22 - Sources in German Archives on the History of American Policy toward Germany, 1945-1955

Summary

Among the German archives that hold documents pertaining to postwar U.S. policy toward Germany for the years 1945 to 1949 are the Bundesarchiv, the Archiv des Deutschen Bundestages, the archives of the primary political parties, state and local government archives, as well as corporate and personal archives from the American Zone of Occupation and the American Sector of Berlin. In addition, for the period 1949 to 1955, the Archiv des Auswartigen Amts is of special importance. The holdings of these archives can be supplemented by materials of economic, press, and radio archives. This overview will not include the records of the U.S. Office of Military Government for Germany (OMGUS). Although most of these records were microfilmed in a joint U.S.-German venture and are available at the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte in Munich and the Bundesarchiv (only the OMGUS Headquarters entities), the original records are under the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration in the United States. OMGUS records generated at the state level can be found in the Staatsarchive of Baden-Wiirttemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Bremen, and Hesse.

The records of the legal proceedings of the war-crimes trials (the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and the twelve U.S. supplementary cases heard primarily at Dachau) should also be mentioned here. Reproductions of these records are available in various German archival collections. The originals are kept by U.S. archives, however, and, therefore will not be described in this essay in any detail.