Selected records of the Nazi Justice (NJ) collection

The collection "NJ" consists of over 25,000 single files of selected Nazi trial records compiled at the Archives of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED) Central Party of the East German communist party, after the war. The SED Archives collected original files from different German courts, including the "Volksgerichtshof" (Nazi "People's Court"), district courts and others between 1933 and 1945. Records mainly document resistance and opposition to the Nazis and relate to communists, social democrats, clerics, Jews and members of resistance organizations in the occupied countries. The collection contains some Jewish resistance cases, for example, the resistance group around Herbert Baum. His group and two others led by Siegbert Rotholz, Heinz Joachim and Werner Steinbrincks, with nearly hundred members of mostly Jewish heritage, originated in the Jewish youth movement. Another example of Jewish resistance shortly after Hitler came to power is the group around the social democrat, Gustav Flörsheim. This group operated within a network of several groups consisting of social democrats, union members and other Nazi resistance groups operating all over Germany. The files on these groups include protocols of the interrogations of the defendants, indictments and verdicts.