Note: This post provides the answer posed to readers in Post 49 challenged to find the death register listing of my grandfather among the civil registry records of the Landesarchiv Berlin.
Most readers will never have any reason to access the Landesarchiv Berlin civil registry records (i.e., births: 1874-1907; marriages: 1874-1937; deaths: 1874-1987), so I expect few if any of you attempted to locate the name of my grandfather Felix Bruck in Berlin’s Sterberegister, death records, unless you enjoy challenges. That said, this turned out to be more difficult than I intended. Let me review for readers the information I provided in Post 49, then explain why ferreting out my grandfather’s death listing was not as straight-forward as I may have led readers to believe.
Figure 1 is the scan I provided of my grandfather’s death certificate (the archaic German word “Todesschein” is used, but the modern German term is “Totenschein”). The Todesschein includes the following information:
Death Register Nr. 971 of the year 1927 First name and surname: Felix Bruck Husband of Else née Berliner from Berlin-Wilmersdorf at Düsseldorfer Straße 24 Profession: pensioner, 63 years old, born in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] Died on the 23rd of June 1927 in Berlin IX Recorded Berlin on 22nd of July 1927 The Registrar.
Theoretically, all the information readers needed to locate my grandfather’s death register listing was provided, so no sleight-of-hand was perpetrated. Some readers may have assumed that because my grandfather lived with my grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner, in Berlin-Wilmersdorf at Düsseldorfer Straße 24, his death would have been registered in the Standesamt, civil register office, that today encompasses the Berlin boroughs of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf; this would be a reasonable assumption, and where I myself started. Unfortunately, I did not find my grandfather listed in the 1927 Sterberegister for the neighborhood of Wilmersdorf.
I remind readers of the situation I discussed in Post 49 of Dr. Ernst Neisser, husband of my first cousin twice removed, who attempted to commit suicide on October 1, 1942 with his first cousin, Luise Neisser; while Luise was successful and died that day, Ernst lingered in a coma until October 4th. Luise’s death was registered in the Standesamt -Charlottenburg where she and Ernst shared an apartment, but since Ernst was taken to the Jüdische Krankenhaus Berlin, Berlin Jewish Hospital, and succumbed there, his death was recorded in the neighborhood of Wedding in the Berlin borough of Mitte where the hospital is located, in an altogether different civil register office, in Standesamt-Wedding.
I began to suspect a similar circumstance may have arisen with my grandfather Felix Bruck, that he died in a different Berlin borough than he lived; thus, I re-examined his Todesschein, death certificate, which I fortunately have a copy of. The stamp on the certificate, which I’ve circled, reads “Berlin IX.” (Figure 2) If readers noticed this, like me, they may have shrugged it off as being irrelevant since it does not correspond with the name of any Berlin borough, either past or present. However, in fact, this is the key to solving “the challenge.” By typing in “Berlin” in the search box Standesamt on the Landesarchiv Berlin portal page, a pull-down menu listing 13 Berlin neighborhoods, plus additional subdivisions within some, appears. Here you select “Berlin IX” and Sterberegister, press “Suchen (i.e., Search),” and the death register for year 1927 is among those listed. Scroll down to the surnames beginning with the letter “B,” and here’s where you’ll find my grandfather’s name recorded under the month of June. (Figures 3a-b)
I can hear readers asking themselves two questions, “how would I have known to check for the ‘borough’ Berlin when no such named borough existed?” and “what records do the listed Berlin civil registration offices ‘I-XIII’ contain?” These, at least, are the two questions I asked myself. Not knowing the answers to them, I turned to one of my German cousins, and his explanation allowed me to understand the significance of these records and make connections between historical events I’d previously failed to see as related.
To understand the meaning of “Berlin IX” found on my grandfather’s death certificate, it is necessary to briefly review the history of Prussia and Berlin between 1874 and 1920. The German Empire was established in 1871, and Prussia was by far the largest and most influential state in the new German Empire; Berlin was the capital of Prussia, and henceforth became the capital of the German Empire. As previously discussed, in 1920, the “Greater Berlin Act” incorporated dozens of suburban cities, villages and estates around Berlin into an expanded city; the act increased the area of Berlin from 66 to 883 km2 (25 to 341 sq. mi). Between 1874 and 1920, the old city of Berlin was composed of 13 districts (Figure 4), each of which had a Standesamt, civil register office, including Berlin IX. The old Berlin corresponds roughly to the current borough of “Mitte.” (Figure 5) The civil register offices for these original, older Berlin districts recorded vital events until 1937-38, whereupon they were recorded by Standesamt offices in the then newly constituted boroughs of Mitte, Tiergarten, and Wedding, until the latest reorganization of the Berlin boroughs in 2001 that established the present, expanded borough of Mitte.
