the locations given in the Verlustlisten (lists of casualties) are always the place of origin of the soldier, not the place of the battle. These lists were published to inform the families at home about the fate of their loved ones and the home location was used (together with name and sometimes birth date) to allow a clear identification of the soldier.

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Jochen, thank you. More important, after your message and Helmut's, it becomes my prime focus to find the relationship the hometowns and villages NW of Karlsruhe and the man in question. His wife Elisabeta Frieda Bar (umlaut-a) would also provide some possiblities, around their marriage date. I will try to find a map of the region and that NW area relating to Karlsruhe in 1905- 15, a decent chunk of time and geography to search. It seems a doable search!

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It seems then that I must remove this piece of Josef Berg data to a deep file that's a dead and ineffectual end. It was too good to be. . . well, factual (and not "true.")