111.762/6–1845

The Leader of Department of State CIOS Team ( Perkins ) to the Chief of the Division of Foreign Activities Correlation ( Lyon )

[Extract]

Dear Mr. Lyon: We are in a stage of transition between scouting for archives and the exploitation of records already found. From now on the work will be chiefly a research and microfilming job. That should be kept in mind in selecting any possible reinforcements for our team.…

The amount of German records relating to governmental and Nazi party activities abroad is, I believe, much more than it was generally expected would be preserved. At Marburg we have some 425 tons of German Foreign Office records which we have only begun to exploit. The documents are in huge piles badly mixed, so the work of merely sorting is immense. At the SHAEF Documents Center at Fechenheim near Frankfort are documents of the Legal Division of the foreign Office which were seized at Ravensburg, contained in 91 bags, 41 boxes and two drawers of file cards. Also at Fechenheim are ten boxes, some of large size, containing records of the German commission for the French armistice, and other documents. At the Heidelberg Documents Center are the extensive records of the Auslands Institut and also a collection of Aussenhandelsstelle records. A pile of Reichskanzlei documents of some 1000 cubic feet was placed in a basement room in the Seventh Army Documents Center at Munich when I was there recently. I understand these are being moved to Heidelberg. Doubtless other collections which the Department will wish us to examine will be reported from other documents centers.

. . . . . . .

Sincerely yours,

E. R. Perkins