The Military Administration in France (german: Militärverwaltung in Frankreich; french: Occupation de la France par l'Allemagne) was an
interim occupation authority established by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
to administer the occupied zone in areas of northern and western
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
. This so-called ' was established in June 1940, and renamed ' ("north zone") in November 1942, when the previously unoccupied zone in the south known as ' ("free zone") was also occupied and renamed ' ("south zone").
Its role in France was partly governed by the conditions set by the
Second Armistice at after the success of the leading to the
Fall of France; at the time both French and Germans thought the occupation would be temporary and last only until Britain came to terms, which was believed to be imminent. For instance, France agreed that its
soldiers would remain prisoners of war until the cessation of all hostilities.
The "French State" (') replaced the
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic (french: Troisième République, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 19 ...
that had dissolved in defeat. Though nominally extending its sovereignty over the whole country, it was in practice limited in exercising its authority to the free zone. As
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
was located in the occupied zone, its government was seated in the spa town of
Vichy
Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais.
It is a spa and resort town and in World War II was the capital of ...
in , and therefore it was more commonly known as
Vichy France
Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its te ...
.
While the Vichy government was nominally in charge of all of France, the military administration in the occupied zone was a '
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
dictatorship. Nazi rule was extended to the free zone when it was invaded by Germany and Italy during ' on 11 November 1942 in response to
Operation Torch, the Allied landings in
French North Africa
French North Africa (french: Afrique du Nord française, sometimes abbreviated to ANF) is the term often applied to the territories controlled by France in the North African Maghreb during the colonial era, namely Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. I ...
on 8 November 1942. The Vichy government remained in existence, even though its authority was now severely curtailed.
The German military administration in France ended with the
Liberation of France
The liberation of France in the Second World War was accomplished through diplomacy, politics and the combined military efforts of the Allied Powers, Free French forces in London and Africa, as well as the French Resistance.
Nazi Germany inv ...
after the
Normandy
Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...
and
Provence landings. It formally existed from May 1940 to December 1944, though most of its territory had been liberated by the Allies by the end of summer 1944.
Occupation zones
Alsace-Lorraine had been annexed after the
Franco-Prussian war in 1871 by the
German Empire and returned to France after the First World War. It was
re-annexed by the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
(thus
subjecting their male population to German military conscription.) The departments of
Nord and Pas-de-Calais were attached to the
military administration in Belgium and Northern France
The Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France (german: Militärverwaltung in Belgien und Nordfrankreich) was an interim occupation authority established during the Second World War by Nazi Germany that included present-day Belgiu ...
, which was also responsible for civilian affairs in the wide ''
zone interdite'' along the Atlantic coast. Another "forbidden zone" were
areas in north-eastern France, corresponding to
Lorraine
Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of Gra ...
and roughly about half each of
Franche-Comté,
Champagne
Champagne (, ) is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, that demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, ...
and
Picardie
Picardy (; Picard and french: Picardie, , ) is a historical territory and a former administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region of Hauts-de-France. It is located in the northern part of France.
Hi ...
.
War refugee
A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution. s were prohibited from returning to their homes, and it was intended for German
settler
A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area.
A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a pioneer.
Settl ...
s and annexation
in the coming Nazi
New Order (''Neue Ordnung'').
The occupied zone (french: zone occupée, , german: Besetztes Gebiet) consisted of the rest of northern and western France, including the two forbidden zones.
The southern part of France, except for the western half of
Aquitaine
Aquitaine ( , , ; oc, Aquitània ; eu, Akitania; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Aguiéne''), archaic Guyenne or Guienne ( oc, Guiana), is a historical region of southwestern France and a former administrative region of the country. Since 1 Janu ...
along the Atlantic coast, became the ''
zone libre
The ''zone libre'' (, ''free zone'') was a partition of the French metropolitan territory during World War II, established at the Second Armistice at Compiègne on 22 June 1940. It lay to the south of the demarcation line and was administered b ...
'' ("free zone"), where the
Vichy regime
Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...
remained sovereign as an independent state, though under heavy German influence due to the restrictions of the Armistice (including a heavy tribute) and economical dependency on Germany. It constituted a land area of 246,618 square kilometres, approximately 45 percent of France, and included approximately 33 percent of the total French labor force. The
demarcation line between the free zone and the occupied zone was a de facto border, necessitating special authorisation and a
laissez-passer
A travel document is an identity document issued by a government or international entity pursuant to international agreements to enable individuals to clear border control measures. Travel documents usually assure other governments that the beare ...
from the German authorities to cross.
