A historian of the Holocaust called the records’ destruction “catastrophic.”

According to the Hamburg Morgen Post newspaper, the state cultural ministry is defending the decision by the archive’s director, Udo Schäfer, to destroy an estimated 1 million death certificates dating from 1876 to 1953.

But even Schäfer admits he made a mistake. In his own defense, he explained to the paper that “almost all the information” contained in the files is found in other archived documents, like death registries and in files from jails or hospitals.

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