1945 German passport
With Sicherheitsdienst amendments & entries.
German passports issued and used during the war where rather limited to the locations they could be used at or travelling to and as the war progressed and worsened for them, the “traveling” destinations became limited and more acute. At the end, using the passports was rather pointless, in some ways, because there were practically no more places to go to…
The passport in this item is interesting and special because of the added entries inside and the locations as well.
By 1945, the year the passport was issued, Germany was already on a steep road heading into one unavoidable direction, or outcome.
The destination of the holder was to the north, to the Scandinavian county of Norway, and by then, even late at that point of the war, it was under German control and entering/exiting the country was under the supervision of the SD (Sicherheitsdienst).
Passport number II 2586/44a was issued to Heino Peters, aged 51, on January 9th 1945. Interestingly, it was originally valid for Inland use only and then amended for over-seas, for a period of 3 months only – up to March 22nd. The German exit visa on page 7 indicates it was meant to be used for Norway, and as mentioned above, by that time of the war, one of the few remaining places German passport holders could travel to, either for the war effort or family visit. We can see that he has also a Swedish transit visa issued by the consular section of their diplomatic mission at Berlin, dating from 17th, and he left via the capitals Tempelhof airport 6 days later, taking him to Copenhagen (Danish visa can be seen on page 9). From there he traveled to Sweden, same day, and arrived later at Vestfoldbanen, in Norway.
The interesting and important part of this passport was the SD amendments and annotations done to the actual visa and the extension of the passport, in Oslo. After extensive researching, it appears that the Sicherheitsdienst visas were issued at the SD Passtelle – Abteilung I & II, and hand signed by the head of this division SS-Haupsturmfuhrer und Polizeioberinsp Hermann Birnstein (his office consisted of himself and 5 females ( 1 secretary and 4 interpreters)). In addition, I added sampled images of a rare temporary northern travel permit, used for travelling and returning back to Norway via the Nordic states and also Denmark. The document was also issued and signed by the above mentioned SS-Haupsturmfuhrer.
March 19th saw his passport extension done at Oslo, the same day he got his transit Danish visas as well. Also, his original visa was extended to April 10th. I am unable to locate any entry marking that would indicate he returned back to Germany, though by late march I would not believe he would have had the means to do so or the will: reports that were coming in, both from Berlin and the Allies, would already indicate there was not much left to come back to. Most likely, not surprisingly, he would have sat it out in Oslo until the inevitable end, that was by now getting nearer and nearer by the day.
Passports bearing unique visas and entries are considered rare and sought after by collectors of war-time travel documents and are always a welcomed addition to ones collection.
I have added images of this war-time German passport.
Thank you for reading “Our Passports”.
