What is the WBH Archive?
The Military Historical Office deals with the organization and functioning of the military archival network, shaping and recording this resource. His tasks also include making available archival materials, conducting archival inquiries, and organizing conferences. WBH also has its own publishing house. The position of the WBH Director is currently held by dr hab. Sławomir Cenckiewicz.
The Military Historical Bureau is an institution that, apart from the Historical Research Department, also covers the Central Military Archives (CAW). Additionally, WBH is subject to: the Military Archives in Oleśnica, the Military Archives in Toruń and the Gdynia Branch of the Military Archives in Toruń.
The Central Military Archives was established in 1918, but its activity dates back to 1916, when the Scientific Section of the Military Commission of the Provisional Council of State was established. In 1927, the CAW was subordinated to the head of the Military Historical Bureau. At the same time, it received the name of the Military Archives. During World War II, the resources of the Archive were evacuated to Romania, and then transported via Paris to London and New York. The collections taken over during the war by the Third German Reich, transferred to Gdańsk, were mostly recovered. From the collections taken over by the USSR in 1964, the Soviet side returned a relatively small part. In 1944, the CAW located its headquarters in Lublin and Łódź (part of the collections recovered from the Reich was preserved in Gdańsk-Oliwa), and in 1951 the Archive was permanently moved to Warsaw. In 2016, the Minister of National Defense signed the Decision No. 127 / MON on the establishment of the Military Historical Bureau, and then the Central Military Archives became an internal unit of the WBH.
The basic tasks of the CAW include, among others: shaping the military archival resource, developing draft departmental normative and legal regulations on archival matters; conducting domestic and foreign searches for Polish military archives, in cooperation with the General Director of the State Archives; issuing certified copies, extracts, extracts and reproductions of stored archival materials, as well as certificates based on these materials; conducting scientific and research works in the field of military archives; providing archival services for organizational units and citizens in the field of searching, querying, copying, photocopying and conservation of archival materials.
