Editing Diplomatic Documents: A Review of Official U. S. and German Document Series

This paper describes and compares the history, development, and problems associated with such major documentary publication projects as The Foreign Relations of the United States, Die Grosse Politik, and Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918--1945. It deals with the relationship between the editors of such projects and the government agencies that sponsor them, with the difficulties of selecting and obtaining clearance of documents, and with the political pressures exerted on the project editors and their responses to these pressures. The paper also discusses the value of these major historical undertakings to historians and scholars and their place in the historiography of the twentieth century.