How to find a WWII veteran by first and last name? Review of useful resources on the Internet. Search for WWII participants who died during the fighting

On this page we have collected resources that will help you find a soldier (deceased relative or friend), search for those killed and missing in the Great Patriotic War.

Volunteer project "Archive Battalion"

The volunteer project “Archive Battalion” to restore information about participants in the wars of the 20th century accepts and processes applications to study the combat path of participants in the Great Patriotic War.

Memory of the people

The People's Memory project was implemented in accordance with the decision of the Russian Victory Organizing Committee of July 2013, supported by the instructions of the President and the Decree of the Russian Government in 2014. The project provides for the publication on the Internet of archival documents and documents about the losses and awards of soldiers and officers of the First World War, the development of the projects previously implemented by the Russian Ministry of Defense about the Second World War OBD Memorial and Feat of the People into one project - Memory of the People.

Feat of the people

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation presents a unique open access information resource, filled with all documents available in military archives about the progress and results of major combat operations, exploits and awards of all soldiers of the Great Patriotic War. As of August 8, 2012, the data bank contains information about 12,670,837 awards.

Generalized database "Memorial"

The generalized data bank contains information about the defenders of the Fatherland who died and disappeared during the Great Patriotic War and the post-war period. The work was done on a large scale: tens of thousands of documents were collected and converted into electronic form, with a total volume of more than 10 million sheets. The personal information contained in them amounted to more than 20 million records.

Immortal Regiment of Russia

The all-Russian public civil-patriotic movement “Immortal Regiment of Russia” collects stories about participants in the Great Patriotic War. The database is updated daily. Here you can not only add your veteran soldier to the all-Russian “piggy bank”, but also search for existing ones.

Electronic book of memory “Immortal Regiment - Moscow”

“Immortal Regiment - Moscow” together with the “My Documents” State Service Centers are collecting information about residents of the capital who took part in the Great Patriotic War. Now there are already more than 193 thousand names in the archive.

“Soldat.ru” - database of those killed in the Second World War

Soldat.ru is the oldest portal on the Russian Internet for establishing the fate of dead and missing military personnel and searching for their loved ones.

"The Winners" - Soldiers of the Great War

With our project we want to thank by name the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War living next to us and talk about their feat. The “Winners” project was created for the 60th anniversary of the Victory. Then we managed to collect lists of more than a million veterans living near us.

The site also contains a stunning interactive and animated map of the fighting of the Great Patriotic War.

Electronic memorial “Remember About”

On the social website “PomniPro”, each registered user can create a memory page, a photo gallery of a deceased loved one, talk about his biography, honor the memory of the deceased, leave words of memory and gratitude. You can also find a deceased relative and friend, search for those killed and missing in the Great Patriotic War.

Memorial of the Great Patriotic War

The site is conceived as a people's encyclopedia, a virtual Memorial to the fallen participants of the Great War, where everyone can leave their comments on any entry, supplement information about the War Participant with photographs and memories, and turn to other project participants for help. There are about 60,000 project participants. More than 400,000 cards have been registered.

MIPOD "Immortal Regiment"

The site has a large database of participants in the Great Patriotic War. The chronicle is maintained by community members. Now there are more than 400 thousand names in the archive.

Find a soldier. Memo for those who are looking for their heroes

1. Check the data on the OBD Memorial website

When checking data about a person, open the “advanced search” tab and make attempts by typing only the last name, then the last name and first name, then the full data. Also try to check the information by setting the last name parameters, and the first and patronymic parameters only with initials.

2. Send a request to the archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

The request must be sent to the address: 142100 Moscow region, Podolsk, Kirova St., 74. "Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation."

Enclose the letter in the envelope, clearly stating the information you have and stating the purpose of the request. Enclose one blank envelope with your home address as the recipient's address.

3. Check the data on the “Feat of the People” website

If you do not have information on awards, you can go to the “Feat of the People” website. In the “People and Awards” tab, enter the information requested.