These restrictions remained in place after Vichy was occupied and the zone renamed ''zone sud'' ("south zone"), and also placed under military administration in November 1942.
The
Italian occupation zone consisted of small areas along the
Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Swi ...
border, and a demilitarised zone along the same. It was expanded to all territory
[Giorgio Rochat, (trad. Anne Pilloud), La campagne italienne de juin 1940 dans les Alpes occidentales, ''Revue historique des armées'', No. 250, 2008, pp77-84]
sur le site du Service historique de la Défense, ''rha.revues.org''. Mis en ligne le 6 juin 2008, consulté le 24 octobre 2008.[« L’occupation italienne »]
''resistance-en-isere.com''. Retrieved 24 October 2008. on the left bank of the
Rhône
The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...
river after its invasion together with Germany of Vichy France on 11 November 1942, except for areas around
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...
and
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...
, which were added to Germany's ''zone sud'',
and Corsica.
The Italian occupation zone was also occupied by Germany and added to the ''zone sud'' after
Italy's surrender in September 1943, except for Corsica,
which was liberated by the landings of
Free French forces
__NOTOC__
The French Liberation Army (french: Armée française de la Libération or AFL) was the reunified French Army that arose from the merging of the Armée d'Afrique with the prior Free French Forces (french: Forces françaises libres, l ...
and local Italian troops that became co-belligerents of the Allies.
Administrative structure
After Germany and France agreed on an
armistice
An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from the ...
following the defeats of May and June, Marshal
Wilhelm Keitel
Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel (; 22 September 188216 October 1946) was a German field marshal and war criminal who held office as chief of the '' Oberkommando der Wehrmacht'' (OKW), the high command of Nazi Germany's Armed Forces, duri ...
and
General Charles Huntzinger, representatives of the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and of the French government of Marshal
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), commonly known as Philippe Pétain (, ) or Marshal Pétain (french: Maréchal Pétain), was a French general who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of Worl ...
respectively, signed it on 22 June 1940 at the Rethondes clearing in
Compiègne Forest. As it was done at the same place and in the same railroad carriage where the
armistice ending the First World War when Germany surrendered, it is known as the
Second Compiègne armistice.
France was roughly divided into an occupied northern zone and an unoccupied southern zone, according to the armistice convention "in order to protect the interests of the German Reich".
[La convention d'armistice]
sur le site de l'Université de Perpignan, ''mjp.univ-perp.fr'', accessed 29 November 2008. The
French colonial empire remained under the authority of Marshal Pétain's Vichy regime. French sovereignty was to be exercised over the whole of French territory, including the occupied zone, Alsace and Moselle, but the third article of the armistice stipulated that French authorities in the occupied zone would have to obey the military administration and that Germany would exercise rights of an occupying power within it:
In the occupied region of France, the German Reich exercises all of the rights of an occupying power
Military occupation, also known as belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is the effective military control by a ruling power over a territory that is outside of that power's sovereign territory.Eyāl Benveniśtî. The international law ...
. The French government undertakes to facilitate in every way possible the implementation of these rights, and to provide the assistance of the French administrative services to that end. The French government will immediately direct all officials and administrators of the occupied territory to comply with the regulations of, and to collaborate fully with, the German military authorities.
The military administration was responsible for
civil affairs in occupied France. It was divided into ''Kommandanturen'' (singular ''
Kommandantur
This is a list of words, terms, concepts and slogans of Nazi Germany used in the historiography covering the Nazi regime.
Some words were coined by Adolf Hitler and other Nazi Party members. Other words and concepts were borrowed and appropriated, ...
''), in decreasing hierarchical order ''Oberfeldkommandanturen'', ''Feldkommandanturen'', ''Kreiskommandanturen'', and ''Ortskommandanturen''.
German naval affairs in France were coordinated through a central office known as the ''Höheres Kommando der Marinedienststellen in Groß-Paris'' (Supreme Command for Naval Services in the Greater Paris Area) who in turn answered to a senior commander for all of France known as the ''Admiral Frankreich''. After
Case Anton, the "Admiral Frankreich" naval command was broken apart into smaller offices which answered directly to the operational command of
Navy Group West.
Collaboration
In order to suppress partisans and resistance fighters, the military administration cooperated closely with the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
, the ''
Sicherheitsdienst
' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the '' Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization ...
