NARA rolls made digital

[nickterry]

Another 'descriptive pamphlet' bundle of finding guides has been added to the NARA catalog, this time for T81 NSDAP records, with a PDF.
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/281064984

Since the hitherto uploaded series (T77, T84, T175, T311, T354, T501) are the only ones with currently uploaded bundles of 'descriptive pamphlet' in PDF form, this could be a sign that T81 will be uploaded before too long. The 'descriptive pamphlets' are the first listed in series-specific ID-ordered searches, see for example the T77 series results.
https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=* ... Sort%20asc
Ergo, the uploading of the descriptive pamphlet bundle should be a herald for the uploading of the digitised microfilms


If so, this fits with my prediction of a mix of civilian and military records being digitised from RG 242 in parallel. It doesn't preclude the possibility that they'll follow this up with a 'descriptive pamphlet' bundle of finding guides to military records, then an upload of the series in question. Indeed, if they do upload T81 shortly, then the next upload would likely be a military series.

There's also an entry page for the 'descriptive pamphlet' for T454 (guides 28 and 97) without an uploaded file, so this series might also be on its way to being added. The placeholder page was added after the T81 descriptive pamphlet page, when sorting by National Archives identifier.

No similar placeholders for military series have yet appeared, but if they do, or if a bundled PDF of guides to a miltary series appears, this could also be a sign that their uploading is on the way.

If the next wave of uploads are similar to July/August 2022, I maintain my prediction of expecting a mix - T81 and T454 together amount to 908 rolls, so this would complement a big military series like T78 or T312. As those waves unfolded over weeks, patience is advised

[mika1606]

Hello
this is free material:
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/271895556

Many thanks, Uli. I have found what I was looking for

BR, Gerhard

[nickterry]

NARA has pegged out a lot of the eventual pages for the Nuremberg trial materials in RG 238. So far, the actual uploads are of some of the transcript volumes from the Milch case (NMT case 2), https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6201789, but they've also just started on prosecution and defense document books for this trial,https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6171714 - the uploaded materials equate to microfilm reels, which are like T77 w/o PDFs.

There are 740 reels in the series for the 12 NMT trials, they have at least started on these now. A further 391 reels pertain to the document series - there are placeholders for these but no uploads as yet.

While I don't expect hugely rapid progress across all of the trials, they all should be available before the long-stalled Harvard Nuremberg Project ever finishes its uploading.

[Mori]

Except for the war criminal trials (Göring and al.), files of other trial files can be a pain for scholars. I checked the Industrialist trial : I couldn't find any searching aid. And as documents were files in the order they were used during the trial, there seems no other way but to look at everything...

[nickterry]

Except for the war criminal trials (Göring and al.), files of other trial files can be a pain for scholars. I checked the Industrialist trial : I couldn't find any searching aid. And as documents were files in the order they were used during the trial, there seems no other way but to look at everything...

The NMT prosecution document books usually have a contents list at the start, while I am fairly sure the IG Farben trial (microfilm scans were stuck online years ago) is well-indexed. But otherwise, it's best to treat them as places to look up existing references in older literature, or as a kind of lucky dip, or sometimes a temporary substitute if the underlying collections aren't available. For those who can't read German, then they could be the most extensive source on the theme.

[Mori]

...while I am fairly sure the IG Farben trial (microfilm scans were stuck online years ago) is well-indexed...

Got the scans - in very poor quality, unfortunately - but index just says "trial procedings" (= ca. 15 rolls) and "appendices" (= ca. 90 rolls).

Your help will be *much* appreciated if you come across a proper index.

[nickterry]

NARA just emailed to say they are rolling out their new catalog on November 21. They have not yet transferred the overwhelming majority of already digitised or indexed collections, but Nov 17-21 seems to be a crucial phase for them, presumably making these changes. I would imagine the effort might slow uploading of newly digitised material, but presumably once the new catalog beds down, they would resume uploading, if this changeover is causing delays. Let's see.

The page on the new catalog contains some interesting tidbits. E.g. " Currently the Catalog updates on a weekly basis. The processing times for import now will only take a few hours, so new Catalog records and digital copies can be imported daily." It seems they update on the weekends at the moment.
https://www.archives.gov/research/catal ... newsletter

[nickterry]

...while I am fairly sure the IG Farben trial (microfilm scans were stuck online years ago) is well-indexed...

Got the scans - in very poor quality, unfortunately - but index just says "trial procedings" (= ca. 15 rolls) and "appendices" (= ca. 90 rolls).

Your help will be *much* appreciated if you come across a proper index.

