Archival material is open to the public

Upon application anyone can study the records of the Federal Foreign Office. To apply please use the contact form and complete all fields. Please state the subject, purpose, date and probable duration of your research in the Political Archive. There is no need to send exposés, supporting documentation or similar documents in the first instance. If we require any documents, we will let you know.

Which limitations do you have to bear in mind when consulting archival material?

Use of Federal Foreign Office´s records is regulated by the Federal Archives Act. This means:

1. in principle, all records that are older than 30 years are accessible. Exceptions:
2. records relating to a natural person normally cannot be consulted until ten years after the individual’s death;
3. classified material cannot be consulted.

In cases 1 and 2 it may be possible under certain circumstances to shorten the retention period. We will explain the possibilities to you here.
In exceptional cases there may be other reasons why it is not possible to consult specific records. For instance, the material may be in such a state that it needs to be preserved. In such cases, we will let you know. For that reason you will sometimes be presented with copies (generally microfiches) in the reading room.
Whatever archival material you are using, you are required to handle any record with utmost care. You can order up to 10 files and 10 microfiches per day. You may photograph files with your own camera, subject to the approval of the reading room´s staff.

Are there any restrictions on how you can use your gathered information?

Upon arriving in the reading room for the first time you will be given an application form including a declaration which you are required to sign before Consulting any records. With this declaration, you undertake to respect the rights of third parties that may arise from the content of the material:

1. personality rights
2. copyright and related rights.

It is your own responsibility to ensure that you respect these rights. In particular, the Federal Foreign Office is generally unable either to grant you rights of use for material of third parties or to confirm whether material is in the public domain.
If you have been granted a reduction in the period of closure for records relating to a natural person, you will as a rule have to give a written undertaking that you will fully anonymise all personal information.
We ask that you take this obligation very seriously: we are aware of legal conflicts between individuals and careless archive users!
You will only need a special publication licence from us if you intend to publish the complete text of a document verbatim (transcription, edition or facsimile).