Tasks and legal basis
The GRC Tracing Service supports family members who have been separated involuntarily and are in different countries in their wish to live together again in one country.
Tasks in detail
- Search for missing persons from the Second World War and fate clarification
- Search for persons separated by resettlement to Germany
- Search for relatives separated by armed conflict, disaster, flight, displacement and migration
- Exchange of Red Cross Messages with relatives in conflict and disaster regions and imprisoned family members worldwide
- Family reunification of Germans and their relatives from the resettlement areas
- Family reunification of/to refugees living in Germany and their relatives
- National Information Bureau under the Geneva Conventions (information on prisoners of war and civilian internees)
- Person information centres in accordance with the national regulations on disaster control
- Archive and documentation centre (holdings at the GRC Tracing Service Hamburg and Munich Offices)
Legal basis
The humanitarian tasks of the GRC Tracing Service are based on the Geneva Conventions, the resolutions of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the GRC Law, the Federal Statutes of the German Red Cross and a Tracing Service Agreement between the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community (BMI) and the GRC. The work of the GRC Tracing Service is 100% institutionally funded by the Federal Government.