4. Check parameter information

There are additional ways that can also help you find and identify information about your veteran. The website “Soldat.ru” presents a list of search technologies, we draw your attention to some of them:

• Database of Internet links to school museums of the Russian Federation, which have exhibitions about the combat routes of units and formations of the Soviet Army
• How to establish the fate of a serviceman who died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War
• Information on materials held by the International Red Cross Tracing Service
• Request forms for search, evacuation and search of graves through the Tracing and Information Center of the Russian Red Cross (

Today, the development of modern technology has taken a step forward and any information can be found. Every resident of Russia can use the official website to learn about the participants of the Second World War, the period 1941-1945. Therefore, answering the question of how to find WWII participants by last name is not so difficult; this will be described below.

WWII participant, find by last name - official website

Today, special resources have been created, thanks to which you can find missing soldiers and war veterans who are still alive. It's worth noting that these are useful resources that many people use. Today, several sites have been created, but reliable information should be taken from the official one. http://www.obd-memorial.ru. It’s easy to work with; you just need to fill out the fields that are presented on the start page. On them you can get acquainted with extracts and documents that were relevant about seventy years ago.

To find a specific person, you should set up filters. The information that is needed is the full name, if there are other data, then thanks to them you can find the desired person faster. You can indicate years of service, military awards, orders and relatives of the veteran. If you were unable to identify the necessary information, then this is not a reason for frustration. You can try your own after a while. Data on the sites is updated regularly. You can try to find a person using search sites like Yandex.

It is worth noting that the data on the site is filled out by volunteers who conduct excavations at war sites. Everything that they find in the margins relating to the war, the period 1941-1945, is published on this portal. The sites can be replenished by people and social services that work with the elderly. Often war veterans share facts from their lives with their interlocutors. And war is such a period of life that sinks into the soul of an old man for a long time.

Find awards of a WWII participant by last name

Several years ago, a resource appeared on the Internet, thanks to which you can find awards received by participants in the war. This resource stores documents in electronic format that confirm the awards of people who took part in the war. All data is publicly available and anyone can view it. There is information taken from the archives.

The purpose of creating this project is to preserve the memory of each of the heroes of the Victory. There are only facts and no false information. It was recently determined that the resource contains more than twelve million award information. To find out if your relative has been awarded, you need to enter his initials in the Award Search column. If no information is found, you can subscribe to updates that will be sent to you by email.

Find a relative of a WWII participant by last name

To date, no such resource has yet been invented where one could find out about the relatives of war participants. But over time it is planned to create it too. Although on the official website, where you can find participants in the war, information about his relatives may also appear, if it was known earlier. Also on this site you can independently indicate your relationship with a war veteran. Only this needs to be supported by some documents, you need to prove your relationship with the veteran.

But if there is such a need to find relatives of war veterans, then you can contact the military registration and enlistment office and raise the entire archive of documents that should contain the information you are interested in.

How to find WWII participants

The question of how to find a WWII participant by last name is not uncommon today. But the answer to it will be formulated below. Lately, people have been interested in the participants in the war, prompted by the seventieth anniversary of victory, which does not leave a single veteran unattended. There is a good database of WWII participants on the database "Memorial" Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, which is freely available, that is, anyone can use it. You can fill out a questionnaire about a WWII participant if he is your relative, but the knowledge must be reliable.

To find a participant in the Great War, you can contact the military registration and enlistment office that called the person to serve. You will need to write a statement stating that you are a relative and want to find out about the fate of the person or talk about him. After some time, your proposal will be considered and you will be contacted.

If you were unable to search for your relative, you can contact the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense, which is located in the city of Podolsk. You don’t have to go there in person; you can write a letter so that they can tell you about your missing relative. After some time, you should receive an official response, which will indicate either the place of burial or the place of residence of the person.

If a war participant died from combat wounds or died in captivity, then in order to find out as many facts about him as possible, you need to write a letter to the FSB, who can search the archives for information about the person.

How to find war participants using a television program?

Many people are looking for people who went missing on the battlefields to find out whether they are alive or not. And there are a lot of ways to do this. You can use specially created search sites, broadcasts, some associations and groups on social networks, archives and other places. Every year there are fewer and fewer unmarked graves or veterans who were unable to find their relatives. Therefore, the state is doing everything so that the participants of the Second World War find their relatives, and the whole country is proud of them.

Programs that search for missing people have recently gained wide popularity, especially when it comes to program "Wait for me" where War Veterans are often found. After all, many veterans watch this program in the hope of finding their relatives and colleagues. This television project searches for missing people not only in Russia, but also in other countries, which increases the chances of finding the missing person. You can write a letter to the studio if you cannot come in person. You must include a description of the person and a photograph, if available, with your description.

