GERMANY: Nations agree to open up German Nazi archive

A German archive containing millions of documents detailing Nazi crimes during World War Two will be opened to historians and Holocaust scholars for the first time, officials said on Wednesday (July 26). In a ceremony to mark the decision, Germany's junior minister for foreign affairs, Guenter Gloser welcomed the decision by his own country and the 10 other nations who oversee the archive's administration to open up the files for research. "The opening of the archives is a great success for researchers," Gloser said. "Let me stress that the German government will continue to support the International Tracing Service (ITS) (the archive's official name) as much as possible." The archive, housed in the west German town of Bad Arolsen, is the world's biggest collection of documents relating to the Second World War and Hitler's National Socialist party. It contains up to 50 million documents on some 17 million individuals and is expected to shed new light on the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews across Europe were murdered. The International Tracing Service (ITS), the archive's official name, is part of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Agreement was needed from all 11 countries to change the ITS's mandate to allow it to open up the files to researchers and historians. Copies of the archive's contents will be given to the 11 nations who in turn may grant access to them to scholars. Germany's concerns over data protection were allayed by guarantees that information on those still living would remain restricted. Israel, Britain, France, Greece, the United States, Germany, Luxembourg and Italy all signed the amended protocol on Wednesday. Poland, Belgium and the Netherlands require further parliamentary approval and have until Nov. 1 to sign.

ITN Source | July 27, 2006

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