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German government has digitized 700,000 WWI documents


elewis

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Jan, thank you for clarifying that.

Hello Ken,

IR 362 was formed from 3 Brigade-Ersatz-Bataillone, one of these being Brigade-Ersatz-Bataillon 14. This was only later in the war though.

Jan

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IR 362 was formed on 9th July 1915 from Brigade-Ersatz-Bataillon Nr. 33, 34, 35 and 81. There is a detailed explanation of its composition here:

http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/IR_362

Brigade-Ersatz-Bataillon Nr.14 actually became part of IR 360 when the provisional units of 4. Ersatz-Division were organised into regular regiments in July 1915 (in other ersatz divisions such as the Saxon 19.ED the designation "Ersatz-Infanterie-Regiment" was used).

http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/IR_360

Busche's Formationsgeschichte der deutschen Infanterie im Ersten Weltkrieg 1914-1918 confirms the information on the above pages and notes that Brigade-Ersatz-Bataillon Nr.14 was formed in Halberstadt with two companies each from the Ersatz-Bataillon of IR 27 and IR 165. Its commander at the time of formation was a Major Strelow.

Therefore logically your man should have ended up in IR 360. However, it is not too surprising to find him with another regiment within the same division. During 1915 an Infanterie-Feldrekrutendepot was established at corps or (more usually) divisional level for most divisions on the Western Front. Not only new recruits but also returning convalescents would be assigned on arrival to the Feldrekrutendepot (which was organised as a battalion with a variable number of companies). This completed the initial training of the recruits and brought the convalescents up to date (many of the convalescents in 1915 having been wounded before the onset of trench warfare). The individual regiments of the division then received drafts of replacements from the Feldrekrutendepot on the basis of need.

At least, this would be the case in an all-'Prussian' division like 4. Ersatz-Division, or in an exclusively Bavarian, Saxon or Württemberg division. As a general rule (with exceptions bound up in complex agreements between the four war ministries) the personnel pools for the four kingdoms were kept separate, so that e.g. Saxon IR 105 within Prussian 30. Infanterie-Division remained wholly Saxon (apart from a few 'borrowed' Prussian officers from elsewhere in the division after severe losses in 1915).

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Hi

If you want to research a German soldier in the WWI you need first to know which army he belonged to,

The Army of Prussia (the biggest part of Germany): Service records were destroyed during WWI by bombs

The Army of Baden: Service records are in the Generalllandesarchiv in Karlsruhe

https://www2.landesarchiv-bw.de/ofs21/olf/startbild.php?bestand=13908

The Army of Württemberg: Service records of the Hauptstaatsarchiv in Stuttgart are online.

also the Totenkartei (Deaths), Vermisstenkartei (missing soldiers), Gefangenenkartei (POWs)

https://www2.landesarchiv-bw.de/ofs21/suche/findbuecher_mit_digitalisaten.php?archiv=1

The Army of Bavaria: Service records of the State Archive in Munich are online at ancestry.de

http://www.ancestry.de/cs/de/bayern-erster-weltkrieg-stammrollen

The Army of Saxonia: Service records could be at the Staatsarchiv in Dresden.

Officers and soldiers of the whole German Army you can find in the Verlustlisten.

There you can find soldiers who died, were wounded or missing or got captured.

http://des.genealogy.net/eingabe-verlustlisten/search

The most important source for German POWs and Camps is the ICRC database.

http://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/File/Search

http://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/Camps

If you are looking for a grave or memorial of a German soldier you can find it here:

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

http://www.denkmalprojekt.org/

Regards

Svenja

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No - similar though. Mine is a mish-mash of a couple of different ones thrown together into a PDF. I have separated the pages here because it's too big to post as a single document.

attachicon.gifGerman Gothic & Fraktur Scripts 1.pdf

attachicon.gifGerman Gothic & Fraktur Scripts 2.pdf

First two pages above.

3rd page:

attachicon.gifGerman Gothic & Fraktur Scripts 3.pdf

last page:

attachicon.gifGerman Gothic & Fraktur Scripts 4.pdf

The first three pages posted by seaforths are pages 1-3 of a four page documents called Handwriting Guide: German Gothic, by the Family History Library, Salt Lake City with the following URL:

http://feefhs.org/guides/German_Gothic.pdf

The fourth page contains a list of "Suggested Reading"

Cheers

Maureen

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