Service historique de la Défense

The "Service historique de la défense" (SHD) (Defence Historical Service) is the record centre for the french ministry of defence.

It was created on 1st January 2005 as one of the State reforms, and it is a national department attached to the DMPA (Direction de la mémoire, du patrimoine et des archives - Department of Memory, Heritage and Records), one of the Secretariat-General for administration (SGA) departments of the ministry of defence. It is the result of an amalgamation of the four traditional armed forces, the army, the navy, the air force and the police force, together with the arms record centre and the Châtellerault personnel.

With its responsibilities for monitoring, collecting, preserving and sharing records from the ministry of defence, the SHD heads all the specialised libraries in France because of the wealth of its offerings. As one of its objectives, it also contributes to work relating to the history of defence and handles the issues of military badges.

The Defence Historical Service consists of the historic records centre (with bases in Vincennes, Cherbourg, Brest, Lorient, Rochefort, Toulon, Caen, Le Blanc and Fontainebleau), the arms and personnel records centre (based in Châtellerault), an administrative and financial service and a logistics support division.

This department holds the records of military justice after 1924. The archives of military prisons, formerly held by the DCAJM, are now also held by the Service historique de la défense. The central military justice archive repository (DCAJM) holds the case files of French military courts from 1919 to 31 December 2011, the date on which the Paris military court closed.