My German grandmother’s post-WWII certificate of employment for immigration. Does anyone know what “B-VI” means in her Kennkarte number? I know some letters marked ethnicity, like U for Ukrainians, R for Russians and whatnot. My Oma was married to a Polish/stateless man. Thank you!
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By the way, do you think I can get a copy of her Kennkarte or a “Antrag auf Ausstellung einer Kennkarte” at Augsburg’s city archive? Thank you.
It is mostly a serial number.
B might stand for ‘Bayern’ because Augsburg is in Bayern. The VI could mean the Roman number 6 for the ‘Bezirk Schwaben’. Bayern has 7 ‘Bezirke’. So the number also has a hierarchical structure, according to the authorities who use it.
Such structures are quite common in Germany, but I am really just guessing.
I agree that it likely has something to do with where it was issued, and it is not some sort of secret code to describe the person to whom it was issued.
A Kennkarte at that time was what nowadays is a Personalausweis (ID). As on a Kennkarte the issuing city was marked as a Kennort, i don’t believe the B stand for a city name. In the chaotic times after the war a lot of Kennkarten were issued only makeshiftly (behelfsmäßig) and i guess the B could stand for that.