Background and introduction to the archives

The special services archives kept by the Service Historique de la Défense (SHD) form a documentary ensemble of nearly 500 linear metres. The collection, long unknown but which has largely been opened up since 2014, has a turbulent history, taking it from London to Algiers, then Paris, from the cellars of “La Piscine” to those of the Château de Vincennes. It provides evidence of the activities of a number of intelligence and counter-espionage services between 1930 and 1945. It contains some of the archives of Free France’s Central Bureau of Intelligence and Action (BCRA), those of Vichy’s Rural Works (TR) and Bureau for Anti-Nationalist Manoeuvres (BMA), and those of the Directorate for Military Security (DSM) and Directorate-General for Studies and Research (DGER). Altogether, nearly 15 years of secret operations. The history of this documentary ensemble – what it tells us not only about the activities and positioning of the services that produced it, but also about the events involving them – constitutes a subject of study in itself. Unless otherwise stated, the record numbers quoted are those of the archives kept by the SHD, which can be consulted in the Louis XIV reading room at Château de Vincennes.