Collection and Preservation
These documents were created by central authorities of the Holy Roman Empire (1495-1806), the German Confederation (1815-1866), the German Reich (1867/71-1945), the occupation zones (1945-1949), the German Democratic Republic (1949-1990) and the Federal Republic of Germany (since 1949).
The Federal Archives determines whether the documents are “worthy of archiving”, i.e. whether they are of lasting value for researching and understanding the past and present, for safeguarding the legitimate interests of citizens or for legislation, administration and jurisdiction.
The Federal Archives also collects written records from the estates of important persons, documents of political parties, associations and organisations of national importance as well as journalistic sources.
The Federal Archives guarantees access to the archival materials of the federal government while protecting private or public interests. In principle, every person has the right to request the use of federal archival records. The Federal Archives provides information about the archival records on several research platforms. A small but steadily growing part of the holdings is also available for online use in digital form on these research platforms.
