ARHIVSKI VJESNIK 42. (ZAGREB, 1999.)

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M. Kchrig, The position of military archives in the frame of archival service Independence or integration?, Arh. vjesn., god. 42 (1999), str. 113-128 tonomous military archives for political or, if you will, ideological reasons. One could also argue that the uniform administration of the state's archived heritage is compromised by autonomous military archives, but as long as the latter are subject to the provisions of archive laws and the state archive administration has a right of inspection vis-a-vis the žspecial archives' for defence and foreign policy, this danger must be regarded as being fairly remote. As regards the second group of military archives, which I shall term the Swedish-German group, the consistency of archival work and documentation of the state administration is of course guaranteed. And when the archival requirements of the state archive administration and the professional demands of the military on the archive system are balanced, then a satisfactory situation has been achieved. However, this demands from both sides much discretion, consideration and sympathy for the tasks and peculiarities of the other party. Whether one can still call on such qualities of good citizenship is another matter. With regard to the last group, which I would term the Anglo-Saxon group, many years of practical experience and the needs of the armed forces and of the archive administration have produced a satisfactory solution. We can, therefore, see that with all three models benefits and drawbacks are more or less balanced. The answer to the question as to where military archives are best placed, with the Ministry of Defence or the state archive administration, is therefore dependent on the question of where they can best fulfil their tasks of acting as a guardian of the records of the state's activities and simultaneously as centres of scientific research. The optimal discharge of these duties is conditioned to a significant degree by the extent to which the military and state archives are equipped with adequate resources in terms of finance, manpower, infrastructure and materials. In the countries of the former Warsaw Pact it is my impression that the autonomous military archives were better equipped in these respects than those archives under state administration. This was particularly evident in the former GDR, whose military archive in Potsdam I was responsible for integrating into the Federal Military Archives as from October 1990. However, autonomous military archives must unequivocally define themselves as part of the national memory, be bound by the national archival legislation and in accordance with this make their holdings accessible to all, and must demonstrate a sensible measure of willingness to cooperate with the state archive administration in order to show a common responsibility for the written heritage of the state. On no account, however, should historical developments in the field of the state archival administration be gratuitously disrupted and autonomous military archives forced into the civil archive administration, just as military archives which are integrated into the national or state archives should not be forcibly separated out into an inappropriate special position. It must be kept in mind that military archives, as "central me127