IG Farben trial was/is on the profit-over-life.org site along with the Doctors' Trial. I remember seeing an index earlier in the overall sequence of microfilm reels, although not in the very first reel, but don't have a note of which one.

[Mori]

IG Farben trial was/is on the profit-over-life.org site along with the Doctors' Trial.

Thanks for pointing this site, which I didn't know

It's the same very poor photostats as the ones loaded on archive.org, unfortunately. Appendices are often very difficult to read, occasionaly not legible at all.

[nickterry]

IG Farben trial was/is on the profit-over-life.org site along with the Doctors' Trial.

Thanks for pointing this site, which I didn't know

It's the same very poor photostats as the ones loaded on archive.org, unfortunately. Appendices are often very difficult to read, occasionaly not legible at all.

The archive.org uploader likely got it from profit-over-life.org. Hopefully NARA rescan these reels at better quality in due course.

[nickterry]

NARA have just uploaded 454 reels from T81 NSDAP records, on the new (preview) catalog, breaking down into 593 parts. This is over half the series, but not the whole thing.
https://preview.catalog.archives.gov/se ... in/7829385

There are definitely also a few further reels from the Milch trial on the new/preview catalog, but no other NMT trial materials yet.

The old catalog hasn't been updated with either of these yet, and the precedent hitherto was to upload entire series, so there might be further updates later today.

[nickterry]

Your help will be *much* appreciated if you come across a proper index.

p.13 of the M892 guide for the IG Farben trial microfilms notes that on reel 1, there is a 'prosecution and defense exhibit index' and a 'list of witnesses'
https://www.archives.gov/files/research ... m/m892.pdf

This seems to be standard for these trials, I noticed this looking at the Milch trial guide (M888), so for what they are worth, look at the first reel for the already online trials like IG Farben, or digitised version thereof in due course.

There is a register card index to the major microfilmed NMT document series (NG, NI, NOKW), while the NMT interrogations (M1019) have their own finding guide
https://www.archives.gov/research/captu ... -trials#us

[nickterry]

NARA have just uploaded 454 reels from T81 NSDAP records, on the new (preview) catalog, breaking down into 593 parts. This is over half the series, but not the whole thing.
https://preview.catalog.archives.gov/se ... in/7829385

There are definitely also a few further reels from the Milch trial on the new/preview catalog, but no other NMT trial materials yet.

The old catalog hasn't been updated with either of these yet, and the precedent hitherto was to upload entire series, so there might be further updates later today.

The rest of T81 NSDAP was just added to the new/preview catalog, 740 reels in 1,000 parts; it's still not on the old catalog.

Also just added to the new/preview catalog: T454 Ostministerium, 167 reels in 255 parts, again not on the old catalog yet (not even the descriptive pamphlet, which is however on the new/preview catalog with the lowest NARA ID number)
https://preview.catalog.archives.gov/se ... aId%3Adesc

The double upload today on the new/preview catalog might mean updating the old catalog is postponed slightly, or this could be the start of neglecting the old catalog. It's clearly necessary to search both in this transition phase through to March 2023.

Anyhoo: that's 907 reels added and now 9 T-series are down; with luck they'll follow this up with a military series or two in the near future.

[Zakr11]

Can the preview catalogue highlight pages containing the word you searched like the old catalogue does? I'm not even seeing that option on the new search interface, and when I open a file in my search result list, I don't see that box on the left-hand side that shows the pages your search term is found on.

[nickterry]

Can the preview catalogue highlight pages containing the word you searched like the old catalogue does? I'm not even seeing that option on the new search interface, and when I open a file in my search result list, I don't see that box on the left-hand side that shows the pages your search term is found on.

There's little evidence full OCR search will be active before the full roll-out from November 21st. They promise better highlighting, but so far it's not been implemented.

Keyword searches which would have captured specific reels on the old catalog do not capture known results on the preview catalog. I took print offs from 26 reels of T454 (and many more copies from Bundesarchiv R 6) which specifically mentioned Heeresgruppe Mitte, but only a handful of T454 reels show up in a 'heeresgruppe' search on the preview catalog, whereas on the old catalog, keyword searches are quite accurate (by OCR standards - the technology is never perfect).

There's one new innovation I do like, which is when you identify a series and search within it, you then have a box to search within the results - this works very well for reel numbers currently. If it then works for keywords appearing on individual frames after November 21st, awesome. Currently you can keyword search within a series on the old catalog, but it's using only one search box, now there are two, so in principle it should be more stable, staying within a series and not, as sometimes is the case currently, going out from a series to reset the search from scratch across the whole catalog.

I expect the OCR-of-frames search aspect will be sorted, as otherwise everyone will say, the old catalog is better.