“Berlin IX” meant the so-called “Spandauer Vorstadt” (Figure 6), a suburb of Berlin with the name Spandau, or “Spandau Revier” (“revier” means territory) as is written on my grandfather’s death certificate. Spandauer Vorstadt (“vorstadt” means suburb) should not be confused with the outlying Berlin borough of Spandau, of which it was never a part.
The year 1874 was important in the history of Prussia. As discussed in the original Post 49, this year saw the establishment of the Standesämter, civil registration offices, for recording births, marriages, and deaths. These registry offices were the result of the Kulturkampf, the conflict between the German imperial government and the Roman Catholic Church from about 1871 to 1887, predominantly over the control of educational and ecclesiastical appointments. The German imperial government had the dream of breaking the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in the school system and in everyday life of individuals, and thereby compelled that births, marriages and deaths be registered as civil rather than religious “events.” With the establishment of the civil registration offices, the churches and other religious entities lost these functions.
I don’t expect readers to recall this but I discussed the Kulturkampf in a much earlier post (Post 12) in the context of explaining how I was finally able to locate the birth certificates for my father, born in 1907 in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] and his sister, born there in 1904, only when I examined the civil records at the “Archiwum Państwowe W Katowicach Oddzial W Raciborzu (State Archives in Katowice Branch in Racibórz),” where these are archived. The important thing for interested readers to understand is that after about 1874, one must turn to civil registration offices to find vital records for one’s ancestors who resided in the German Empire.
For readers who have a need to search the Berlin civil register records, you will find it challenging, time-consuming, and frustrating. Still, it can be rewarding. In recent months, I’ve discovered 12 historic certificates involving 14 individuals related or connected to my family. In five other instances where I have credible knowledge a vital event took place in Berlin, I’ve been unable to find any record of the event. For births, I would expect them to have occurred in the city, village or estate where the parents resided, but with marriages and deaths, they could easily have taken place in a different town or borough than where the people resided, making them much more difficult to track down.
Since publishing Post 49, I was contacted by a woman from Mexico City whose Jewish father fled Germany in the 1930’s and had his citizenship revoked by the Nazis; the father is trying to re-establish his German citizenship and needs to track down vital documents for himself and his deceased parents to bolster his claim. Despite having very precise knowledge where in Berlin-Wilmersdorf her father and grandparents lived and when the grandparents got married, I’ve been unable to help this lady find relevant historic documents. Because of privacy laws, birth certificates after 1907 are only available to immediate family, so the family will need to contact the civil register office for Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf to obtain this document for the father born in 1931; since I was unable to locate the grandparents’ 1930 marriage register listing, the family will also be compelled to request a search for this document by this office.
Note: In this Blog post, I provide a brief guide on searching the on-line registry of vital records and statistics at the “Landesarchiv Berlin,” the Berlin State Archive. This may be of interest to the small percentage of readers whose forebears are German and may once have lived in Berlin.
Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events (births, marriages and deaths) of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in different states in America (e.g., civil registry, civil register, vital records, bureau of vital statistics, registrar, registry, register, registry office, population register). In Berlin, the records of births, marriages and deaths are stored at the “Landesarchiv Berlin,” the Berlin State Archive, and can be accessed on-line, specifically, in registers of births between roughly 1874 and 1907; in registers of marriages from about 1874 to 1935; and in registers of deaths from around 1874 to 1987.
It is quite challenging to use this on-line database, so in this Blog post I will share a few hints with interested readers on possibly finding their ancestors’ names. I need to alert readers that finding your ancestors in a registry does not immediately give you access to the underlying historic document; this entails sending an email to the Landesarchiv, and, at present, waiting up to four months to have the historic certificate mailed to you. If you do all the research yourself, identifying the specific register, Berlin borough (see below), and document number, the Landesarchiv typically does not charge you for their services and copies of records.
At the end, for those who enjoy working through puzzles, using my own grandfather Felix Bruck, I will challenge readers to find the specific register in which his death was recorded. In a week, I will tell and walk readers through the steps that I went through to find his name. No doubt readers will be considerably more adept and quicker than I was at finding the proper register.
