Documents about spies, espionage etc...

[Christoph Awender]

Hello,

Not my field of research so my question is if files about spies (personalities, missions etc..) exist? Anyone aver came across such documents?

regards,
Christoph

[Tamari]

Hello Christoph,

unfortunately I'm still no expert on working with the national archives like the German Bundesarchiv or the US NARA but I really like the British National Archive in Kew with their online presence.

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.u ... s/r/C14997

Under the term KV-2 you can find the intelligence documents.
It is great, that you can download these files and pay them per PayPal. Costs per document are ~ 3,50 £.

Here is on example which you can directly add to your buy- basket:

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.u ... /C11016528


Another source for you can possibly be this homepage:

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/home

Type in the specific name or topic and maybe you will have a hit.


Best regards

Robert

[Christoph Awender]

Great thank you!

[steve248]

UK is under almost national lockdown and at the UK National Archives website, if you register (nothing special) you can down load any files they have digitized for free.
The best page to start is
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
This is the front page of UK NA website where you see what they doing at any given time. Click on "Search the Catalogue". At the top of the next page ("Explore the Catalogue") you can click on "Register" - the details wanted are simple. You only need to register if you are going to download material. Otherwise you can search for anything you want.
Back at "Explore the Catalague" if you simply type in "Abwehr" and nothing else, click on "Search" and another page comes up with the files available. In the case of "Abwehr" it comes up with 1,113 files. On the left hand side under "Held by" there is a button to click saying 586 files available for download, click on that and hey presto up come details of each file (10, 30 or 60 listings per page - see bottom of the page on how to do this). Click on each file for slightly more details and on the right it says download for free.
Obviously you tend to be a bit slow over some files and it signs you out after a time; just click on the Sign In at the top of the page you are using and away you go again. Its confusing when you have files in your basket and it now asks for money.

Remember: this a free service as long as we are in lockdown. So you probably have 2-3 weeks before the archive re-considers. The opening front page will tell you whether the archive is still in lockdown.

Remember: not all files, and that means a huge number, have been digitized.

Remember: the search engine only searches for words that are in the file title - not the text of any document within. So sometimes you have to be inventive in the search terms and you can refine by date.

[mil-archive]

UK is under almost national lockdown and at the UK National Archives website, if you register (nothing special) you can down load any files they have digitized for free.
The best page to start is
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
This is the front page of UK NA website where you see what they doing at any given time. Click on "Search the Catalogue". At the top of the next page ("Explore the Catalogue") you can click on "Register" - the details wanted are simple. You only need to register if you are going to download material. Otherwise you can search for anything you want.
Back at "Explore the Catalague" if you simply type in "Abwehr" and nothing else, click on "Search" and another page comes up with the files available. In the case of "Abwehr" it comes up with 1,113 files. On the left hand side under "Held by" there is a button to click saying 586 files available for download, click on that and hey presto up come details of each file (10, 30 or 60 listings per page - see bottom of the page on how to do this). Click on each file for slightly more details and on the right it says download for free.
Obviously you tend to be a bit slow over some files and it signs you out after a time; just click on the Sign In at the top of the page you are using and away you go again. Its confusing when you have files in your basket and it now asks for money.

Remember: this a free service as long as we are in lockdown. So you probably have 2-3 weeks before the archive re-considers. The opening front page will tell you whether the archive is still in lockdown.

Remember: not all files, and that means a huge number, have been digitized.

Remember: the search engine only searches for words that are in the file title - not the text of any document within. So sometimes you have to be inventive in the search terms and you can refine by date.

Thanks that is a huge help !