'', the intelligence service of the
SS, and the ''
Sicherheitspolizei'', its security police. It also had at its disposal the support of the French authorities and police forces, who had to cooperate per the conditions set in the armistice, to
round up Jews, anti-fascists and other dissidents, and vanish them into ''
Nacht und Nebel
''Nacht und Nebel'' (German: ), meaning Night and Fog, was a directive issued by Adolf Hitler on 7 December 1941 targeting political activists and resistance "helpers" in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, who were to ...
'', "Night and Fog". It also had the help of collaborationists French auxiliaries like the ''
Milice
The ''Milice française'' (French Militia), generally called ''la Milice'' (literally ''the militia'') (), was a political paramilitary organization created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy regime (with German aid) to help fight against the Fre ...
'', the ''
Franc-Garde
The ''Franc-Garde'' ( en, Free Guard) was the armed wing of the French '' Milice'' (Militia), operating alone or alongside German forces in major battles against the Maquis from late 1943 to August 1944.
History
The creation of the ''Franc-Garde ...
s'' and the
Legionary Order Service. The two main collaborationist political parties were the
French Popular Party (PPF) and the
National Popular Rally (RNP), each with 20,000 to 30,000 members.
The ''Milice'' participated with Lyon Gestapo head
Klaus Barbie
Nikolaus "Klaus" Barbie (25 October 1913 – 25 September 1991) was a German operative of the SS and SD who worked in Vichy France during World War II. He became known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for having personally tortured prisoners—primar ...
in seizing members of the resistance and minorities including Jews for shipment to detention centres, such as the
Drancy deportation camp
Drancy internment camp was an assembly and detention camp for confining Jews who were later deported to the extermination camps during the German occupation of France during World War II. Originally conceived and built as a modernist urban com ...
, en route to
Auschwitz, and other German concentration camps, including
Dachau and
Buchenwald
Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or sus ...
.
Some Frenchmen also volunteered directly in German forces to fight for Germany and/or against
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
, such as the
Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism
The Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism (french: Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchévisme, LVF) was a unit of the German Army during World War II consisting of collaborationist volunteers from France. Officially design ...
. Volunteers from this and other outfits later constituted the cadre of the
33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS ''Charlemagne'' (1st French).
Stanley Hoffmann
Stanley Hoffmann (27 November 1928 – 13 September 2015) was a French political scientist and the Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor at Harvard University, specializing in French politics and society, European politics, U.S ...
in 1974,
and after him, other historians such as
Robert Paxton
Robert Owen Paxton (born June 15, 1932) is an American political scientist and historian specializing in Vichy France, fascism, and Europe during the World War II era. He is Mellon Professor Emeritus of Social Science in the Department of History ...
and
Jean-Pierre Azéma
Jean-Pierre Azéma (born 1937) is a French historian.
Azéma is a member of the scientific counsel for the Institut François Mitterrand, an organisation founded by François Mitterrand with the goal of "contributing to the propagation of knowled ...
have used the term ''collaborationnistes'' to refer to fascists and Nazi sympathisers who, for ideological reasons, wished a reinforced collaboration with Hitler's Germany, in contrast to "collaborators", people who merely cooperated out of self-interest. Examples of these are PPF leader
Jacques Doriot
Jacques Doriot (; 26 September 1898 – 22 February 1945) was a French politician, initially communist, later fascist, before and during World War II.
In 1936, after his exclusion from the Communist Party, he founded the French Popular Party (P ...
, writer
Robert Brasillach or
Marcel Déat
Marcel Déat (7 March 1894 – 5 January 1955) was a French politician. Initially a socialist and a member of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), he led a breakaway group of right-wing ' Neosocialists' out of the SFIO in 1933 ...
. A principal motivation and ideological foundation among ''collaborationnistes'' was
anti-communism
Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...
.
Occupation forces
The Wehrmacht maintained a varying number of divisions in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
. 100,000 Germans were in the whole of the German-zone in France in December 1941. When the bulk of the Wehrmacht was fighting on the
eastern front, German units were rotated to France to rest and refit. The number of troops increased when the threat of Allied invasion began looming large, with the
Dieppe raid marking its real beginning. The actions of Canadian and
British Commandos
The Commando, Commandos, also known as the British Commandos, were formed during the World War II, Second World War in June 1940, following a request from Winston Churchill, for special forces that could carry out Raid (military), raids against ...
against German troops brought Hitler to condemn them as
irregular warfare. In his
Commando Order he denied them lawful combatant status, and ordered them to be handed over to the
SS security service when captured and liable to be
summarily executed
A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...
