The first part of the project was on Nazi files which were collected from various sources by the Stasi (East German secret police). This holding was preserved at the German Federal Archives, Dahlwitz-Hoppegarten branch.

Since 2004, Facts & Files has analyzed files on cases from courts and prosecuting attorneys between 1933 and 1945. The files concern criminal proceedings for so-called crimes such as “Rassenschande” (racial disgrace), “Hochverrat” (high treason), “Verstoß gegen das Heimtückegesetz” (violation of the treachery law), arson of synagogues, attacks on German Jews after 1933, and political criminal cases against Communists, Social Democrats, members of the clergy, and other political opponents of the Nazis.

Another facet of the project included the examination of holdings of associations of Holocaust victims created after 1945. These holdings contain detailed information about concentration and extermination camps.

At the archive of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records records on Nazi crimes from courts and general attorney offices of the GDR could be found. Victims were Jews, the mentally ill, prisoners of war, and other groups in ghettos, partisan areas, camps, and killing centers. Perpetrators were in the SS, the Einsatzgruppen, police battalions and regiments, the euthanasia program, the court system, ghetto and camp administrations, the Wehrmacht, and the latter’s Field Police (Feldgendarmerie) and Secret Field Police (Geheime Feldpolizei). The research was finished in 2015.

Further research at the Federal Archives continues within records of the IG Farben, the Reichs Labour Ministry and other holdings.