The IPN Archive stores a range of files clearly defined chronologically and thematically, as well as by provenance (origin).
The Institute has the responsibility of collecting, recording, storing, processing, preserving, making available and publishing the documents of the state security organs produced and collected from 22 July 1944 to 31 July 1990, as well as the security organs of the Third German Reich and the Union of Soviet Socialist.
Interest in IPN’s archival materials, growing from year to year and, at the same time, a better understanding of the accumulated holdings have made it necessary to develop an initial, but in many respects, comprehensive archival repository guide for archive users.
In terms of its content, it covers all the archival materials, regardless of their degree of processing, thus presenting the actual state of the Institute’s archival repository. The structure and internal arrangement of the published guide is the first attempt to define the entire structure of the Institute’s archival repository.