Alexander Primavesi papers

Alexander Primavesi papers 

Alexander Primavesi was born in 1928 and grew up in Arnsberg, Germany. Having Jewish friends as a child, he was disturbed by the events of the Kristallnacht, and witnessing the burning of synagogues in his town. He completed an apprenticeship in photography, but was then conscripted into the German army in 1944 and sent to the Soviet Union to fight, and he was wounded and captured as a prisoner-of-war in 1945. Upon his return to Germany and he trained as a police investigator, initially working for the regional police in the province of Nordrhein-Westfalen, before joining the police force of the city of Dortmund in 1951. He transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department of that force in 1953, and remained there until his retirement in 1996. Along with his official police service, he also researched the history and role of the city's police department during the Third Reich, using the department's archives to do so. He passed away in 1996. 

Alexander Primavesi papers