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Originally Posted by Steve Coates
The NVMs represent a partial solution, albeit a decent percentage of the missing losses. The good news is that since responsibility for WASt was passed from the Berlin authorities to the BA in January 2019, there has been a relaxation in the interpretation of Datenschutz. Access is slowly opening up but it does seem to occur in increments. I have also heard from a contact that WAST (now known as the BA-PA - Abteilung Personenbezogene Auskünfte) will start a process of scanning the NVMs but accessibility is at the moment unclear. Ideally, within the next few years it will be possible to see genuine progress.
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I was lucky to be able to visit the WASt reading room early this year, bringing a WWII veteran to view his files, but also files necessary to my research on topics other than his. It took about six months to be able to set up the visit, the process was slow and took much polite persistence. The archivists were kind and attentive while we were there. However, not all files were brought for viewing, even though they fell well outside of Datenschutz timeframes and/or involved the veteran himself, and getting copies of the files we viewed became tangled quickly along not having a system in place to accept payment yet. Some progress, but this is definitely a resource that clearly would have much to offer if access were granted in a manner similar to Freiburg or other Bundesarchive.