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Some 42,700 applications were submitted in the first 11 months of 2018, Roland Jahn, who heads the Stasi Records Agency, told dpa. There were 49,000 requests in 2017.
While interest has been greater than what was expected when the agency was formed in October 1990, applications for copies of the security files are set to wane over the longer term.
Some 3.2 million people have requested their files over the decades.
The files are available to anyone in the general public seeking to look at their own dossiers and so possibly ascertain who had been informing on them.
By the time the Berlin Wall was toppled in November 1989, the Stasi had collected files on some 6 million people, with the documents filling up kilometres and kilometres of shelf space at the security ministry in former East Berlin and other centres around the country.
While interest has been greater than what was expected when the agency was formed in October 1990, applications for copies of the security files are set to wane over the longer term.
Some 3.2 million people have requested their files over the decades.
The files are available to anyone in the general public seeking to look at their own dossiers and so possibly ascertain who had been informing on them.
By the time the Berlin Wall was toppled in November 1989, the Stasi had collected files on some 6 million people, with the documents filling up kilometres and kilometres of shelf space at the security ministry in former East Berlin and other centres around the country.
