Schroeder Refused To Hand Over Documents About Conversations With Putin

The Bundestag was to receive information about the official documents of the period of work of the former head of the German government.

The German government has postponed reporting on the fate of office documents related to Gerhard Schröder's term as German chancellor. The country's ruling coalition removed the item from the agenda of the Bundestag's budget committee, t-online reported Thursday, Jan. 15.

According to plans, the committee was to obtain information on the whereabouts of the official documents from Schröder's office . The former German prime minister had previously ordered the materials to be handed over to the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which is close to the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), after the SPD closed his office in the Bundestag in June 2025. In doing so, he failed to comply with years-long demands by the federal archives to hand over office documents to the latter.

According to t-online, the federal chancellor's office is not yet in a position to submit the report because it has not yet completed an inspection of the archival collection held by the party structure. The materials are scheduled to be read in the first quarter of 2026, and a report in the Bundestag budget committee is now not expected until February at the earliest.

"Transparency and the proper maintenance of archives must be an absolute priority, especially for the federal government and the federal chancellor's office," emphasized Sebastian Schäfer, the budget expert of the Greens faction in the Bundestag. According to him, the ruling coalition is finally expected to provide a comprehensive explanation.

Earlier in May 2022, the Bundestag's budget committee demanded that the Federal Chancellor's Office secure official documents from Schröder's office as former chancellor. The chancellery subsequently formally requested that his office hand over 178 specific archival folders. However, it is noted that this demand was never met.

According to t-online, the folders contain minutes of meetings, personal correspondence, handwritten notes and meeting documents, including a summary of Schröder's talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. These papers remain closed to the public at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

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