The Supplies, Orders and Contracts Department was created in 1937. It comprised five divisions:
The Supplies Division, responsible for directing the Société nationale’s supply of materials (excluding fuel) whose purchase falls to the Supplies Department.
The Orders Division, responsible for purchasing the materials whose supply falls to the Supplies Department.
The Manufacturing Control Division, responsible for following up orders, ensuring the technical oversight of work, and drawing up and amending, under the direction of the relevant technical departments, the technical specifications not established directly by those departments. It also acted as a technical and commercial source of information for the Supplies and Orders Department and the Central Technical Departments…
The Fuel Division, responsible for fuel supply.
The Contracts Control Division, responsible on the one hand for preparing standardised rules for drawing up contracts and, on the other, for overseeing contracts of every kind entered into by the Société nationale.
In January 1939, a sixth division came into being:
The Electrical Energy Division, responsible for matters of production, high-voltage transmission, and the purchase and sale of electrical energy.
The Department was also responsible for managing SNCF’s Supplies account and monitoring matters of industrial mobilisation. In 1943, this department changed its name and became the Supplies Department.
Contents
The files come from the office of Mr Kipfer, 2nd-class Chief Engineer of the Supplies, Orders and Contracts Department.
This documentary collection addresses the operation and role of this department during and immediately after the Second World War through the following themes:
- Organisation of the department in wartime
- Special assignment (AS)
- The question of armaments
- Relocation of the department
- State of SNCF’s supplies
- Role of the Organisation Committees
- Awarding of contracts and price regulation
- Relations with the German authorities
- Relations with the Allied authorities