The political archives of the German Foreign Office. Negotiations for the return and publication of documents 1945-1995

In 1945, classified historical documents from the German Foreign Office's p olitical archives were confiscated by the three victorious western powers. The return of these documents to the Federal Republic of Germany was hinder ed in 1958 by the resistance of allied historians at Whaddon Hall who were working on the edition 'Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945'. Not until 1960 were the United States, France and England able to come to terms with the Federal Republic of Germany on how to continue with the publicati on of the selected and annotated documents. There came about a new form of scholarly reciprocity from which all those involved benefited. Nevertheless , there were instance in which one or the other governments tried to furthe r their own national interests. The regulatory function of an international committee, however, prevented such singular actions. Distinguished for its neutrality and objectivity, the edition of the 'Documents on German Foreig n Policy 1918-1945' finally came to a close in 1995 with the publication of its 58th volume. The German Foreign Office did not at any time interfere w ith the work of historians and gave them free access to documents at all ti mes.