Microfilm copies of 'Special' (i.e. selective) Films of captured German Foreign Ministry documents, used primarily to compile Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945.
This series also contains microfilms of index cards made during the filming of the captured documents at Whaddon Hall; microfilms of records of former German and Japanese embassies and consulates at Tsingtao, Chefoo, Hankow, Yokohama, Vienna, Berlin and Hamburg, and the Manchurian legation to Rome, etc, and microfilm copies of secretariat papers of the German Foreign Minister, 1938-1943 (the 'von Loesch' documents).
Von Loesch Documents (GFM 35/318-358)
The von Loesch documents are copies of top secret papers from the Secretariat of Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's Foreign Minister from February 1938. They include correspondence and records of conversations between Hitler or Ribbentrop and leading foreign statesmen, and are therefore amongst the most important sources for German foreign policy. They cover the period from March 1938 to June 1943, but also include a few much older documents.
As the name of von Loesch was not publicly disclosed in connection with these documents until the 1960's, the collection is also referred to as the Film Find, the BUro RAM Files, and in DGFP as GFM film, Files of the Reich Foreign Minister's Secretariat.
There is some overlap with other German Foreign Ministry papers, particularly the personal papers and memoranda of Dr Paul Otto Schmidt, Hitler's senior interpreter, but the von Loesch papers are the only source for certain significant documents such as the secret supplementary protocol to the Nazi-Soviet Pact. While the Schmidt papers contain Schmidt's original draft notes or memoranda on discussions with foreign statesmen, the documents in the von Loesch collection are generally the final (retyped) versions seen by Hitler.
Original films of the von Loesch documents were returned to Germany in 1958.
The National Archives
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