[Doug Stankey]

Getting information on Luftwaffe enlisted personnel has become exceedingly difficult. Prior to 1988 or so you could have WASt in Berlin ( http://www.stolp.de/Kontakte/WAST-Berlin.htm ) run a check for you, but then a Privacy Act law was passed and they will no longer do this unless you can prove you are a family member. There are a few other hurdles you have to jump over, too.

At the end of the war, the Luftwaffenpersonalamt left behind a very large number of Karteikarten (card indexes), including one on enlisted air crew. Each card details the individual's assignments, training, promotions, qualifications, decorations, etc. These indexes were in Allied custody in a captured documents library on Monck Street in London until 1948 and then turned over to the Air Ministry's Air Historical Branch. AHB is said to have returned all of this material to Germany in the 1960's and it was taken over by the Bundesarchiv-Zentralnachweissstelle in Kornelimünster bei Aachen. At the end of 2005, BA-ZNS closed and turned all of this material over to the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in Freiburg. So a personnel data card on your man may be there. Occasionally, BA-MA will cooperate with established authors and photocopy these cards on a one-time basis, but they are under no obligation to do so. At present, 2008, BA-MA is less likely to cooperate with Americans than Europeans and others, but it may be worth a try.

Larry deZeng
Doug Stankey