Dear user of the Political Archive,
from Tuesday, 6 April 2021, the Reading Room of the Political Archive at the Federal Foreign Office will once again be open to members of the public. In order to use the Reading Room facilities, you must book in advance and, in line with the regulations issued by the Berlin Senate, each day you must present a current point-of-care (PoC) antigen test which is not older than 24 hours. If you would like more information on the testing options in Berlin, we recommend that you consult the dedicated website of the Berlin Senate Department for Health (https://test-to-go.berlin).
Exempt from submission of a point-of-care (PoC) antigen test are, on the one hand, fully vaccinated individuals whose last required single vaccination was at least 15 days ago (proof usually by vaccination certificate) and, on the other hand, convalescents who can demonstrate prior infection by a PCR test that dates back at least 28 days and no more than 6 months.
The social distancing and hygiene rules imposed due to the pandemic remain in force. And it is still necessary to limit the number of workstations available in the Reading Room. The wearing of a FFP2 mask, which you must bring with you, remains obligatory, even if you present a medical certificate.
Please note that if the 7-day incidence rises significantly, we may be forced to close the Reading Room again. It may then be necessary to cancel the booked appointments without offering alternative dates.
You may continue to search our finding aids online as before. When working from home or when out and about, you have the option of searching electronically in our finding aids and accessing scanned files (where available) using invenio, a Federal Archives application.
We thank the Federal Archives for allowing us to use the invenio search engine. Please note that it is not possible to search in the holdings of more than one archive at a time; if you wish to search in various archives, you will have to register more than once. In some cases it was necessary, for technical or organisational reasons, to allocate new record group designations.
We will publicise any changes as a result of the current COVID‑19 situation on our website. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
