Taking your own photographs

You may use your own digital camera to photograph the archival material in the reading room, provided that you do so without using a flash and without making any noise likely to disturb others (e.g. by using a reflex camera). The use of hand-held scanners is not permitted.
Items such as padded strip weights and foam wedges are available from the reading room staff. These aids will help you to deal correctly with the archival material when taking pictures.
The following items must not be photographed:

1. documents containing personal data
2. documents for which the period of closure fixed under archival law was reduced.

All photographs are for your personal use as working copies and must not be passed to third parties or published.

Ordering professional reproductions

In the reading room you can order professional reproductions of archival material from the Political Archive. These reproductions are made by an external company and take around four weeks to process. The Federal Foreign Office does not assume liability.
You can order paper copies, digital copies, microfilms and re-enlargements of microfilms. You will be charged €0.50 per paper page, €0.30 per microfilm page and €0.45 per digital copy. Microfiche copies cost €0.33 per paper page and €1.59 for a complete duplicate. Please note that postage and possible bank charges are not included in these prices.