In this article, we looked at how to find WWII participants by last name, what methods and sites there are for this. But in reality this will not be so easy. You may have to use several methods at once to find out about your missing relative.

At the moment, the official service for searching for awards of a veteran of the Great Patriotic War is located at the link.

Additional resources for finding veterans are described In this article.

Video about search methods

Information technology opens up enormous opportunities for us. Now we can find a person via the Internet without leaving home. Some people use this chance to find out at least something about the participants in the war of 1941-1945. After all, how many destinies were then lost, missing. Today, relatives are trying to restore information and find out the details of what happened. Previously, it was very difficult to find a veteran of the Patriotic War by last name or other information, but now it is quite possible. There are many electronic resources and databases for this. We will write about them below.

Where can I find information about participants in World War II?

Get ready for a difficult task to solve. Below we list the largest electronic resources, created with government support and central archives:

1. “Memorial” is a project that is a generalized repository. There are more than 33 million records about the fate of soldiers and burial places. A search on the site is carried out both by a person’s last name and by any other indicators. You can indicate your year of birth, place or rank. You can additionally use the " Advanced Search" By default, the system will work with summary records compiled for each person from available documents;
2. “Memory of the People” is another project dedicated to the heroes of the Second World War. To search, you need to enter your full name in the line located at the top of the page " Heroes of War" You can also use the following points: “ Combat operations», « Military graves», « Parts documents" In them you can see the addresses of burial places and the names of fallen soldiers, material about military operations, the fate of its participants, etc.

Both sites are easy to use. A colossal number of unique documents are stored here in electronic form, which are not found anywhere else.

Search for WWII veterans by awards

The electronic archive “Feat of the People” contains information about more than 6 million awards issued for the capture, defense, and liberation of cities and territories.

You can search both by full name and by dates and names of orders. And if you have any documents in your hands, you can enter text from them into the appropriate fields using the button “ Advanced Search" Then the resource will issue all award sheets and orders in which this set of proposals appears.

You can also use the portal “About Awards.ru”. It contains more than 20 million awards records.

List of military archives and departments

There is an option to go directly to military storage facilities and departments and inquire there:

In addition, projects on which you can read old wartime newspapers. They often posted texts with photographs about the achievements of our troops at the front, in order to raise patriotism among the people, and listed the names of heroes and leaders:

You may have to spend a lot of time, but the more resources you visit, the more applications you leave, the more likely you will be successful.

How to find those killed or missing in the war of 1941-1945?

Here we list resources where you can find out about the fate of people left on the battlefields:

• Project "Archive Battalion" created with the aim of restoring information about participants in the wars of the 20th century. You can leave a request on the website with a request to conduct research on the exploits of your hero, where and how he fought and died. It is also possible to contact the office directly to the employees. The address is here;
• Book of memory "Immortal Regiment". The platform allows you to obtain information about Muscovites, both those who returned home and those who died;
• Electronic memorial “Remember About” is a social site for those who are trying to preserve the memory of relatives and friends who participated in the Second World War. You can create a page in memory of a veteran here, tell his story, publish photographs and documents. And also do a search;
• On site

The Great Patriotic War brought much destruction to the entire Soviet Union. And the greatest losses were people. Families were destroyed and still want to find their relatives.

Dear readers! The article talks about typical ways to resolve legal issues, but each case is individual. If you want to know how solve exactly your problem- contact a consultant:

APPLICATIONS AND CALLS ARE ACCEPTED 24/7 and 7 days a week.

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This is why such an opportunity as searching for WWII veterans by last name in Russia (Great Patriotic War) in 2019 works.

What you need to know

In the Russian Federation, there is a problem of finding those citizens who were participants in hostilities. Basically, these are the dead and missing heroes of Russia.

The search may be of interest to those who are looking for information about their own relatives. And perhaps some records in the databases will help find the places of their burial or last place of stay. In addition, the bank of unawarded medals is still full.

In 2019, there are many Internet resources that allow you to search for information depending on the amount of data that a citizen has on hand.

Thanks to these systems for searching and storing information, each person can freely search and find information about their own relatives or help other people find theirs. Because their cases may have been forgotten in the archives for more than 20 years.

