The German Emigrants Card Catalog expatriated by the Nazis (Ausbürgerungskartei)

In the Collection there is a card catalog of German emigrants whose citizenship was revoked due to their emigration from Germany; these former citizens are regarded as enemies of the regime. Included in the card catalog are the names of many Jews as well as leftists, including artists, authors and journalists. The Nazi regime in Germany revoked the citizenship of German citizens who emigrated from Germany, and criticized the regime. Revocation of citizenship also meant confiscation of property, an action which turned many of the emigrants (who had escaped from Germany without managing to sell their property) into people with nothing at all. The lists of those whose citizenship had been revoked were published in the"Deutscher Reichsanzeiger", the official State publication. The first list was published on 25 August 1933, and the last list on 17 April 1945. All together the lists contained the names of 39,006 people, who represented most of the intellectual and cultural German elite before the Nazi rise to power. Copies of card catalogues of this type of card (relating to various years) can be found in a number of archives in Germany (as well as in Austria for the years after 1938), in the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek in Leipzig, and in German administrative offices for use in investigating requests by descendants for reinstatement of citizenship. The most complete copy of the card catalogue is in the Bundesverwaltungsamt in Cologne.