. As the war went on, garrisoning the
Atlantic Wall and suppressing the resistance became heavier and heavier duties.
Some notable units and formations stationed in France during the occupation:
* 1940: ''
Luftflotte 2
__NOTOC__
''Luftflotte'' 2For an explanation of the meaning of Luftwaffe unit designation see Luftwaffe Organisation (Air Fleet 2) was one of the primary divisions of the German Luftwaffe in World War II. It was formed 1 February 1939 in Braunsch ...
'', ''
Luftflotte 3
''Luftflotte'' 3For an explanation of the meaning of Luftwaffe unit designation see Luftwaffe Organisation (Air Fleet 3) was one of the primary divisions of the German Luftwaffe in World War II. It was formed on 1 February 1939 from ''Luftwaffengr ...
'' operated from airfields in northern France during the
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
. ''Luftflotte 3'' stayed there to defend against the
allied strategic bombings until it had to retreat in 1944.
* 1941: Battlecruisers and . The battleship
''Bismarck'' was sunk while trying to reach French Atlantic harbors after its commissioning.
* 1942:
2nd SS Panzer Division ''Das Reich'',
4th SS Police Regiment
* 1943: At the height of the
battle of the Atlantic, between 60 and over a 100 German
U-boat
U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare ro ...
s were
stationed in submarine pens in French Atlantic ports such as
La Rochelle
La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. Wi ...
,
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...
,
Saint-Nazaire,
Brest
Brest may refer to:
Places
*Brest, Belarus
**Brest Region
**Brest Airport
**Brest Fortress
* Brest, Kyustendil Province, Bulgaria
* Břest, Czech Republic
*Brest, France
** Arrondissement of Brest
**Brest Bretagne Airport
** Château de Brest
*Br ...
, and
Lorient
Lorient (; ) is a town ('' commune'') and seaport in the Morbihan department of Brittany in western France.
History
Prehistory and classical antiquity
Beginning around 3000 BC, settlements in the area of Lorient are attested by the presen ...
.
* 1944:
157th Mountain (Reserve) Division, ''
Panzer Lehr
The Panzer-Lehr-Division (in the meaning of: Armoured training division) was an elite German armoured division during World War II. It was formed in 1943 onwards from training and demonstration troops (''Lehr'' = "teach") stationed in Germany, ...
'',
XIXth Army,
716th Static Infantry Division,
12th SS Panzer Division ''Hitlerjugend''.
Anti-partisan actions
The "
Appeal of 18 June
The Appeal of 18 June (french: L'Appel du 18 juin) was the first speech made by Charles de Gaulle after his arrival in London in 1940 following the Battle of France. Broadcast to Vichy France by the radio services of the British Broadcasting Cor ...
" by de Gaulle's
Free France
Free France (french: France Libre) was a political entity that claimed to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic. Led by French general , Free France was established as a government-in-exile ...
government in exile in London had little immediate effect, and few joined its
French Forces of the Interior
The French Forces of the Interior (french: Forces françaises de l'Intérieur) were French resistance fighters in the later stages of World War II. Charles de Gaulle used it as a formal name for the resistance fighters. The change in designation ...
beyond those that had already gone into exile to join the Free French. After the
invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...
in June 1941, the
French communist party
The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Un ...
, hitherto under orders from the
Comintern to remain passive against the German occupiers, began to mount actions against them. De Gaulle sent
Jean Moulin back to France as his formal link to the irregulars throughout the occupied country to coordinate
the eight major ''Résistance'' groups into one organisation. Moulin got their agreement to form the
National Council of the Resistance
The National Council of the Resistance (also, National Resistance Council; in French: ''Conseil National de la Résistance'' (CNR), was the body that directed and coordinated the different movements of the French Resistance: the press, trade uni ...
().
Moulin was eventually captured, and died under brutal torture by the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
, possibly by
Klaus Barbie
Nikolaus "Klaus" Barbie (25 October 1913 – 25 September 1991) was a German operative of the SS and SD who worked in Vichy France during World War II. He became known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for having personally tortured prisoners—primar ...
himself. The resistance intensified after it became clear the tide of war had shifted after the Reich's defeat at
Stalingrad in early 1943 and, by 1944, large remote areas were out of the German military's control and free zones for the ''
maquisards'', so-called after the
maquis shrubland that provided ideal terrain for
guerrilla warfare.
