United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Seymour Z. Mann served with the G-5 Civil Affairs section of the United States Army and worked as a denazification investigating officer for the Public Safety Division of the Office of Military Government, U.S. (OMGUS) in Ludwigsburg, Germany.
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The Seymour Z. Mann papers are arranged as four series: I. Adolf Dörrfuss materials, 1946, II. Heinrich Grobe materials, 1902-1945, III. Wilhelm Keil material, 1946, undated, IV. Subject files, 1945-1946
The Seymour Z. Mann collection includes reports, correspondence, a diary, cultural programs, questionnaires, and printed materials documenting the Evangelical Church and the Social Democratic Party in Ludwigsburg, Germany before, during, and after the Nazi years and Nazi cultural programming in Ludwigsburg during World War II. Adolf Dörrfuss (1875-1948) was a pastor in Ludwigsburg and his 157-page 1946 report describes the Evangelical Church in Ludwigsburg during the Nazi years. The report is interspersed with historical documents such as articles, bulletins, and pamphlets about the Church as well as correspondence, sermons, and narratives by Dörrfuss. Heinrich Grobe (1902-1964?) served as regional chief of culture for the Nazi Party in Ludwigsburg, and his materials include early family correspondence, a diary recording the main events in his life between 1902 and 1945, and cultural programs and speeches he developed between 1942 and 1945 for the Nazi Party in Ludwigsburg. Wilhelm Keil (1870-1968) was a Social Democrat and represented Ludwigsburg in the Württemberg State Assembly before Hitler’s rise to power. An English translation of his 16-page 1946 report titled “Confession of an Old Social-Democrat: Written Down for Captain Lindsay, Chief of the Allied Military Government” describes his contacts with the Military Government in Ludwigsburg, the Nazi years, and the necessity of German denazification. This series also includes three pages from an unidentified memoir that describe a rumor about Wilhelm Keil’s collaboration with the Nazi government in 1933. Subject files include two copies of the Appeal of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, adopted at the party congress in Hanover on 11.5.1946, two blank postwar questionnaires seeking names and addresses of local leaders during the Nazi period, and five circulars created by the Social Democratic Party in Berlin in 1946 celebrating the downfall of the Nazi regime.
Seymour Z. Mann collection