CIA to Release Nazi Files

Pressured by the US Senate, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agreed to disclose more archived documents that are supposed to reveal insights into the cooperation between US and Nazi spies during the Cold War, the newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported. The CIA now conceded that documents concerning former Nazis, who have not been charged with a war crime, also fall under a 1998 law that requires full disclosure of classified records related to Nazi war criminals. Up to now the CIA had refused to release these records. In CIA circles the files are said to contain hundreds of thousands of pages, including material about agreements between the US intelligence agency and former members of the SS or the NSDAP concerning a spying activity in the former Soviet Union. The CIA had already declassified about 1.25 million pages in records about Nazi war criminals, but Congress officials demanded that more information about the extent of the agency's dealings with former Nazis has to be released.