Important Concepts

While reviewing this topic, the average user may have difficulty understanding a number of terms. Deciphering them in advance will allow you to more quickly process the necessary information:

Where to begin

Initially, you should understand that the search will be carried out across several sites and portals. Separate pieces of information have been collected on different resources.

And if you didn’t manage to find a relative the first time, then you can try another site. Mandatory components of the search must include information about the participant in the war.

Various resources allow you to find data of this nature:

• about the dead and missing;
• those who worked in the rear;
• received awards;
• those killed in German concentration camps;
• about decorated living combatants.

You can search for all these indicators. Therefore, you need to decide in which area this operation will be performed. After this, you can proceed to select the required portal to search.

It is better to make a list of several - this will increase the options for matches and information verification. Plus, some sites may have an incomplete database and lack any details.

The legislative framework

The Immortal Regiment in Russia acts as a public patriotic organization. In this regard, their work, and the work of the resources of these institutions, is taken into account from the point of view of Federal Law No. 82-FZ “On Public Associations”.

This legal document allows the creation of international relations between societies - in accordance with Article 46. This makes it possible to exchange information and information on various issues.

Many discrepancies exist within the framework of the activities of such resources with Federal Law No. 152-FZ “On Personal Data”. Article 8 defines the categories of sources of such information that are available to all people. These can be considered reference books and databases. In this case, it will be necessary to obtain consent to publish information.

In most cases, Internet resources post data based on requests from citizens - relatives of the deceased, who want to provide information about their ancestor.

But there are also situations when government documents are declassified. In this case, Federal Law No. 261-FZ “On Amendments to the Federal Law “On Personal Data”” applies. Article 9, paragraph 7, talks about consent in the event of a person's death.

How to find WWII veterans by last name

Searching by last name is one of the most difficult options. The fact is that the more information there is about a citizen, the easier it is to find him. Plus, the surname can be quite common.

And this complicates the search, since the spread will be large. It is worth considering that on different sites the databases consist of different amounts of information about people. Thus, the data ranges from 9 to 13 million people.

In order for the procedure to be successful, it is worth clarifying the following list of data in advance:

• last name, first name and patronymic;
• date of birth - year, month and day;
• place of residence or from which locality he was called to serve, in which unit he served.

This is the minimum set of data that will allow you to find the necessary WWII veteran. Next, you can decide on the search method option. Because there are a lot of them for 2019.

Through the archives of military operations

Archival documentation allows you to find information about those who served in different years, in accordance with the hostilities in which they took part. The history of the veteran can be traced through the records about him.

Such data is mainly stored in Moscow:

These are the main archives, but there are many of them around the country, so you should search according to the citizen’s place of service. This can also be done by contacting the military commissariat that called him up.

Mechanism of action through sites

Thanks to websites, you can get information about a person without leaving home. In this case, you will only need a set of existing information and time. Next, you need to select the portal through which the search is carried out. And after that, information about the person is entered into the search form.

For example, Ivanov, drafted in 1943. The system generates a list, by viewing which you can find your relative. If such an operation does not give the desired result, you should try using another site.

Memorial

OBD Memorial allows you to find information about a citizen using a short list of data:

• year of birth;
• rank.

Using this information, data is obtained about the fate of a person - whether he is in the database of the dead or missing.

Photo: search for WWII veterans by last name on the Memorial website

There is also an advanced search option, which includes entering data about:

• in which documents to search;
• place of conscription, burial;
• date and place of disposal;
• Which hospitals were you in?

It is possible to search for prisoners in the camps:

Photo: search for prisoners in camps on the Memorial website

Winners

This site was created for the 60th anniversary of the Victory and has more than 1.5 million WWII veterans. Information is included about those who were in Russia and about those who are now considered citizens of another country.

The search has a standard form that asks you to write the veteran’s name and select his region of residence:

There is also an interactive map of military operations on this site. With its help you can view the progress of troops. And each stage is accompanied by a detailed commentary.

Photo: interactive map of military operations on the Pobeditel website

Feat of the people

This online resource contains more than 12.5 million records of exploits, and as of 2015, statistics established that more than 500 thousand undelivered awards found their owners using this site.

The portal contains three divisions:

• people and awards;
• documentation;
• geography of military operations.