The most important anti-partisan action was the
Battle of Vercors. The most infamous one was the
Oradour-sur-Glane massacre
On 10 June 1944, four days after D-Day, the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne in Nazi-occupied France was destroyed when 643 civilians, including non-combatant women and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company.
A n ...
. Other notable atrocities committed were the
Tulle massacre
The Tulle massacre was the roundup and summary execution of civilians in the French town of Tulle by the 2nd SS Panzer Division ''Das Reich'' in June 1944, three days after the D-Day landings in World War II.
After a successful offensive ...
, the
Le Paradis massacre
The Le Paradis massacre was a World War II war crime committed by members of the 14th Company, SS Division Totenkopf, under the command of ''Hauptsturmführer'' Fritz Knöchlein. It took place on 27 May 1940, during the Battle of France, at a ...
, the
Maillé massacre
The Maillé Massacre refers to the murder on 25 August 1944 of 124 of the 500 residents of the commune of Maillé, Indre-et-Loire, Maillé in the department of the Indre-et-Loire. Following an ambush a few days before and in reprisals against ac ...
, and the
Ascq massacre. Large maquis where significant military operations were conducted included the
maquis du Vercors
The Battle of Vercors in July and August 1944 was between a rural group of the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) maquis''] and the armed forces of Nazi Germany which had occupied France since 1940 in the Second World War. The maquis used the pro ...
, the
maquis du Limousin
The Maquis du Limousin was one of the largest Maquis groups of French resistance fighters fighting for the liberation of France.
The region of Limousin was an active area of resistance beginning in 1940.
Edmond Michelet distributed tracts c ...
, the
maquis des Glières
The Maquis des Glières was a Free French Resistance group, which fought against the 1940–1944 German occupation of France in World War II. The name is also given to the military conflict that opposed Resistance fighters to German, Vichy and ...
, the
maquis du Mont Mouchet
The Maquis du Mont Mouchet were a group of French resistance fighters during the Second World War that were based at Mont Mouchet.
The Germans, having discovered the maquis, made several attacks up until May 1944 with about 3,000 men and using a ...
, and the
maquis de Saint-Marcel. Major round-up operations included the
Round up of Marseille and the
Vel' d'Hiv Roundup
The Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup ( ; from french: Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv', an abbreviation of ) was a mass arrest of foreign Jewish families by French police and gendarmes at the behest of the German authorities, that took place in Paris on 16 and 17 July ...
.
Although the majority of the French population did not take part in active resistance, many resisted passively through acts such as listening to the banned BBC's ''
Radio Londres'', or giving collateral or material aid to Resistance members. Others assisted in the escape of downed US or British airmen who eventually found their way back to Britain, often through Spain.
By the eve of the liberation,
numerous factions of nationalists, anarchists, communists, socialists and others, counting between 100,000 and up to 400,000 combatants, were actively fighting the occupation forces. Supported by the
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...
and the
Office of Strategic Services that air-dropped weapons and supplies, as well as infiltrating agents like
Nancy Wake
Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, (30 August 1912 – 7 August 2011), also known as Madame Fiocca and Nancy Fiocca, was a nurse and journalist who joined the French Resistance and later the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II, and ...
who provided tactical advice and specialist skills like
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
operation and
demolition, they systematically sabotaged railway lines, destroyed bridges, cut German
supply line
Supply may refer to:
*The amount of a resource that is available
**Supply (economics), the amount of a product which is available to customers
**Materiel, the goods and equipment for a military unit to fulfill its mission
*Supply, as in confidenc ...
s, and provided general intelligence to the allied forces. German anti-partisan operations claimed around 13,000-16,000 French victims, including 4,000 to 5,000 innocent civilians.
At the end of the war, some
580,000 French had died (40,000 of these by the western Allied forces during the bombardments of the first 48 hours of Operation Overlord). Military deaths were 92,000 in 1939–40. Some 58,000 were killed in action from 1940 to 1945 fighting in the
Free French
Free France (french: France Libre) was a political entity that claimed to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic. Led by French general , Free France was established as a government-in-exile ...
forces. Some 40,000 ''
malgré-nous
The term Malgré-nous (, or more figuratively 'we who are forced against our will') refers to men from Alsace–Lorraine who were conscripted into the German military after the region's annexation from France during World War II. The female term ...
