The ambition of the archives of the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) is the collection and research-oriented management of non-governmental records. Its focus lies on personal papers and eyewitness reports, as well as documents and leaflets from parties, political movements, associations under private law, and institutions from the end of the First World War through the present day. The archives’ documents thus complement administrative holdings at the state archives with, for example, valuable material from more recent periods, for which official documents are not yet generally accessible. The archives, moreover, collects and presents newspapers and periodicals of this period.

The archives of the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History are also working toward a national concept on the cooperative collecting of all archives. To achieve this goal, the archives collaborate with state and public archives and with the archives of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Association.

Sammlungsprofil des Archivs (German)