Bad News from WASt

[Rune Rautio]

This is dramatic but not unexpected. Since mid 1980 the German laws to protect individuals have been gradually made more and more restricted. This goes for all archives storing information related to WW2. With WASt there has been at least 2-3 changes in that direction during those years, from easy avialable records in mid 1980 to the nearly total closure now. It is in some way a little odd, as normal archive procedures are often the oposite as time goes by, but here we obviously have an effect of the sharply increased focus on German military archives and German veterans among researchers, historians and others all over the World during the last 10-15 years. I remember a time when I could sit more or less alone in the reading room of BAMA through an entire week, or walk directly in the holdings of WASt and look for records. That is now history and just a memory of an easier past :-)

Rune