'' ("against our will"), citizens of re-annexed Alsace-Lorraine drafted into the Wehrmacht, became casualties. Civilian casualties amounted to around 150,000 (60,000 by aerial bombing, 60,000 in the resistance, and 30,000 murdered by German occupation forces). Prisoners of war and deportee totals were around 1.9 million. Of this, around 240,000 died in captivity. An estimated 40,000 were prisoners of war, 100,000 racial deportees, 60,000 political prisoners and 40,000 died as slave labourers.
Propaganda
Military propaganda for European countries under occupation was headquartered in
Potsdam
Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream o ...
. There was one Propaganda battalion in each occupied country, headquartered in the main town or capital. This was further subdivided at the regional level.
Headquarters for France was at the
Hotel Majestic in Paris, with propaganda sections () in
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...
,
Dijon
Dijon (, , ) (dated)
* it, Digione
* la, Diviō or
* lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920.
The earlies ...
, and other towns.
[
A ("propaganda squadron") was a service charged by the German authorities with the propaganda and control of the French press and of publishing during the Occupation of France. Sections (, "squadron") in each important town.][
After their victory in June 1940, the occupation authorities first relied on the German embassy in Paris ( Hôtel Beauharnais) to monitor publications, shows, and radio broadcasts. They then set up the (France Propaganda Department), which developed Nazi propaganda and censorship services called ''Propagandastaffel'' in the various ]regions of France
France is divided into eighteen administrative regions (french: régions, singular ), of which thirteen are located in metropolitan France (in Europe), while the other five are overseas regions (not to be confused with the overseas colle ...
.
Each ''Propagandastaffel'' was led by a commander and employed some thirty people.[ There were (special directors) in charge of particular areas: ]censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
of shows and plays, publishing and press, cinematographic works, and public advertising and speeches.[ The directors, chosen for their skills in civil matters, wore military dress and were subject to military regulation.][
]
Civilians
The census for 1 April 1941 show 25,071,255 inhabitants in the occupied zone (with 14.2m in the unoccupied zone). This does not include the 1,600,000 prisoners of war, nor the 60,000 French workers in Germany or the departments of Alsace-Lorraine.
Daily life
The life of the French during the German occupation was marked, from the beginning, by endemic shortages. They are explained by several factors:
# One of the conditions of the armistice was to pay the costs of the 300,000-strong occupying German army, which amounted to 20 million ''Reichsmark'' per day. The artificial exchange rate of the German currency against the French franc
The franc (, ; sign: F or Fr), also commonly distinguished as the (FF), was a currency of France. Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money. It w ...
was consequently established as 1 RM to 20 FF. This allowed German requisitions and purchases to be made into a form of organised plunder and resulted in endemic food shortages and malnutrition
Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues ...
, particularly amongst children, the elderly, and the more vulnerable sections of French society such as the working urban class of the cities.
# The disorganisation of transport, except for the railway system which relied on French domestic coal supplies.
# The cutting off of international trade and the Allied blockade
A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force.
A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are leg ...
, restricting imports into the country.
# The extreme shortage of petrol and diesel fuel. France had no indigenous oil production and all imports had stopped.
# Labour shortages, particularly in the countryside, due to the large number of French prisoners of war held in Germany, and the Service du travail obligatoire
The ' ( en, Compulsory Work Service; STO) was the forced enlistment and deportation of hundreds of thousands of French workers to Nazi Germany to work as forced labour for the German war effort during World War II.
The STO was created under law ...
.
Ersatz
An ersatz good () is a substitute good, especially one that is considered inferior to the good it replaces. It has particular connotations of wartime usage.
Etymology
''Ersatz'' is a German word literally meaning ''substitute'' or ''replaceme ...
, or makeshift substitutes, took the place of many products that were in short supply; wood gas generator
A wood gas generator is a gasification unit which converts timber or charcoal into wood gas, a producer gas consisting of atmospheric nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, traces of methane, and other gases, which – after cooling and filtering ...
s on trucks and automobiles burned charcoal or wood pellets as a substitute to gasoline, and wooden soles for shoes were used instead of leather. Soap was rare and made in some households from fats and caustic soda
Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye and caustic soda, is an inorganic compound with the formula NaOH. It is a white solid ionic compound consisting of sodium cations and hydroxide anions .
Sodium hydroxide is a highly caustic base and alkali ...
