Files On-line

Military Planning for Berlin Emergency (1961-1968)

Note from the NATO Archivist

The disclosure of the Live Oak files at the German Military Archive Department in Freiburg and the preparations for NATO’s 60th anniversary prompted the NATO Archives to assess its holdings on the Berlin crisis with the intent of processing similar NATO files for public disclosure. A study of the International Staff files on the Military Planning for Berlin Emergency clearly revealed the close link between Live Oak and the measures developed by NATO to complement the Tripartite Berlin Contingency Plans. Following review by the originators and the nations having an equity in the information, these archival documents were approved for public disclosure on October 2009.

Each document was described at the item level according to the General International Standard Archival Description ISAD(G). Reference Code, originator and date, and complementary data such as subject, author, addressee and language were taken into account. A list of acronyms and the key historical figures was also created to further facilitate an understanding of the collection.

The documents were then digitized into Portable Document Format (PDF) files, and each file was named following NATO conventions. Due to the poor preservation state of some of the original paper documents, it has been challenging to obtain legible digital copies with accurate Optical Character Recognition (OCR) results. Nonetheless, the NATO Archives believes in the importance of presenting the entirety of these digital copies in order to respect the integrity of the collection.

The ultimate goal was to make these unique and important documents available online for researchers and the general public at the NATO Archives website.  Should the need arise, the original paper documents are available for consultation at the NATO Archives Reading Room at NATO Headquarters in Brussels.

Ineke Deserno
NATO Archivist

For questions or comments, the NATO Archives can be contacted at nato.archives@hq.nato.int