Before introducing readers to the civil registration database, let me provide some brief historic context. According to the Landesarchiv’s website, the establishment of the archive in the modern sense of the term is 1808. During WWII the collections of the archives were dispersed, to avoid destruction; following the war, during the 1950’s and 1960’s, the surviving collections were reunited. In 1991 the Landesarchiv merged with Stadtarchiv in Berlin; the latter was the municipal archive and the place where the civil registration records were stored until the merger. In 2000, the Landesarchiv also integrated collections from the “Archivabeitlung der Landesbildstelle” and the “Archiv der Internationalen Bauausstellung,” including audio-visual archives.
The portal to access the civil registration records on file at the Landesarchiv Berlin can be found at the following URL:
I can no longer recall how I became aware of this database, but given my family’s deep-seated connections to Berlin, it was only a matter of time before I would eventually learn of its existence. Figure 1a is a screen-shot of the portal page, very simple in its presentation; Figure 1b is the same portal page translated, although the database cannot be queried from here (i.e., queries must be done from the German-language page). There are three categories of records that can be searched in combination or individually (i.e., you can check one, two or all three boxes) for any area of Berlin: Sterberegister (Death Records); Heiratsregister (Marriage Register); and Geburtenregister (Birth Registers).
One of the keys to searching the civil registration records for Berlin is understanding Berlin’s system of boroughs. The German capital Berlin is divided into 12 boroughs (German: Stadtteile/Bezirke), that have political rights like a town but are not legally cities. (Figure 2) On January 1, 2001, Berlin instituted a reform of its boroughs reducing their number from 23 to 12 to cut down on administrative costs. Below is a table showing the old and new borough names, an understanding of which is critical to querying the civil registration records:
NUMBER
NEW BOROUGH NAME
OLD BOROUGH NAMES
I
Mitte
Mitte, Tiergarten, Wedding
II
Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg
Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg
III
Pankow
Prenzlauer Berg, Weißensee, Pankow
IV
Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf
Charlottenburg, Wilmersdorf
V
Spandau
Spandau (unchanged)
VI
Steglitz-Zehlendorf
Steglitz, Zehlendorf
VII
Tempelhof-Schöenberg
Tempelhof, Schöenberg
VIII
Neukölln
Neukölln (unchanged)
IX
Treptow-Köpenick
Treptow, Köpenick
X
Marzahn-Hellersdorf
Marzahn, Hellersdorf
XI
Lichtenberg
Lichtenberg, Hohenschönhausen
XII
Reinickendorf
Reinickendorf (unchanged)
Each borough is made up of several officially recognized subdistricts or neighborhoods (Ortsteile in German), that can be distinguished in Figure 2. These neighborhoods typically have a historical identity as former independent cities, villages or rural municipalities that were united in 1920 as part of the “Greater Berlin Act,” which established the current configuration of Berlin; when first established in 1920, Berlin was organized into 20 boroughs, most often named after the largest component neighborhood, often a former city or municipality, sometimes named for geographic features (e.g., Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg). Today, Berlin is both a city and one of the 16 states of Germany and is referred to as a city-state (Stadtstaat in German).
On the portal page, in the box labelled “Standesamt,” one must enter the name of the borough one is seeking birth, marriage or death records from. One begins by typing the first few letters of a borough, for example “Ch” for Charlottenburg, and, often, multiple listings for that borough will come up (e.g., Charlottenburg: Standesamt Charlottenburg; Standesamt Charlottenburg I; Standesamt Charlottenburg II; Standesamt Charlottenburg III; Standesamt Charlottenburg IV, etc.); select one, then select death, marriage, and/or death records you wish to see for that borough, then do a “Suchen” (i.e., search). A new page with the list of registers available for that borough or municipality will appear (e.g., Standesamt Charlottenburg IV) (Figure 3). Scrutinize the list until you find the register covering the year(s) you’re seeking; some years may have more than one register for them, while other registers may cover multiple years.
