Help needed with a German name ..

[edz]

Hi all, I am in need of the assistance with a German name, A work collegue has aquired a genuine WW1 issue helmet in pretty good condition,  same style as this one , on the inside of it,  it has the name  " Liiffe Rapp " written in faded ink and unfortunitely no army number ...
Trying to find the English equivelent to the name and also if anyone has tips on researching the name in the WW1 German archives [ bit hard as we dont speek / read German ]. Any German speakers around ?
My co- worker ultimately would like to track down a family member and return it to them if its possible .
Google is of little help as all it wants to show is German Rapper bands .
As always thanks in advance

[Bird]

Hi all, I am in need of the assistance with a German name, A work collegue has aquired a genuine WW1 issue helmet in pretty good condition,  same style as this one , on the inside of it,  it has the name  " Liiffe Rapp " written in faded ink and unfortunitely no army number ...
Trying to find the English equivelent to the name and also if anyone has tips on researching the name in the WW1 German archives [ bit hard as we dont speek / read German ]. Any German speakers around ?
My co- worker ultimately would like to track down a family member and return it to them if its possible .
Google is of little help as all it wants to show is German Rapper bands .
As always thanks in advance

perfect fit

[tk421]

Couple of places to start: German helmets forum to get a bit more info on it (ie it doesn't look like a Picklehaus (spiked) helmet. Different units had different helmets so it
Might help you narrow the search down
http://www.ghw2.com

Google translate comes back with "Life Rapp". So not much use


Researching WW1 names might be harder it looks like a lot of records were lost. This came from a genealogy site. Visit the site to get the links mentioned in the text below: http://genealogy.stackexchange.com/questions/3915/how-to-find-information-on-german-soldiers-from-world-war-i-and-world-war-ii

Bavarian records appear to be on ancestry.de:
http://search.ancestry.com.au/search/db.aspx?dbid=1631&geo_a=t&geo_s=de&geo_t=au&geo_v=2.0.0&o_iid=41024&o_lid=41024&o_sch=Web+Property

"Looking at World War I it is important to know where in Germany your ancestors lived. Within the forces of the German Empire, dominated by Prussia, the contingents of Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony remained semi-autonomous and also kept their own records.

A lot of of records on participants of World War I were destroyed when the Prussian military archive in Potsdam burned down in 1945. Except for some Reichsmarine (navy) records, almost all individual documents from the Prussian army are lost. Records on navy members from the years between 1871 and 1947 might available from the Deutsche Dienststelle (as detailed)

Records on combatants from Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and Saxony are kept in local archives:

Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv
Landesarchiv Baden Württemberg - Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart
Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden
The records from Württemberg and Baden are freely accessible online from the archive. Please see this introduction (in German): Soldaten im Ersten Weltkrieg Findmittel zu den Personalunterlagen des XIV. Armeekorps im Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe jetzt online. You choose the relevant time period for the personnel rosters and search them by unit (not indexed).

The Bavarian records (Kriegsranglisten und -stammrollen des Königreichs Bayern) are also available on Ancestry.com. They usually contain short biographical information like occupation and place of residence, military career (rank, participation in battles, awards) and information on the soldier’s parents."

[tk421]

Rapp  does appear to be a legitimate German surname though

[edz]

I said to my mate, I hope the surname Rapp isnt a German equivelent to Smith, still going to be near impossible to find I reckon without having a service number, even then it would still be hard ..
The bombing during WW2 destroyed  a lot of archives, then the Cold War partition of  the country.

[oldmate]

Hey edz. Look up mittens on the forum and send him a pm. He is German and has family back there still. May be able to help.

[DaveR]

My Mrs managed to find her German family heritage.
Google translate works very well.
Patients is the other thing.
Also, the German government is catching up with documenting as much as they can with the war. But you'll find a lot was destroyed due to the loss.
Try some forums, and search blogs on it, there is a lot out there.