Dataharvest 2025 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

It started with a list. Rumour has it the German embassy in Brussels holds the names of Nazi-perpetrators who still receive pensions from the Federal Republic.

Short answer: There is no list. Long answer: Over decades, Germany paid compensations to former SS volunteers across Europe for having fought in the Waffen SS. In some cases, the (admittedly very old) perpetrators, or their families, still receive money to this day. This still costs the State around five million euros a year.

But: This is nothing Germany wants to publicise or talk about. There are no statistics. Little to no money is directed towards resolving the injustice. And when neighbouring countries ask for information, Germany refuses.

Together with FragdenStaat, we spent months investigating how many pensions Germany paid and still pays to SS-volunteers. We sent numerous FOI requests across Bundesländer and countries, navigated a maze of German public bodies, carried out research in Germany, Sweden and Belgium, dived into old archives and searched for war volunteer associations.

This session will explain how we proceeded in this investigation and how we managed to find the last living SS-volunteer in Sweden. You will learn about the joy and pain of FOI requests, the challenges of working across borders and media, why local historians can be a brilliant source and how Translation tools can save your back. You will also learn how to build a story from FOI requests and manage to come from a: “I have lots of data and info” to to b: “I need to tell an engaging story that people actually want to read.”