Liebe Leser,
die nachstehende Mail, die ich über die Vereinsliste der GGHH erhielt (vom Verein eingestellt, da Nachfrage beim Verein), leite ich an die OWP-L. weiter, da sie Bezug zu Ostpreußen hat (bitte direkt an Lorne Bohn antworten: lbohn@shaw.ca)
Hi Lorne,
your mail has been forwarded to the OWP-Mailinglist (OWP=East-/West-Prussia). I will try to give you a few hints regarding your search for your father.
Concerning information about your father's military service, I recommend that you subscribe to the military mailing list. You can post there also in English. Please subscribe here:
http://list.genealogy.net/mm/listinfo/militaer-l
[when viewing this page, you can switch to English by changing the language in the upper right corner of the page]
Due to bomb attacks on the military archive in WW II, it is very unlikely to find information about privates in any archive. And this might be the reason why you did not get an answer from the Bundesarchiv. Furthermore, the Bundesarchiv does not have any church books or civil registration documents. Please refer to the description of the holdings of this archive on its website.
So for the military service, it might be the best to subscribe to the military mailing list; maybe anybody from the mailing list can provide information about the military unit where your father served.
The "Kreis Kowel" is now located in the Ukraine. Please check the Wikipedia article for more information:
So it is very likely that an archive in the Ukraine has any documents as long as documents still exist. I do not know which one is responsible for the Kowel area. Maybe a good starting point is the main website of the states archives in Ukraine:
http://www.archives.gov.ua/Eng/
You may also find microfilmed churchbooks in the genealogical research centers of the LDS church ("Mormons").
Concerning civil registration documents there are only the certificates for 1942-1944 available in Berlin at
Good luck!
Regards,
Jan