How to determine Start and End Offsets of a Kafka Topic properly

[Sven Ludwig <s_...@gmx.de>]

Hi,
 
I have the case very often that I need to find out the Start and End Offset of a Kafka Topic.
 
Usually I go to the server to the place where the Topic contents (segments) are stored and look at the file names. This I do this way to avoid using Console Consumers since they make use of Offset Topics I believe, adding unnecessary management overhead to the cluster. However, our operations team has now blocked developer-access to the directories that contain the files.
 
What are good alternative ways to obtain the information (Start and End Offset of a Kafka Topic), ideally without using Console Consumers?
 
Kind Regards
Sven