My mother found a collection of documents and photos about my grandfather's time in World War 2 and now I want to find out more about his past.
According to this document, he was part of the 6th company Panzer-Grenadier Regiment 1 and was awarded a medal for fighting in 3 battles. I think the names of the places where he fought are "Erdödy", "Nannsee" and "Uj. Feherte", but it's hard to read. I can't find them through Google, although Erdödy seems to be a hungarian noble family and there is a place called Nennsee in Southern Germany. He can't have been in Hungary one day and in Germany the next, can he?
So I'd like to find these places and also would like to know if there any resources I could use to find out more. We Germans are notorious for our bureaucracy and as far as I know the Nazis/Wehrmacht kept records of everything too. Are there any archives that might have records about his company or himself? How would a historian go about finding out as much as s/he can?
Here is the whole collection for anyone interested.
Hi there! Afraid I can't give you very much. I have no idea how to go about accessing German resources, but I can tell you a bit about what was going on in a broader sense. Your grandfather served in the 1st Panzer Division. During the time in which he was in the division, it was fighting in Hungary, and later participated in Operation Konrad, the attempted relief of Budapest. In the last months of the war, the division was forced back into Austria, where they surrendered to the Americans - explaining his US Army-stamped papers.
I hope that a German user, or at least a user fluent in German and familiar with government sources, can provide you with further detail.
Are you or any one in your family able to speak German? If so, there is the WASt that you can contact about former members of the Wehrmacht: their military career, where they were stationed, where they fell, where they're buried etc (if applicable). They will most likely also speak English there, but the website apparently is available only in German. After the National Archive for Military Documents prior 1945 was dissolved in 2005, the WASt now holds most of the documents, so I would give them a shot first before looking somewhere else.
Another archive to consult would be the National Military Archive segment of the National Archive. You can contact them at militaerarchiv@bundesarchiv.de. They hold all records of military court proceedings as well as citations, medals etc., so you might find something about your grandfather based on the fact that he was wounded and had some citations.
Now, regarding your main question about the places mentioned in the specific document: If your grandfather was active in the first panzerdivision on these dates (23rd to 25th of October 1944), he was fighting in the Battle of Debrecen in eastern Hungary, today the county of Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg.
Near Debrecen, there is a place called "Erdodytanya" - most likely this is the Erdödy you're looking for. It's not a town but a general area, so that's why Google maps might not find it, but it's found here.
Uj.Feherte then is most likely to be Újfehértó, a town very close to the area.
This leaves only the ominous "Nannsee" (?). I think it doesn't really look like a "see" at the end, but rather "sse", but it really is more or less unintelligible. But looking at the course of the Battle of Debrecen, there is a night attack noted for 0200 on the 24th of October on a town called Nagykálló. Might this be it, albeit in a Germanized variant?
The last one is really only a guess, but the other two places should be pretty exact.
I can't help you with resources but I do know there are some very talented Wehrmacht/WW2 Germany researchers out there on other forums from all over Europe. Look up WW2 Germany history forums, and especially war relic forums, those guys have even less info to go on than you when they do their personnel background searches.
On another note, great set of photos and family history here, hope you find what you're looking for. Do you still have the Tank Badge?
One thing to keep in mind is that many names of places in Eastern Europe that once had German names where changed after WWII to erase the German-ness from the place. For example Preßburg became Bratislava. You might try looking on pre-WWII maps to see if you can find these locations.
