Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel paid her first visit Thursday to the archives of former East Germany's secret police, the Stasi.

Merkel spoke favourably about the work being carried out at the archives, which documents surveillance carried out by the former East German socialist state on its citizens.

"It has been shown that the opening of the Stasi files has contributed to reconciliation, and not division" the chancellor said during her first visit to the former Stasi-headquarters, situated in east Berlin's Lichtenberg area.

Merkel, of east German origin, was shown around by the head of the documentation centre, Marianne Birthler. Birthler has campaigned for funding to allow the work of the centre to continue for a further 10 years.

There are plans to incorporate the records into Germany's state archives in the medium term, a move which would restrict the documentation work being carried out at present.

People can find out through the agency whether they were being monitored by the former East German authorities, and gain access to any existing files.

The archive holds more than 43 kilometres of Stasi files and millions of record cards. Last year around 87,000 requests were made to view records.

After reunification in October 1990 the records were also used to find out whether civil service job applicants had previously worked as informants in East Germany.

During Thursday's visit, the chancellor spoke in favour of continuing the work being carried out at the centre. She recognised the particular importance of this work in 2009, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

East Germany's last interior minister, Peter-Michael Diestel, said Merkel's visit sends a false signal. "I am fed up of 45 years of dictatorial East German history being reduced to the subject of the Stasi," he said in an interview published Thursday in regional daily Leipziger Volkszeitung.

In Diestel's opinion, all the politically sensitive files were destroyed by the fading East German regime, leaving behind archives on politically inconsequential people such as the "gay, corrupt hairdresser, the baker or the pastor."

Merkel's visit commemorates the day that East German citizens stormed the Stasi headquarters, on January 15, 1990.

At the time, civil rights campaigners were concerned that, during the dying days of the East German state, the secret police would try to destroy evidence of their surveillance activities.

In a recent interview, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said that, at the time, both he and then chancellor Helmut Kohl had been in favour of destroying the records to prevent arguments from the past from burdening the future.

At the time, however, they decided to respect the wish of East Germans to reconcile themselves with their past. (dpa)