My wife and I moved into our house and found this among the things the previous owners left in the house (near Pforzheim BW). The previous owners are dead so we can't contact them.

Does anyone know what this is?
Would a museum be interested in this? If so, how would we contact them?

by AccomplishedKale2077

17 comments

  1. This is an amazing find i think! It’s a soldier‘s paybook in pretty nice condition.

  2. A Soldbuch was (as you can see) the personal identification of German soldiers during the Second World War.

    While I personally can’t read everything, It appears to contain weapon and equipment logs. My guess being this is how the German army tracked equipment distribution amongst its personnel. It seems this particular soldier was also issued a pistol chambered in 7.65mm, so I wonder if they must’ve been an officer.

    I imagine this is something surviving family may want, but if not a museum may be your best bet.

  3. Its basically a record on who that person was/what unit and some weapon qualification records.
    You could try your local “rathaus’ and surrender it there or call some museums and see if some of them might have interest which I doubt.
    I found some dogtags years ago in a field close to Bamberg and brought them to my local Rathaus a couple weeks later and from what I know, they took it to the right place so I assume that would be your best bet.

  6. Find his descendants and yell at them that their ancestor was a Nazi 😂

  8. If there are no relatives you can contact its nothing of interest. its an old paybook every soldier had one.

    Museums have enough of them.

    ChatGPT suggests that the picture is from versailles! but i am not sure

  9. You can send this or copies of this to the German federal archives. They store the personnel files of the Wehrmacht. There should be a matching corresponding book in their files that is an exact mirror of the Soldbuch. Unfortunately due to bombings in WWII, their files are incomplete. In some cases, the Soldbuch is the only thing surviving of a soldiers service record.

  11. Wehrmacht identification and paybook.
    Combat Engineer or sapper, 2nd Company of the 5th Pioneer Replacement or Reserve Battalion in Fürstenwalde (Spree).
    I can’t make out the name exactly. Bottom left it reads maybe “Georg Lange” but that’s more a guess than anything.
    Your local administration might have interest in this document. Cool find!

  13. Wäre auch sehr interessiert daran, falls ihr keinen Abnehmer findet 😅

    Das meine ich wirklich ernst, wenn ihr es nicht loswerdet dann meldet euch bitte gerne bei mir

  14. Could try the library or Stadtarchiv as well. They might like it. 

  15. Hey! I am living next to Pforzheim in the district of Pforzheim! 🙂 If you know the town i could look if there is a musueum which is maybe interested and ask 🙂

  17. It’s a German paybook from the Third Reich. The first page reads “Paybook also serves as service ID.”

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