My grandfather was conscripted by the Nazis around the end of WWII. He was 16. He did his basic training and was then sent to the Russian front, where his company of 16 year old boys fought for a few months before surrendering (out of food/ammo and war ended) and being taken prisoner. He told me today that before they entered combat, they were ordered to destroy their identification and bury their dogtag. I asked my grandfather "why?" and he told me he did not know! Obviously the discussion was quite sensitive as he reflected on the idea that if he died back then, no one would have known what happened to him. I offered to ask the Internet.... does anyone know why he may have been ordered to destroy all ID before combat?
Good question!
German paybooks (soldbuch), identity disks, and any other personal papers were a goldmine for Allied intelligence officers.
Allied intelligence officers were specifically trained to use the documents of captured and killed German troops. A 1945 U.S. War Department manual gives an example or the kind of information an intelligence officer could get from a German soldier's documents:
PAYBOOK (Soldbuch). The paybook of the German soldier is his official means of identification and contains, in addition to personal data, a record of all units in which he has served and their replacement affiliations; his clothing and equipment record, inoculations, hospitalization; his promotions, pay rate group, payments received from units other than his own, decorations, furloughs, and other data pertaining to his person or his active service. The paybook contains both the soldier's military registration number (Wehrnummer), under which his service record was issued to him before his actual induction, and the inscription and number on his identification disc (Beschriftung und Nummer der Erkennungsmarke).
IDENTIFICATION DISC (Erkennungsmarke). The identification disc which the German soldier wears around his neck consists of two halves, both with identical inscriptions. It is issued to him by the unit (normally at company level) into which he is first inducted; both the name of that unit and the serial number under which the disc was issued to him are inscribed on it, as well as his blood type. Any unit, however, may issue a disc to a member who has lost his original one, with its own name and a new serial number.
From a identity disk and the soldbuch, an intelligence officer could deduce where a soldier had been stationed, where his unit might be going, what kind of information he would know, how well-supplied his unit was, who he might know, etc. Even the most trivial details could be important.
A British intelligence officer in North Africa wrote that German soldiers
"...nearly always respond (a) to someone who shouts at them, and (b) to show off knowledge."
By gathering as much information as possible about a soldier, a skilled interrogator could feign omniscience and "show off" to the prisoner. This created an atmosphere that effectively stated: "We already know anything anyways. Don't try tomlie to us. Besides, it won't hurt if you talk..."
The same British officer said paybooks were especially helpful in getting this kind of information.
"The paybook was on the familiar pattern. Very occasionally a prisoner said he had handed it to the company office, and sometimes pages 3 and 4 were torn out. Practically always it [the paybook] gave the necessary information. All officers carried paybooks
And once you had the information of even one soldier, the "show off" method could be used to milk information from his comrades.
The British officer was once confronted with a group of 16 men from unknown units. Rather than outright ask them, he played some mind games.
"...the old trick worked of saying 'Everybody in the 104 Motorized Inf. Regt. fall in over there.' [Dutifully, the well-drilled German soldiers did as told]."
It was even easier for Allied intelligence to get information if the soldier had some other papers on them.
"... Documents were almost fantastic in their quantity and value to us ... Minor examples are legion: war diaries, code names, photographs showing new weapons, training pamphlets, intelligence summaries, personal diaries, casualty returns, and so on."
German commanders knew that Allied troops were using German documents and ID disks to get information from POWs, so they sometimes made an effort to destroy, replace, or confiscate these things.
German soldiers going on night raids were told to leave behind their ID, paybooks, letters, or any other identifying information.
Other times, substitutes were issued.
"During the operations at Bardia, Salum, and Halfaya, many prisoners did not carry paybooks. These had been . . . kept . . . at the company office, where, in many cases, they were duly found later on. Instead of a paybook, prisoners carried a temporary certificate of identity giving the following particulars:
Rank, Christian name, surname, Date and place of birth, Home address, Date of arrival in Africa.
"The certificate was signed by the company commander and was stamped with the field post number."
And in other times, like the case of your grandfather, the ID documents and tags were simply destroyed.
Sources:
U.S. War Department. Technical Manual, TM-E 30-451: Handbook on German Military Forces (March 1945). http://www.lonesentry.com/manuals/tme30/ch1sec2.html
Intelligence Bulletin, December 1942. http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/priswar/index.html