If you have an ancestor born in an area controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the First World War there is a good chance that someone in the family served in the Austro-Hungarian Military and took part in the war in some capacity.
Locating military records for people who served in the Austro-Hungarian Military is not an easy task and greatly depends on where the individual was born. I will try and write more about this topic in the future.
Looking at the current war going on in Israel one thing is noticeable, casualties are announced!
The same was true during previous wars as well as during the First World War.
During the time of the First World War, these announcements were published by the Ministry of War (Kriegsministerium) in the form of a “List of Losses” (Verlustliste).
Verlustliste
The Verlustliste contains basic information on individuals removed from the active combatants due to various reasons:
- Captured – marked on the list as “Gefallen”
- Injured – marked on the list as “Verw.”
- Killed – marked on the list as “Gestorben”
For each person the following information is given:
- Surname, Name
- Rank
- Army unit
- Place and year of birth
- captured/injured/killed (at times including date)
It should be noted that a person might appear on several lists.
You might also encounter cases where a person would be listed simultaneously as injured and captured or injured and reported dead.
How do I use this resource in my research?
These list have been and are still being indexed. The index can be found on GenTeam (using this site is free of charge but requires registration).
Once the search has been performed you will receive your results in this fashion:
By clicking on the black square that appears before the name you will receive the full information for this entry as seen in the example below:
Note the link at the bottom! This will lead you to a scanned copy of the list.
As mentioned, the index is a work in progress and is updated regularly. You may use the search option in various libraries that have uploaded the lists to their websites, for example:
- The digital State Library of Upper Austria
- ANNO (Austrian National Library – newspapers)
