Exhibit 1238 ยท Statute (English translation)
Act regarding the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic (Stasi Records Act, StUG), Federal Law Gazette I 1991 p. 2272; English translation issued by the Federal Commissioner, 2017 version
Each individual shall have the right to enquire of the Federal Commissioner whether records exist which contain personal data about him.
Article 1 states the Act's purposes: individual access to one's own file, protection of privacy, historical, political and juridical reappraisal, and access for public and private bodies. Article 3 gives each individual the right to ask whether records exist about him and to obtain information, inspect and receive the records.
- Source
- German Bundestag (act); Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service (translation)
- Date
- 20 December 1991 (act); 2017 (amended translation read)
- Quoted from
- Article 3(1) (BStU English translation, 2017 amended text, p. 8 of the PDF)
- Grade
- Primary record
- Document
- https://www.uni-rostock.de/storages/uni-rostock/UniHome/RIH/Sommerschulen/SARU/2019/StUG_englisch_pdf.pdf
- Accessed
- 2026-11-10
- Cited by
- Findings citing this exhibit
- Note
- The translation read incorporates amendments through 2017, not the 1991 enacted text; only the German text is legally binding. The 1991 enacted wording of Articles 1 and 3 should be confirmed against BGBl. I 1991 p. 2272. The Bundestag passage date is reported as 14 November 1991 in one source not read here. Later replacement of the Act (2021 transfer of the archive to the Federal Archives) is from memory and unverified. The copy is hosted by the University of Rostock; the original is on the BStU site (www.bstu.bund.de).