Britain refuses to return documents containing the names of spies during the Cold War to Germany

Britain has been accused of "protecting communists" after it refused to hand over an archive of Stasi files containing the names of British spies who worked for the East German secret service during the Cold War, The Guardian reported.

The archive is part of the mysterious recordings on microfilm, known as the Rosenholz (Rosewood) archive, which contain 280 files with basic information about agents of the foreign intelligence branch of the former GDR.

The CIA obtained the archive under murky circumstances shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. American agents analyzed the data before passing important parts to the countries where the Stasi was active.

Since the West German part of the Rosenholz file arrived in Berlin in 2003, it has been revealed that the collaborators of the Stasi were some public figures

If the files are returned to Germany, they will be made available to scientists and historians, unredacted, the Guardian writes, adding that this means that British sympathizers and Stasi spies will be exposed for the first time.

Germany now owns only those parts of the Rosenholtz archive that relate to activity in the former West Germany - although the governments of Norway, Denmark and Sweden have recently indicated they are willing to hand over the files the CIA gave them more than 10 years ago.

Since the West German part of the Rosenholtz file arrived in Berlin in 2003, it has been revealed that Stasi collaborators were some public figures, including the priest who allegedly spied on Joseph Ratzinger, the current Pope Benedict XVI.

"We need to access those British files in order to understand the Cold War that was waged by secret service operatives around the world," said Helmut Müller-Enbergs, a great Stasi expert.

"Britain is not known for hiding communists, so why doesn't it reveal who worked for the communist regime?" said Müller-Enbergs, a researcher at the Stasi archive service in Berlin (BstU) and a visiting professor at Sweden's Gotland University.