Familien-Stammbuch, or German Family Register, Issued to Newlyweds on the Day of Marriage

Authors

Object ID

2019.2.196

Object Name

Register, Marriage

Date

1939

Files

Content Warning

The Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection consists of images, documents, and artifacts related to the Holocaust. The collection contains materials that depict a number of topics that may be difficult for viewers to engage with, including: antisemitic descriptions, caricatures, and representation of Jewish people; Nazi imagery and ideology; descriptions and images of German ghettos; graphic images of the violence of the Holocaust; and the creation of the State of Israel. For more information, see our policy page.

Description

Small, rust-colored book with eagle emblem and “DEUTSCHES EINHEITS:FAMILIENT-STAMBUCH” etched in gold print on cover, inside front cover includes two yellow postage stamps, 56 pages.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

The Stammbuch, issued by the local register office, included family names - both surnames and maiden names - occupations, birth and marriage particulars, names of children, church affiliations, information on the parents of the spouses, their nationalities, etc. Collecting this information was consistent with the importance of racial ideology and genealogy in Nazi Germany, an important and influential instrument in the overall emphasis on racial pride and the importance of being an aryan.

This Stammbuch was completed by a German woman named Emma Paula Finkbeiner, born in Karlsruhe in 1907 and married to businessman Adolf Gustave Zender, also born in 1907. Their marriage certificate is included. Birth certificates of their children Horst and Siegrid are here as well. Mr. Zender reports on his racial classification that he is an aryan, not Jewish.

On page 46, marriage impediments are enumerated, including racial difference, disability, hereditary disease, adultery, etc.

Page 50 details the racial meaning of the Jew according to the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935; i.e., anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents irrespective of whether the person identifies as a Jew or belongs to the community of Jews. Jews were thus to be excluded from Reich citizenship for racial and not religious reasons, and thus not allowed to marry or have sexual relations with persons of German blood.

Dimensions

8 1/4 x 5 1/4"

Keywords

Stammbuch, Emma Finkbeiner, Gustav Zender, Nuremberg Race Laws

Subcollection

Early

Recommended Citation

"Familien-Stammbuch, or German Family Register, Issued to Newlyweds on the Day of Marriage" (1939). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2019.2.196.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1524