BERLIN — The German government released files on members of parliament who were ensnared by East German agents three decades ago, responding to criticism that the office overseeing the documents was blocking access.

Researchers can now see files on 16 members of the West German Bundestag between 1969 and 1972, the authority said in a statement on its Web site. Eleven have since died, while the other five legislators are said to have worked knowingly with communist East Germany’s secret police, or Stasi.

The release follows criticism of the federal commissioner for the Stasi files, Marianne Birthler, and accuses her of hampering research into the documents — known as the “Rosenholz files”— and a probe into the Stasi network in West Germany. Ms. Birthler rebutted a June 22 report in Die Zeit that said as many as 43 legislators had Stasi contacts. She said they were instead espionage sources.

The Rosenholz files consist of 380 CD-ROMs containing intelligence gathered by East German foreign intelligence on agents within West Germany, including the real names of agents who spied for the Stasi. The files fell into the hands of the CIA after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, which led to the unification of the two halves of Germany; Germany negotiated their retrieval in 2003.

Ms. Birthler says that, beyond the five lawmakers already known to have worked as spies, the rest of those identified in the files as “unofficial employees” included individuals who were sources of information and who were oblivious to the fact that they were being spied on.

The 11 deceased lawmakers were “victims,” while another 11 individuals have been notified of their files. Theirs will be released to the public in the coming weeks if they do not object.

Ms. Birthler has played down the significance of the Rosenholz files in yielding “spectacular disclosures” and said the Stasi network in the West was largely uncovered in East Germany’s final years, a statement on the government Web site said.