“Get away from the Inn on 27.1.76” or “taken up in Copenhagen on 11.11.75” – two fates of thousands of people from Bavaria who are reported missing every year at the police services. Most missing persons are found alive, individual cases end tragically. Unknown dead and unknown helpless people to register and identify is a difficult task of the police. These processes are coordinated in the field of personal identification of the Bayerische Landeskriminalamt.
In August 2019, the Bayerische Landeskriminalamt handed over three large cartons with a total of 57 so-called missing books from 1926 to 1985 to the Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv. After a more precise analysis of their origin, the eleven older volumes from the period before 1945 were submitted to the State Archive Munich. These volumes come from a time when the Missing Books were still held centrally by the Munich police office for the whole of Bavaria. The State Archive Munich is responsible for its transmission.
Thus, a central source with evidence of all persons missing in Bavaria, unknown dead and unknown helpless persons (VuT) from about 60 years is available for historical research. What was documented on paper in thick volumes by 1988 has been recorded electronically since then – these digital documents will also come to the Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv one day.
The archiving of the missing books is an expression of the excellent cooperation of the Bavarian police authorities with the Bavarian state archives. Consciousness for the permanent preservation of historically valuable administrative documents shapes the contact between the police authorities and the competent archives. It is now the task of the Bayerischer Hauptstaatsarchiv and the Staatsarchiv München to develop the newly acquired missing books, to treat them conservatively and to make them accessible to interested researchers in accordance with legal requirements. If the National Criminal Office needs the one or the other band again, because all the last missing persons so far could still be clarified, there is the possibility of returning.
As part of a press appointment in the Bavarian Main State Archive, the missing books were presented and historically classified.
Posted on: 05.11.2019