A brief aside about “Standesamt” (German plural: Standesämter); this is a German civil registration office, which is responsible for recording births, marriages, and deaths. Readers will recall my mentioning above that in 1991, the Landesarchiv merged with the Stadtarchiv in Berlin, the latter being where the civil registration records were kept until that time. Soon after the German Empire was created in 1871 from the previous collection of German states (kingdoms, duchies, etc.), a universal system of Standesämter, register offices, was established, taking effect on January 1, 1876. The system had previously been introduced in Prussia on October 1, 1874, so it is no accident that the civil registration records at the Landesarchiv begin in this year. Today, those register offices (Standesämter) are still part of the administration of every German municipality (in small communities, they are often incorporated with other offices of the administration). Since 1876, Germans can only enter a legal marriage in a Standesamt, and every marriage takes place before the local registrar (called Standesbeamter); similarly, every birth must be registered at a register office, as must every death.
I’ve gone into detail about the history on the establishment of Berlin following the Great Berlin Act of 1920, and the organization of the civil register offices, because it partially informs us of the extent of the historic documents they contain as well as the tedious steps that must be followed when querying the civil registration database.
In the time I’ve used the Landesarchiv Berlin database, I’ve only ever found seven documents I was researching. Virtually all my Jewish relatives lived in the well-heeled borough of Charlottenburg, so I ALWAYS begin my searches here, as I would suggest readers looking for their Jewish ancestors also do. Remember that today, the borough including Charlottenburg is named Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, so the civil registers for “Wilmersdorf” should also be examined.
Regrettably, the empty box entitled “Standesamt” that you must complete does not provide a complete pull-down menu of all Berlin boroughs or neighborhoods when you start typing so I have no idea how many different boroughs, municipalities, and places are to be found in the civil register, likely dozens if not hundreds.
The first time I used the Landesarchiv database, I was searching for the register listing of my Aunt Susanne Bruck’s marriage to her husband, Dr. Franz Müller. (Figure 4) Because I have the original marriage certificate in my possession, two different ones, I knew they’d gotten married on April 18, 1931 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. (Figures 5-6) Obviously, I began searching the registers that cover this borough, and eventually found their marriage listed in “Standesamt-Charlottenburg III No. 605 (Namensverzeichnis Heiratregister 1924-1933) (name register to the marriage index 1924-1933).” (Figures 7a-b) If readers look carefully at the seal in the lower left corner of the two marriage certificates, you can see where it is stamped “Charlottenburg III.” The “Registernummer 263/1931” in the upper left-hand corner matches the number associated with my aunt and uncle’s names on the register page, so I knew I had located the correct certificate. Even though I have two marriage certificates for my aunt and uncle, I still requested a copy of the official document from the Landesarchiv, and much to my surprise it was different and included two pages, the second of which listed witnesses. (Figures 8a-b) For this reason, even if readers have originals of vital documents for your ancestors, I still recommend you request copies of any documents you may find in the Landesarchiv database; you never know what surprises may await you.
The next person I researched in the Landesarchiv database was my great-aunt Franziska Bruck (Figure 9), who I knew had committed suicide on January 2, 1942; she too had lived and died in Charlottenburg, and I found her name listed in “Standesamt-Charlottenburg Nr. 713 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1942) (name register to the death index 1942).” (Figures 10a-b) I similarly requested a copy of my great-aunt’s death certificate and learned she had gruesomely committed suicide by hanging herself (Figure 11); obtaining poison to kill oneself may have been easier for Jews who were once in the medical profession, such as Dr. Ernst Neisser discussed in Post 48, unlike my great-aunt who was a renowned florist.
I’ve recently returned my attention to the Landesarchiv database in connection with writing Post 48 dealing with Dr. Ernst Neisser, who was the husband of my first cousin twice-removed, Margarethe Neisser née Pauly. (Figure 12) To quickly review. According to Susanne Vogel née Neisser, Ernst and Margarethe Neisser’s daughter, Margarethe was institutionalized for the last three years of her life and committed suicide on October 12, 1941. Ernst lived with his first cousin Luise Neisser in Charlottenburg, and the two of them committed suicide the following year after they were ordered to present themselves for deportation to Theresienstadt. In the previous Blog post, I told readers both took poison on October 1, 1942; Luise died that day, but Ernst lingered for four days and succumbed on October 4, 1942.
I was able to locate in the Landesarchiv registers, the death listings for both Margarethe “Sara” Neisser and Luise “Sara” Neisser but, interestingly, for the longest time not for Dr. Ernst Neisser. Margarethe, I found listed in “Standesamt-Charlottenburg Nr. 712 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1941)” (Figures 13a-b) and Luise in “Standesamt-Charlottenburg Nr. 713 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1942).” (Figures 14a-b) I’ve requested both of their death certificates from the Landesarchiv, and await their arrival.
