In 1998 the Russian archives agreed for a $100,000 fee to make microfilm copies of the material.

Hoffmann stated that according to papers now lying in Russian archives only 74.000 victims could be identified by name.

The trial and the execution remained secret until the incidents could be reconstructed after the opening of Russian archives in 1990.

As a journalist, he was able to get access to hitherto unvisited Russian archives to track down his family's past.

These introductions are based largely on unpublished documents from the Russian archives.

In the last few years, academics have lamented that access to Russian archives has tightened considerably.

It remained unclear when the file, whose entries ended in 1991, was taken out of the Russian archives.

In 2010, evidence from Russian archives surfaced suggesting he was alive after the presumed execution date.

This fact is well documented in the Russian tsarist archives.

He was given access to otherwise inaccessible Russian archives for his work.