German Archive Struggle: Post Potsdam
Insider knowledge of historians and archivists.
The study opens with a look at Anglo-American plans for confiscating German records. This planning was accompanied – one could even say initiated – by the activities of British and American archivists who worked to raise awareness among the military of the value of archives and to secure the protection of such collections in war-torn areas.
The Potsdam Conference (17 July–2 August 1945) was held to establish the post World War II order, solve issues on the peace treaty, counter the effects of the war and remove all Nazi influence from German society.1
The Allied Forces captured documents and archives. Not just files from the Nazi period. 2
The study, The Struggle for the Files: The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives After the Second World War,3 is about the history of the German records and archives confiscated in the wake of World War II and the long negotiations concerning the documents’ return to (West) German custody.4
Hundreds of tons of files and documents from the registries and archives of Reich ministries, military offices, Nazi party organizations, and research institutes fell into Allied hands.
Records were used for intelligence purposes, war crimes trials, and denazification.
Once the two German states came into being, West Germans wanted to know about “their” archives. These records constituted the historical source material necessary to (re)write recent German history.
The Allies knew new assessments of German history, including the origins of National Socialism, could be decisively influenced by possession of the relevant source material. British and American historians showed this awareness just as much as the political authorities. Clearly, historical interpretation was as central to the negotiations as the materiality of the files themselves.
The transfer of significant amounts of records only began eleven years after the end of the war. The delay in returning the records indicates just how strong the interests of all parties in these documents actually were.
The work of the American Historical Association / Committee for the Study of War Documents can be seen in their publications. 5
The study, The Struggle for the Files, examines how the British Foreign Office and the American State Department made sure to secure this collection for themselves, soon turning it into a political weapon in the early Cold War blame-game.
Before any records in American custody were returned, a group of American historians secured the funds to film them in order to ensure their continued availability for research. These efforts were fueled not only by the prospects of research convenience but also by a more or less latent mistrust toward German assurances that the records, once returned, would be made accessible for scholars from Germany and abroad.6
The history of the captured German records and their eventual return has for a long time been the insider knowledge of historians and archivists who had worked directly with those documents over the years.
The American perspective was presented for the first time at a conference hosted by the National Archives in 1968 under the direction of Robert Wolfe.7 The participants included archivists and scholars who had been involved with the administration and use of the German records in some capacity.8
It is important to know that these files also have a postwar history, a “biography,” in their own right. They stand for an unprecedented situation in which the “documentary materials covering all aspects of a nation's life during a whole era” had fallen into the hands of its wartime enemies. They remind us of the fact that it is not always the archive that shapes history but that history can come over the archive. 9
In examining the history of the documents and archives, once collectively known as the captured German records, Eckert reminds us that this collection has its own ‘biography’. As she puts it, ‘they stand for an unprecedented situation in which the “documentary material covering all aspects of a nation’s life during a whole era” had fallen into the hands of its wartime enemies’ (p. 12).10
Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), 1945, Volume II.
The U.S. National Archives holds over 70,000 rolls of microfilm reproducing captured German and related records. Captured German and Related Records on Microfilm. The Center for Research Libraries also holds German records seized during World War II.
Eckert, Astrid M.. The Struggle for the Files The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
The English translation of Astrid M Eckert’s meticulously researched and eminently readable book The Struggle for the Files: The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives After the Second World War was awarded the 2013 Waldo Gifford Leland Award of the Society of American Archivists. The award committee commended Eckert for her ‘fascinating detective work’ and noted that ‘The Struggle for the Files contains lessons and scenarios that archivists, historians, politicians, and others can utilize in their work.’The book is based on Eckert’s dissertation on the history of the records captured from Germany by the Allies in 1945. That work received the 2004 Friedrich Meinecke Dissertation Prize of the Free University’s history department, and the biennial Hedwig Hintze Dissertation Award of the German Historical Association in 2004. Review by Yeats, Christine. “The Struggle for the Files: The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives After the Second World War.” Archives and Manuscripts 42, no. 1 (2014): 100–102.
The American Historical Association/ Committee for the Study of War Documents issued many publications. Bibliographic information is available at WorldCat.
Ibid. Eckert, “Introduction.”
Robert Wolfe joined the National Archives in 1961, upon concluding service as a member of the American Historical Association team microfilming captured German records at the World War II Records Center. Langer, Emily (Jan.5, 2015)“Robert Wolfe, keeper of German war records at the National Archives, dies at 93,” Washington Post wrote in his obituary:
“Robert Wolfe, who for more than three decades was a chief custodian and scholar of the millions of German documents seized during World War II and stored at the National Archives, a collection that he helped index and preserve for generations of researchers, died Dec. 9
“In Memoriam: Robert Wolfe,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 29, Issue 1, Spring 2015, Pages 185–186.
Conference on Captured German and Related Records, and Robert Wolfe. 1975. Captured German and related records: a National Archives conference : papers and proceedings of the Conference on Captured German and Related Records, November 12-13, 1968, the National Archives building, Washington, D.C. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Ibid. Eckert, “Introduction.”
Yeats, Christine. “The Struggle for the Files: The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives After the Second World War.” Archives and Manuscripts 42, no. 1 (2014): 100–102.
This is why records matter, and why opposition to authoritarian censorship matters. Historians looking at contemporaneous accounts of 2020 will be hard-pressed not to come to the conclusions the favored narrative, shamefully supported by Legacy Media and Big Tech, wishes.
This brought a smile to my face, remembering the most astounding conversation in my life. It was 1991, I was on contract to the US military to write the Area Handbook on the newly-independent Republic of the Marshall Islands, whose 20th Century history was a real-world game of hide-the-clue. It had been part of the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific, along with most of the rest of the islands and now-independent countries in the area. Previous ruler was Japan; before Japan, Germany. I needed access to the German colonial records, which were housed at the Library of the Community College of Micronesia, on Pohnpei, part of the Federated States of Micronesia.
On arrival I sought out the Librarian, Iris Falcum. She denied me access to the records because they had never been indexed. I asked her to teach me how to index them, and promised to do so for every record I touched. I apparently was the only German speaker within a thousand miles. I spent a week in the library, at the end of which I asked Iris if she would allow me to take her to lunch at the best restaurant open during the day. She asked if her husband could join us; I said yes. Courtesy demanded I engage with him.
His name was Leo Falcum. He knew everything about Pohnpei. I don't mean sound bites or superficial knowledge, he knew more about his homeland than anyone I had ever met knew about hers or his. Details of history, mythology, government, medicine, magic, religion, Nan Madol (a largely-unexplored inexplicable ancient city), and everything else. Two hours after we sat Iris left to return to work. Leo and I talked on, I asked about rule and law pre-Colonial period. There were twelve clans, each with a Chief. The twelve Chiefs elected an Emperor for life, called the Luc Pohnpei. No honors attach to the Luc's relatives.
Finally, I asked. "What do you do?"
He replied, "I'm the Emperor."