Finding Dr. Ernst Neisser’s listing in the Landesarchiv involved some serious forensic work and one I worked out literally as I was writing this post. I knew that Dr. Ernst Neisser lived with his first cousin Luise Neisser in Eichenallee in Charlottenburg; as mentioned above, both Ernst and Luise tried to commit suicide on October 1, 1942, and while Luise succeeded, Ernst lingered until October 4th. Even though they died four days apart, I assumed both their deaths had been registered in Charlottenburg where they lived, but I was unable to find Ernst’s death recorded in any registers for Charlottenburg nor Wilmersdorf.
According to his daughter’s written account of his final days, Ernst died at the Jüdische Krankenhaus Berlin, the Berlin Jewish Hospital, where he’d been taken following his attempted suicide. It occurred to me that Ernst may have had his death registered in the borough where the Jewish Hospital is located; I researched this and discovered the Jüdische Krankenhaus Berlin, which still exists today, is in the borough “Mitte.” To remind readers what I illustrated in the table above, today’s borough Mitte once consisted of three independent boroughs, Mitte, Tiergarten, and Wedding; the registers for “Mitte” and “Tiergarten” yielded nothing, but finally in the last possible register where I thought his name might be listed, in the borough “Wedding,” under October 1942, I found the name “Neißer, Richard Ernst Israel.” (Figures 15a-b) Success at last!
In order to successfully navigate the Landesarchiv database, it is helpful to have at least the month and year when a vital event in an ancestor’s life may have taken place. Ernst and Margarethe Neisser’s daughter, Susanne Vogel née Neisser, noted the place and date of her own marriage to Hans Vogel in the preface to the memoir she wrote about her father’s final days; it took place on the 31st of July 1926 in Berlin. (Figure 16) Assuming, as I always do, the wedding took place in Charlottenburg, I successfully located the spouse and bride’s names in the “Standesamt-Charlottenburg I Nr. 467 (Namensverzeichnis Heiratregister 1921-1927).” (Figures 17a-b)
There is one other great-aunt whose Berlin residence (i.e., “Prenzlauer Allee 113” in the neighborhood of “Prenzlauer Berg” in the Berlin borough of “Pankow”) (Figure 18) and date of death are known to me (i.e., 20th of February 1970), my renowned Socialist ancestor, Elsbeth Bruck (Figure 19); she died in East Berlin well before the fall of the German Democratic Republic in 1990. Still, despite having very specific information for her, to date, I’ve not been able to locate her name in a Landesarchiv register. I assume East Germans were equally meticulous about recording vital statistics, so I conclude I’ve just not worked out the correct parameters as to where she died. It’s possible that, like Dr. Neisser, she died in a hospital in a different borough of East Berlin and that her death was registered in that borough. I simply don’t know.
So, to let me briefly recap some suggestions when searching through the Landesarchiv database. If you think you might have an ancestor or know of someone who was born in Berlin sometime after 1874 (but before 1905), got married there before 1935, and/or died there before 1987, it helps if you can narrow down at least one vital event to a specific year or actual date. Next, if you have any idea where your relative or acquaintance lived in Berlin, this may help you determine the borough where they resided. You may know the actual address where they lived without knowing which modern or historic Berlin neighborhood or borough the street was located, so Google the address and try and narrow it down to a borough; be aware that in Berlin there are multiple streets with the same name (e.g., Kastanienallee (=Chestnut Street)). You may be able to locate where your relative or acquaintance lived by using old Berlin Address Books available through ancestry.com. If you think you’ve finally identified the borough, you can begin your search in the Landesarchiv. As I’ve illustrated through example, Berlin boroughs must be searched by their modern names, as well as by the historic municipalities or neighborhoods that comprised that borough.
I’d be very interested in hearing from any of you who are successful in finding the names of any ancestors or acquaintances in the on-line Berlin State Archive database and obtaining copies of historic documents. Active genealogists know how valuable original vital records can be in establishing precise dates for these events and possibly uncovering another generation of ancestors.
Many readers will not have any relatives nor know of anyone who had any association with Berlin yet be interested in “testing” their skills using the Landesarchiv database to find an actual person connected to the city. For such “puzzle-masters,” I’ve created a challenge to find my grandfather Felix Bruck (Figure 20) in a Berlin register. Figure 21 is a scan of his death certificate (the archaic German word “Todesschein” is used, but the modern German term is “Totenschein”).
