Methodology and source policy

Nazi Report is an educational archive about perpetrators and the institutions that made persecution, occupation violence and mass murder possible. Its scope covers the apparatus of Nazi Germany in the Reich, in annexed and occupied territories, and in allied states; the occupied Polish territories remain its principal field of research. The archive does not claim to be comprehensive. The project’s seven circles describe a person’s position in a chain of authority: supreme decision, strategic coordination, programme design, territorial rule, operational command, enabling administration and local execution. The circles are not a ranking of suffering, notoriety or numbers of victims.

A profile is published only when its central claims can be supported by at least two independent and credible sources. Preference is given to archival collections, trial records, research institutes, memorial museums, peer-reviewed scholarship and institutions such as the Institute of National Remembrance, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. A frequently repeated claim is not treated as independently confirmed when every repetition leads back to the same original text.

Each profile separates documented findings from interpretation. A person’s office, period of service, geographic remit, orders, administrative acts and proven conduct establish the factual base. The interpretive section then explains how that role connected decisions with implementation. Where an office, unit or regional authority committed many crimes, the profile does not automatically assign every act to its chief.

Postwar accountability is part of the historical mechanism, not an epilogue. The archive records whether a person was investigated, tried, convicted, acquitted, released or never brought before a court. It distinguishes allegations, findings of fact and final judgments. An acquittal or discontinued investigation is reported accurately without converting it into a claim that the underlying persecution did not occur.

Uncertainty is visible. Conflicting dates, incomplete files, disputed competencies and differences between charges and judgments are stated on the page. The project avoids building a league table from estimates of victims. Responsibility may overlap across political leadership, police command, civil administration, transport, property seizure and on-site execution; adding profile-level numbers would count many of the same victims repeatedly.

Publication principles

Function and agency, not a victim-count ranking
At least two independent credible sources per published profile
Clear separation of confirmed findings, interpretation and uncertainty
No automatic attribution of every unit or regional crime to one person
Postwar investigation and judgment described with their legal limits
Portraits used only when a free licence is confirmed

Source hierarchy

Primary records and judicial files

Orders, correspondence, administrative and police records, contemporary reports, trial transcripts and judgments provide the closest documentary basis for a claim. They are read critically: a perpetrator report may document an operation while minimising, disguising or inaccurately counting what occurred.

Research institutes, archives and memorial museums

Institutional catalogues, encyclopaedias, research publications and collections are preferred for biographical facts, the reconstruction of occupation structures and the history of persecution. Priority institutions include the Institute of National Remembrance, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and Arolsen Archives.

Scholarly literature

Peer-reviewed articles, academic monographs and critical editions are used to interpret institutions, competencies and chains of command. A secondary work does not become an independent confirmation when it merely repeats another publication without adding a separate evidentiary basis.

Corroboration and publication threshold

A profile is published only when its central claims are supported by at least two independent, credible sources. Agreement is checked at claim level: identity, office, dates, geographic remit, documented conduct and postwar outcome are not assumed to share the same degree of certainty.

When sources conflict, the archive records the disagreement rather than selecting the most dramatic version. A well-known name, an institutional title or a convenient gap in a circle is never sufficient grounds for publication.

Data architecture

One canonical dataset

The shared person data are maintained in site/data/figures.json. Stable identifiers and slugs connect names, functions, organisations, dates, areas of activity, responsibility categories, postwar outcomes, sources and uncertainty notes without turning any single estimate into a measure of rank.

Generated derivatives

Files in site/data/records/, circle cards, profile indexes, search data, archive data and active page counters are derivatives of the canonical dataset. Localised editorial content supplements those shared records; it does not create a competing person list.

Automated synchronisation and validation

scripts/generate-archive-index.mjs rebuilds the derivatives, while scripts/validate-archive.mjs stops publication when counts, cards, profiles, local links, identifiers or graph data disagree. This makes a stale visible counter or a missing profile a deployment error rather than an editorial detail.

Historical research records

Reports from earlier research waves preserve the state of the archive at the time they were written. Their historical counts remain part of the project record but are excluded from checks of current production copy.

Seven circles of responsibility

The tier field places a person in one of seven functional circles, from supreme decision-making through strategic coordination, programme design, territorial rule, operational command and enabling administration to local execution and incitement. The circles explain position, authority and agency; they are not legal categories, rankings of suffering or a scale of guilt.

Editorial status and review

Confirmed findings

Documented office, term of service, geographic remit, orders, administrative acts and proven conduct form the factual core of a profile. Claims are written no more broadly than the sources allow, and unit or regional totals are not automatically converted into an individual victim count.

Interpretive synthesis

Interpretation explains how a person connected policy, administration, logistics, command or direct execution. It is labelled separately from confirmed findings so that a reasoned reconstruction is not presented as a quotation from a source or a finding of a court.

Uncertainty and limitations

Conflicting dates, incomplete files, disputed competencies, uncertain fates and differences between an indictment and a judgment remain visible. Where evidence cannot support a conclusion, the profile states the limit instead of filling the gap by inference.

Postwar legal outcome

Investigation, charge, conviction, acquittal, release and failure to prosecute are described as distinct outcomes. An acquittal or discontinued case is reported accurately but is not treated as proof that the documented persecution or the wider institutional crime did not occur.

Source-aligned English translation

This status means that the English text follows the factual scope, distinctions and stated limitations of the canonical profile and its cited sources. It does not indicate a separate English-language investigation or authorise the addition of claims absent from the source-aligned record.

Editorially reviewed English profile

This status identifies an English profile that has also received an individual editorial review for factual alignment, terminology and the separation of evidence from interpretation. Both English statuses retain the same publication threshold and source requirements.

Rights and licences

Public-domain and freely licensed material

Images may be embedded only when the legal status is explicit. This includes verified public-domain material, Bundesarchiv files released through Wikimedia Commons under the stated licence, United States federal records in the public domain and USHMM collection items explicitly marked Public Domain. Every item retains its required attribution.

Material governed by specific reuse terms

Source texts from the Yale Avalon Project are cited with attribution. Imperial War Museums material is used only within the scope of its Non-Commercial Licence and with the required collection credit; the licence must be checked for the particular form of reuse.

Permission required: external links only

The archive links to photographs and documents held by Yad Vashem and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum rather than embedding them without permission. Materials published by the Institute of National Remembrance are likewise used only under their stated conditions and with clear source attribution.

Attribution, portraits and dignity

Every embedded asset must carry a visible source and licence credit. If a portrait's free status cannot be confirmed, the profile uses a monogram; uncertainty about permission is resolved by linking rather than copying.

The archive does not publish graphic images of victims. Historical audiovisual evidence that contains such material is not embedded and is approached, when necessary, through a clearly described external source out of respect for the people shown.