Help

Downloading files

You will need a PDF-Reader in order to view the PDF files on this website. You can find an overview of free PDF-Readers at the following address: http://pdfreaders.org/ .

Not all the documents that are available to download are fully accessible to people with disabilities. Some of the files represent old documents where the original is no longer available. These PDF files have not been retroactively revised.

Our aim is to provide in the future fully or partially accessible PDF files, or to provide the content in HTML format as an alternative, as far as this is possible and practical.

You can see if a document is already accessible by placing the cursor over the link to the document. A “hover box” will appear with information on the accessibility of the file.

Should you require content from older documents in a different form which is more accessible for you, please contact us via the contact form.

We will try to provide you with the information in another form, as far as this is possible.

Navigation

The pages of our website have a uniform structure which separates navigational functions from content.

At the top of many pages you will see a list of contents which allows you to jump directly to the individual subsections of the page.

Additionally, the site map gives you an overview of all the topics and sub-topics available on our website.

Text size

Overall view

To avoid distorting the structure of the page, please use the following keystroke commands to change the size of the text:

zoom in: Ctrl++

zoom out: Ctrl+-

back to normal size: Ctrl+0

Text only

You can change the size of the text on our website by adjusting your browser settings. In Internet Explorer, you can change the settings by clicking on the “View” menu and then selecting “Text Size”. In Firefox, you can change the text size by clicking on the “View” menu, then “Zoom”, and then selecting “Zoom In” or “Zoom Out”.

Search function

We provide two types of search on our website: simple search and advanced search.

The box for the simple search is located at the top right of the page. Simply enter one or more terms in the search box. The search results are shown on a new page. An interface for the advanced search functionality is shown underneath the search results.

The advanced search provides you with additional options for carrying out searches or sorting the search results. You can:

• sort the results by relevance or by date

• restrict the search results

  • to a particular time period
  • to a particular document type (for example, you can specify that you want to search for a particular person or only for legal texts)
  • to a particular topic that you specify.

You can restrict the search by adding a + symbol (which functions as an AND operator) between search terms in the search field.

You can also search using wildcards such as an asterisk (*), which stands for any sequence of characters, or a question mark (?), which stands for any single character.

You can also add the tilde symbol (~) to the end of a word to carry out a fuzzy search.

Print function

The contents of this website are optimised for printing.

If JavaScript is activated in your browser, you will see a printer icon at the top right of the page, underneath the header. Clicking on the printer icon opens a print dialogue box.

If you have JavaScript deactivated, you can print a page by opening the “File” menu and then selecting “Print”. You can also open the print dialogue box using the keystroke command Ctrl+P.

Miscellaneous

We have taken pains to ensure that, as far as possible, this website complies with German guidelines on making information technology accessible to people with disabilities (BITV). Should you nevertheless find non-accessible content on our website, please notify us via the contact form, including a description of the problem and where you encountered it.