BERLIN, July 7: Documents supplied by the United States to Germany may unmask 50,000 former East German Stasi spies — some of whom may still belong to parliament, a report said Monday.

The documents from the Stasi — East Germany’s hated secret police — were obtained by the American CIA during the chaotic collapse of East Germany in 1989-1990.

A Berliner Zeitung newspaper report says the CIA has provided the German government with a list of about 50,000 German nationals who served as Stasi spies since the 1950s.

People on this list were never identified as Stasi spies following the 1990 German reunification and in some cases have may have kept senior positions in government, the report said.

Marianne Brithler, a former East German dissident who heads the government agency administering former Stasi files, says the new data will be used to check the background of members of parliament and state employees.

The CIA obtained the documents in an undercover mission dubbed Operation Rosenholz (rosewood) which is still shrouded in mystery.

Unconfirmed reports say the CIA paid 1.5 million dollars cash to a renegade agent in Russia for the trove of documents.—dpa