The Israeli justice ministry has decided to release the memoirs of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann who was condemned to death in Israel in 1962 for planning the killing of millions of Jews in the Holocaust.
A statement issued yesterday by the ministry in Jerusalem said that "the aim is to publish Eichmann's notes as soon as possible".
It has not been decided where the manuscript will be published.
Officials of the ministry said that Israel received a letter from a German lawyer representing Eichmann's son requesting the notes his father wrote while imprisoned in Israel in 1960-1962.
Israel's Attorney-General, Mr Eliakim Rubinstein, said he did not object to German historians publishing the notes with appropriate commentary.
"Such memoirs were published recently. For example, the memoirs of Nazi war criminal Heinrich Himmler saw light in recent times," Mr Rubinstein said.
Mr Dieter Eichmann would like to publish his father's diary with commentary.
Israel's national archives gave their approval to the release of the texts written by Eichmann, some 1,200 pages written in almost illegible handwriting.
Eichmann headed a section of the Gestapo which was in charge of "the final solution" - the extermination of Europe's Jews by the Nazis during the second World War.
He was in charge of organising the deportation of Jews to concentration camps in Eastern Europe.
Eichmann was kidnapped by Israeli secret agents in 1960 from Argentina, where he sought refuge after the war ended. He was tried for genocide and crimes against humanity by an Israeli court and sentenced to death in 1962. He was 56 when he was hanged.
During his trial, Eichmann argued that he was only carrying out the orders of his superiors and therefore was not guilty.
Mr Avitar Frieselel, an historian in charge of the archives, said there was "nothing of fundamental importance in the manuscript, but it is nonetheless an important document on the Holocaust".