Eichmann files

A German court said Friday the government had no legal basis to keep under wraps secret files on Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi architect of the Holocaust, potentially paving the way for their release.

"After examining the files, the Federal Administrative Court has decided that the decision of the chancellor's office to block them is unlawful," the court said in a statement.

Following a lawsuit by a freelance Argentinian journalist, the court ruled as "invalid" the government's argument that releasing archives on Eichmann would jeopardize Berlin's foreign policy.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's office had also argued that publishing the 3,400-page files could endanger relations with foreign intelligence agencies.

However, the court also said it would give Merkel's office a chance to present further arguments against the publishing of the files, which were compiled during the 1950s and 1960s.

Israeli agents kidnapped Eichmann, one of the main executors of Adolf Hitler's "final solution" - the plan to exterminate the Jews - in Buenos Aires in 1960.

He was taken to Jerusalem for proceedings in an Israeli court, where he was caged in a special bullet-proof glass enclosure.

Eichmann was convicted of crimes against humanity and hanged in 1962.

glb/AFP/dpa

Editor: Susan Houlton