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Washington (dpa) - Under US pressure, Germany said Tuesday it will open a vast archive on more than 17.5 million victims of the Nazis to historical research.
Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries, on a visit to Washington, said Germany would drop its objections to opening the International Tracing Service when 11 governments overseeing the archive meet next month.
The US government and Jewish groups have been pressing Germany, where the archive is based, to open the roughly 50 million documents to research.
Currently, only victims of Nazi persecution and their relatives can view personal files at the archive, based in the western town of Bad Arolsen.
Germany and the Swiss-based International Committee of the Red Cross, which manages the archive, have resisted the opening, in part out of concern for the privacy of Nazi victims.
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
