Kennkarte was the basic identity document in use during the Third Reich era, first introduced in July 1938. They were normally obtained through a police precinct and had the corresponding issuing office and official’s stamps on them. Every German citizen was issued one and was expected to produce it when confronted by officials. After World War II began, Germany began issuing Kennkarten to citizens of conquered countries.

An extremely high percentage of the Kennkarte or Civilian Identity Document issued by the police in Nazi Germany were of the tear-resistant, once folded, gray "leinen" (oilcloth) type containing a front and back cover and two inside pages. That type of Kennkarte was replaced with a new 8-page version when supplies of it ran out in some police offices late in the war. Most police offices never exhausted their supply of the old style document before the end of the war, so they never issued even a single example of the 8-page Kennkarte.