Overview
- Berlin’s administrative court, ruling Thursday, dismissed a nonfiction author’s suit against the Federal Archives for all Stasi records on former chancellor Angela Merkel.
- The judges said the Stasi Records Law does not grant an open-ended right to access and requires a balance between research aims and the privacy of living people.
- The court found Merkel was neither a public figure nor an officeholder during the Stasi’s operative period, noting she only took public roles in February and April 1990 as the security service was being wound down.
- Judges saw no evidence the Stasi gave Merkel special favors, adding that travel to Poland in the late DDR was commonly approved and did not show preferential treatment.
- The Federal Archives said it holds no releasable Merkel files, and the plaintiff—identified by WAZ as former Berlin FDP lawmaker Marcel Luthe—can now seek leave to appeal at the Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg.