Here you will find the most important functions of Archivportal-D: Enter a search term and start your search for archival material directly via the magnifying glass. You can refine your search right from he beginning by selecting by federal state and archive sector.

Click on "Find archives" for an overview of all archives matching the selected sectors and federal states (not available on mobile devices).

Select a federal state and/or an archival sector on the "Archives" page to get an overview of suitable archives. The checkbox "Only archives with finding aids" selects our partner archives. You can search the holdings of our partner archives directly on our page. To do so, click on the desired archive and browse through the archive's tectonics.

Our partner archives can present their finding aids and, if available, digitized records in Archivportal-D. Search the diverse holdings of our partner archives using the "Search" tab.

Using the search slot at the top, you can enter a search term to search the finding aids of our partner archives. Under "Refine search" you can narrow down the search results: Select the "Only with digitized media" to find only digitized records. In the menu below, you can refine your search geographically and by archival sector. You will also find the structure of the archival holdings of our partner archives. Via the arrow buttons, you can unfold and navigate through the holdings. This way you can narrow down your search results by selecting an entry in the structure. Further filters are the inclusive dates (time of origin), the document type (such as photos or documents), the provenance (origin of the archive material), the level of description (for example, a single archival record or an entire fonds) as well as (if specified) individual keywords, locations, persons or organizations. Please note, that these further filters are only available for some of the archival records.

You can enter a search term in the search box at the top to search the finding aids of our partner archives. Under “Refine search,” you can further narrow down the search results: Select the “Only with digitized media” checkbox to limit the results to digitized records. In the menu below, you can refine your search geographically and by archive sector, or search for a specific archive. If you select a single archive, you will find a drop-down list of the archive's holdings. By clicking on an entry in the list, you can limit the search results to the corresponding records. Additional filters include the inclusive dates (time of origin), the record type (such as photos or documents), the provenance (origin of the records), the level of description (e.g., a single record or an entire fonds), and (if specified) individual keywords, locations, persons, or organizations, as well as the media type and usability of the digitized records. Please note that these additional filters are only available for some of the archival materials.

The advanced search, located below the search field, is primarily intended for experienced users. Here you can search specifically in individual description fields, for example the title or the abstract, or limit your search in advance to specific levels of description. Combine criteria from different fields and limit your search to individual archives and holdings. When selecting an archive, please note that only partner archives that provide finding aids in Archivportal-D appear for selection here.

Save your search results using the "Add to favorites list" button to bookmark items of particular interest or to prepare for your next visit to the archive. You can also create multiple lists, e.g. on different topics or archives, and add notes and descriptions. With the setting "public" you will create a link to share your favorites list with friends or other researchers.

In our online collections you can research archival material thematically using predefined categories and/or keywords.

Detailed information and explanations about the search and discovery functions in the German-only online collection “Urkunden der Pfalzgrafen” (Documents of the Counts Palatine) can be found here.

For an introduction to using the online collection "Weimar Republic", watch our film (only available in German):

Online collection "Weimar Republic"

Keyword selection by topics

Narrow down your search by keywords and find archival material on individual topics and events of the Weimar Republic. Browse through the tiles and categories and select keywords. By clicking on the magnifying glass symbol next to the search field or by clicking "Show search results" in the "Selected keywords" collection box, you will find all archival records linked to the selected keywords. On the search results page of the online collection you will also find the keyword selection, located in the "Refine search" section.

Keyword selection by geography

Narrow down your search geographically and find archival material on individual countries or regions. Geographic and thematic keywords can also be combined to find only archival material that match both geography and topic.

Keywords A-Z

Here you can find all keywords (topic and geography) in alphabetical order and add them to your search.

Find out more about keywords

Click on the icon in front of the keyword if you want to know from which category the keyword originates.

You can find more information about each keyword on xTree public. There you will also find links to the Gemeinsame Normdatei (GND) at the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB) and to Wikidata, for each keyword with more explanation.

 

Online collection “Wiedergutmachung for National Socialist Injustice”

The Online Collection „Wiedergutmachung for National Socialist Injustice” as part of the DDB’s sub-collection Archivportal-D offers a centralized access to millions of records created in the context of the German Wiedergutmachung policy. In the years and decades to come, it will expand its content and provide comprehensive access to this documentary legacy for an international public.

On the start page of the online collection, you can research holdings via two access options – thematically and structured according to the archives. In the thematic area, four upper categories (compensation, restitution, international, as well as SBZ and GDR), which are oriented towards the main focuses of compensation practice, are available for selection. Short explanatory texts are also provided for each of the upper and lower categories. The results page offers an overview of the thematically relevant holdings. You can access the information on a strictly provenance-related basis via the "Archives" tab. There you can select a federal state and get a list of the respective holdings of an archive.

Moreover, users can find the majority of relevant records already available in the Archivportal-D via a search bar (‚Archivgut‘) on the collection’s landing page. Not all of the relevant files are yet searchable, but this is constantly being expanded. If your search does not return any hits, this does not necessarily mean that no files have been preserved.

In addition to the search for records, the Online Collections also includes a demo version of the person search. The search form on the Online Collection’s homepage offers a low-threshold access point to search for individual persons. Users may enter search terms into only one of the search fields or combine multiple fields. Once the search has been performed, users can filter the search results by various criteria, such as places, persecution details, or damage types. The new feature is currently a demo version that only contains datasets for 940 persons. Due to the limited demo sample of datasets, most search queries will currently not generate any results. For this reason, we recommend to use the feature ‚Archivgut‘ in the Online Collection or the overall search in the Archivportal-D.

Background information on the history of German Wiedergutmachung efforts, podcasts and helpful overviews of legal texts and literature add to the archival content. We constantly expand this section with further information. A person-related search and topic-related approaches to the documents will follow in the future. 

In a list of abbreviations, common abbreviations from the topic area of reparations are resolved.