Soldbuch
The Soldbuch served as a form of identification and record-keeping. It was the standard identity document in the German military, issued to every man. German 'Sold' meaning 'soldier's pay' is from Latin solidus, a Roman gold coin in which soldiers (Roman legions) were paid (2nd century AD). Also from solidus, German 'Soldat' (soldier) and 'Söldner' (mercenary), and English 'soldier'.
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History
Soldbuch
It allowed the owner to draw pay, prove he had permission for leave, recorded what equipment he had been issued, and identified his current and former units. It also included his rank, physical attributes, military awards, and medical history. All serving personnel had to keep their Soldbuch in their tunic pocket at all times. Only exceptional circumstances would change this, such as certain frontline patrols and activities in which the Soldbuch could reveal critical information to the enemy.
From 1944, it was mandatory for a photo to be included inside the front cover. Due to the logistical issues with complying with this order in the field, by the end of the war some Soldbücher still did not have photos, or else utilised civilian or ‘unofficial’ portrait shots. Wehrmacht Soldbücher measure approximately 5.7 inches x 4 inches (14.5cm x 10.1cm). The outside cover is made of cardboard. A piece of tape protects the spine from wear, just the same as it would have on an original. Inside are 24 accurately printed pages that are ready to be filled in.
Difference between Soldbuch and Militärpaß
Every German front-line soldier had two documents that presented his entire career in the army. The military passport (Militärpaß, after 1919 Wehrpaß) and pay book (Soldbuch) are created by the unit to which the soldier was drafted. The Soldbuch is kept by the front-line soldier, while the military passport is deposited with the company secretariat.
All important information about the military career of its owner is entered here: rank, surname, first name, the names of the wife and parents, marital status, number of children, profession, religion, conscription unit, military ID number and entries for the successive campaigns. When reading such a document, one can thus understand the military career of a soldier.
- A soldier's Wehrpass was handed in when the member joined the armed forces. They were then allocated a Soldbuch to carry with them (at all times!) throughout their military career. Once their period of service was completed the Soldbuch was handed in and the Wehrpass was returned. To illustrate this, a Wehrpass generally shows the member in civilian attire, whereas the Soldbuch, generally, shows the member in uniform. The Wehrpass does contain much of the same info as the Soldbuch, esp active service (including prior service in WWI, Spanish Civil War etc. if applicable), medals and awards, training, unit postings and so forth. The Soldbuch covers these areas, but also contains a great deal of 'routine' military-specific info to do with parading, sickness, pay etc. [...] Additionally both have their pluses & minuses – a Wehrpass will list the dates of when a soldier was with a certain unit, whereas a Soldbuch won't – you have to go through the Soldbuch looking at when things were entered to work out basic dates for such things. A Wehrpass will list when a soldier was KIA (⚔) & sometimes where he was KIA, whereas generally a Soldbuch won't.[1]
Military historian Robert "Bob" Lembke (22 October 1939 – 29 August 2017) of Center City Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, USA) wrote in November 2006:
- The soldier did not carry his Militaer=Pass. It tracks his military career and contains information that would be of interest to enemy military intelligence. I myself wonder where they were kept in wartime. If you study them, many of the inscriptions that record transfers between units, etc. are dated six months or a year or more after the event being recorded. I imagine that they were kept to the rear and periodically brought forward at quiet times for the Feldwebel or a deputy to make the inscriptions, and presented to the company commander for signature if needed. In peacetime I am sure they were kept in the Kaserne. These were very important documents of great importance to a German veteran after his discharge. The immediate post-war government (Ebert, Noschke, etc.), despite being socialists and having more than a few problems on their plate (like the Spartakists, etc.), placed a high priority on the millions of soldiers' Paesse being completed and returned to the discharged soldier, even though in the vast number of cases the units effectively did not exhist within weeks of the Armistice, and the bulk of the soldiers being discharged within days.
- An interesting detail on my father's Pass and on that of another soldier of his unit that I am fortunate to have is that the discharge was signed off on by the Soldiers' and Workers' Council, the bolshi-inspired soldiers' committees set up to run army units, and that in this case the two Paesse were signed by the same delegate. These documents contain a wealth of information that must be 98% correct (in a narrow sense). There are two problems with their use for historical use. There is almost no way to get access to a number of Paesse from a given unit, etc. There does not seem to be a collectors' association or a central registry. Something like this would be especially useful considering that the Prussian WWI archives were destroyed by a RAF fire-bombing raid in 1944 or 1945. Secondly, they are difficult to dig the data out, aside from a few stamps and obvious matters. They are written in German, and much of it handwritten Suetterlin, and some of it in micro-writing; there also are a lot of abbreviations and obscure and misleading conventions and jargon.