All known data can be used for searching. There are both standard and advanced searches:

Photo: search for WWII veterans by last name on the Feat of the People website

Initially, you need to go to the organization’s website and click on the people and awards button. Then a standard search will appear, giving you the opportunity to expand it and enter more information about the veteran.

Other options

The My Regiment website involves searching not only military personnel, but also those who lived and worked in the rear. Here you can find information about dead, missing and living people.

Photo: search for WWII veterans by last name on the My Regiment website

At the standard level, you can enter any information about a person, and then conduct an advanced search indicating ranks, place of residence, and so on. Plus, you can tell your story about a WWII veteran from your own family. To do this, register on the site and write a story.

Is it possible to search by awards?

The easiest way to find a veteran is by awards. If there are insignia left or it is known that a rank has been assigned, then such a search will be effective. After all, this will uniqueize the citizen’s request and a more thorough search will be carried out in the database.

With the help of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, an electronic bank “Feat of the People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945” was created. which is located at podvignaroda.mil.ru, where you can find information about the exploits and awards of your fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers by first and last name. The search takes place using military archival documents that have been digitized and entered into the site database.

How and where to look?

The “Feat of the People” website is the most complete and up-to-date database on participants in the Great Patriotic War - there is information about almost all soldiers. At the first stage of digitization from 2010 to 2015, 30 million records were made on the awarding of orders and medals “For Courage” and “For Military Merit”, as well as information on 22 million Orders of the Patriotic War I and II degrees for the 40th anniversary of the Victory, and also 200 thousand archival files with a total volume of 100 million sheets!

Such a huge amount of work was done for the main goal of the project:

The main goals of the project are to perpetuate the memory of all heroes of the Victory, regardless of rank, scale of feat, award status, military-patriotic education of youth using the example of the military exploits of their fathers, as well as creating a factual basis to counter attempts to falsify the history of the War.

There are 3 main search options:

1. Search for people and their awards
2. Search for decrees and awards orders
3. Search data by place and time

To find a person, use the first search option, to do this, open the website http://podvignaroda.mil.ru/ and go to the “People and Awards” tab and enter the last name and first name of the person whose awards you want to find.

To search for decrees and data on the location of military operations, we recommend using another site - “Memory of the People”, which will be discussed below.

If you want to search by award number, you will not be able to do this, because... Award numbers are not indicated in the award documents.

If information about a person’s fate is not known, then the “Feat of the People” website will not suit you, because... it does not contain data on the dead or missing. Such information should be searched on the website www.obd-memorial.ru, trying different spellings of surnames and names because wartime documents may have contained errors in the name or date of birth.

Let us remind you that the initiator of this project is the Department for the Development of Information and Telecommunication Technologies of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, and technical support is provided by the ELAR company. Thanks to them for this site!

The information is taken from two funds: the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (CA MO) and the Central Naval Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (CVMA).

Memory of the people

Later, a more modern website was opened https://pamyat-naroda.ru/ “Memory of the People” with documents of the Second World War, which has a more pleasant design and, most importantly, more information, maps and historical data.

With the help of the “Memory of the People” portal, it has become even easier to reconstruct the military path of your grandfather, find documents about injuries and awards.

The People's Memory project was implemented in accordance with the decision of the Russian Victory Organizing Committee of July 2013, supported by the instructions of the President and the Decree of the Russian Government in 2014. The project provides for the publication on the Internet of archival documents and documents about the losses and awards of soldiers and officers of the First World War, the development of the projects previously implemented by the Russian Ministry of Defense about the Second World War OBD Memorial and Feat of the People into one project - Memory of the People.

On the page https://pamyat-naroda.ru/ops/ you can familiarize yourself with the plans of 226 operations with detailed diagrams on the map. Each page about the operation contains the names of commanders and numbers of military units, as well as a description of the result of the operation.

On the page https://pamyat-naroda.ru/memorial/ you can find military graves in your city. Just enter the name of the city and click the “Find” button. In total, it contains information about 30,588 burials around the world, except the United States.

Figure 2 - Military graves indicating first and last names.

The page about the burial contains information about its condition (good, bad, excellent), type of burial, number of graves, number of known and unknown buried. Also available on the page is a list of those buried with names and dates of birth and death.