The archive, known formally as the International Tracing Service (ITS), comprises meticulous Nazi documentation of death camp inmates, conscription workers and others. The records were seized by the Allied forces after the German regime fell in 1945; they also include postwar records the Allies kept on resettling refugees.
They have been central to people searching for loved ones after World War II, especially for Jews whose relatives were sent to Nazi concentration camps, where many millions died.
They have also been used to help people who were victims of Nazi forced labor programs seek indemnification under international agreements made after the war.
The ITS still receives hundreds of thousands of inquiries each year about people possibly mentioned in the records.
Researchers and historians of the Holocaust have been especially critical of the policy to restrict access to the ITS, arguing the documents would help complete a picture of the Nazi slaughter of millions of Jews.
Germany to Allow Opening of Huge Holocaust Archive | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 19.04.2006