M.29: Documentation from the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archives) regarding the Holocaust History of the Archives Known as the Reichsarchive, the Central State Archive was first established in Potsdam, Germany in 1919. Documentation of the German state institutions beginning with the establishment of the Norddeutscher Bund (The North German Confederation) in 1867, were gathered in the archive, as well as historical documentation from the German Empire and Prussia dating back to the Middle Ages. After World War II, the archive in Potsdam, which was located in the Soviet Occupation Zone, was known as the Deutsche Zentralarchiv (DZA - Central German Archive), and East German documentation was also concentrated there. A branch of the archive was set up in Merseburg and mainly documentation related to German left-wing movements (Abteilung Sozialismus - Socialism Section) was concentrated there. A secondary branch (Dépendance) was established in Coswig an der Elbe to which the Soviet Union transferred some of the German documentation which the Red Army had confiscated during the occupation of Germany. In 1950 West Germany decided to set up its own state archive, the Bundesarchiv, which was inaugurated in Koblenz in 1952. The United States and Britain submitted a portion of the German documentation that their armies had confiscated during the occupation of Germany to this archive. In 1955 it was decided to establish the Militärarchiv, a special archive of the German Army within the framework of the Bundesarchiv, in Freiburg im Breisgau in the state of Baden. With the unification of Germany in 1990, the various archives were joined into one central archive. The main building is located in Berlin (in the Lichterfelde Quarter). The central archive houses several units, among them the Militärarchiv and the Reich Filmarchiv in the Berlin-Wilmersdorf Quarter. After the unification, relevant documentation was also transferred from the East German State Archive to the Central Archive. In Koblenz there is a section that concentrates mainly on documentation from West Germany. The Zentral Stelle des Landesjustizverwaltungen (Central Office of the State Judicial Administration), the body in which the documentation from trials of war criminals held in West Germany is gathered is located in Ludwigsburg, as well as a special section for preserving the legal files gathered by this body. The Yad Vashem Archives has systematically gathered documentation from the Bundesarchiv, as well as documentation from the Militärarchiv in subsection M.29.Fr. The Records Groups in the Central Archive from which Yad Vashem gathers this documentation belongs to two Abteilungen (sections) of the Archives: - The R -Deutsches Reich Section which houses documentation from state institutions. In this section, only files from the 1920s until the end of World War II regarding Jews and the persecution of Jews are checked; - The NS Section is which the documentation regarding the Nazi party institutions and organizations and the State Institutions that were unique to the Third Reich (such as the RSHA) is concentrated. All the files related to Jews and their persecution are examined here.