5 April 2000. Thanks to TD.
Source:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,71917,00.html
Spiegel Online, 5 April 2000
It took years but now the US intelligence service CIA has transferred on a CD the first part of the Stasi Agent Card File to the Office of the Federal Chancellor. It is a card index which had been smuggled out of East Germany after the fall of the Wall by the CIA under the codename "Rosewood."
Berlin -- It is the first transfer of 2000 data records, which was reported in the Tuesday ADR "Tagesschau." The American government has meanwhile confirmed the transfer.
Further, approximately 1000 CDs should follow in the next two years, according to the report. On these disks are stored approximately a half-million procedures of the Stasi main department of surveillance (HVA), among them 320,000 names. Beside espionage operations of the HVA, listed under it are also numerous names of West Germans who supported the Stasi with their work in the old Federal Republic.
The intelligence co-ordinator in the Office of the Federal Chancellor, Ernst Uhrlau, had explained at the end of December that he expected a better evaluation of already well-known cases with the help of the returned documents. In addition, other new cases will come from the archived information.
The CIA did not supply the full data record but only an edited version, reported the ARD on Tuesday. In opinion of security experts these Stasi documents did not contain dramatic new information. However they would round out the picture of the Stasi agent nets in the old Federal Republic.
The Federal Commissioners for the Stasi documents, Joachim Gauck, affirmed to the ARD his requirement on possession of the documents: "We hold the opinion that these documents belong to the description and background of the Stasi. If this is our opinion, we can demand nothing less than that these documents come back to us."
The Office of the Federal Chancellor has decided that a requirement is to be allowed in addition, according to the ARD, that simultaneously the Federal Office for protection of the constitution is to receive the Stasi Agent Card File.
The material had been obtained by the CIA briefly during turmoil in East Germany or thereafter in a dubious way. The data collection has the greatest value for scientific research according to earlier assessments by Gauck.
(C) SPIEGEL ON-LINE 05 April 2000, 12:20
Also on the topic:
Context: - SPD: Noise around publication of the Stasi Abhoerprotokolle
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,71747,00.html
Translation by Cyptome.