. Coffee was replaced by toasted barley
Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley p ...
mixed with chicory
Common chicory (''Cichorium intybus'') is a somewhat woody, perennial herbaceous plant of the family Asteraceae, usually with bright blue flowers, rarely white or pink. Native to the Old World, it has been introduced to North America and Austra ...
, and sugar with saccharin
Saccharin (''aka'' saccharine, Sodium sacchari) is an artificial sweetener with effectively no nutritional value. It is about 550 times as sweet as sucrose but has a bitter or metallic aftertaste, especially at high concentrations. Saccharin is ...
.
The Germans seized about 80 percent of the French food production, which caused severe disruption to the household economy of the French people
The French people (french: Français) are an ethnic group and nation primarily located in Western Europe that share a common French culture, history, and language, identified with the country of France.
The French people, especially the na ...
. French farm production fell in half because of lack of fuel, fertilizer and workers; even so the Germans seized half the meat, 20 percent of the produce, and 80 percent of the Champagne
Champagne (, ) is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, that demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, ...
. Supply problems quickly affected French stores which lacked most items.
Faced with these difficulties in everyday life, the government answered by rationing
Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...
, and creating food charts and tickets which were to be exchanged for bread, meat, butter and cooking oil. The rationing system was stringent but badly managed, leading to malnourishment, black markets, and hostility to state management of the food supply. The official ration provided starvation level diets of 1,300 or fewer calories
The calorie is a unit of energy. For historical reasons, two main definitions of "calorie" are in wide use. The large calorie, food calorie, or kilogram calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of o ...
a day, supplemented by home gardens and, especially, black market purchases.
Hunger prevailed, especially affecting youth in urban areas. The queues lengthened in front of shops. In the absence of meat and other foods including potatoes, people ate unusual vegetables, such as Swedish turnip and Jerusalem artichoke
The Jerusalem artichoke (''Helianthus tuberosus''), also called sunroot, sunchoke, wild sunflower, topinambur, or earth apple, is a species of sunflower native to central North America. It is cultivated widely across the temperate zone for its ...
. Food shortages were most acute in the large cities. In the more remote country villages, however, clandestine slaughtering, vegetable gardens and the availability of milk
Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modula ...
products permitted better survival.
Some people benefited from the black market, where food was sold without tickets at very high prices. Farmers diverted especially meat to the black market, which meant that much less for the open market. Counterfeit food tickets were also in circulation. Direct buying from farmers in the countryside and barter
In trade, barter (derived from ''baretor'') is a system of exchange in which participants in a transaction directly exchange goods or services for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. Economists disti ...
against cigarettes were also frequent practices during this period. These activities were strictly forbidden, however, and thus carried out at the risk of confiscation and fines.
During the day, numerous regulations, censorship and propaganda made the occupation increasingly unbearable. At night, inhabitants had to abide a curfew
A curfew is a government order specifying a time during which certain regulations apply. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to ''not'' be in public places or on roads within a certain time frame, typically in the evening and ...
and it was forbidden to go out during the night without an '' Ausweis''. They had to close their shutters or windows and turn off any light, to prevent Allied aircraft using city lights for navigation. The experience of the Occupation was a deeply psychologically disorienting one for the French as what was once familiar and safe suddenly become strange and threatening. Many Parisians could not get over the shock experienced when they first saw the huge swastika flags draped over the Hôtel de Ville and flying on top of the Eiffel Tower. The British historian Ian Ousby wrote:
Even today, when people who are not French or did not live through the Occupation look at photos of German soldiers marching down the Champs Élysées or of Gothic-lettered German signposts outside the great landmarks of Paris, they can still feel a slight shock of disbelief. The scenes look not just unreal, but almost deliberately surreal, as if the unexpected conjunction of German and French, French and German, was the result of a Dada prank and not the sober record of history. This shock is merely a distant echo of what the French underwent in 1940: seeing a familiar landscape transformed by the addition of the unfamiliar, living among everyday sights suddenly made bizarre, no longer feeling at home in places they had known all their lives.
Ousby wrote that by the end of summer of 1940: "And so the alien presence, increasingly hated and feared in private, could seem so permanent that, in the public places where daily life went on, it was taken for granted". At the same time France was also marked by disappearances as buildings were renamed, books banned, art was stolen to be taken to Germany and as time went on, people started to vanish.
With nearly inhabitants killed and tons of bombs dropped, France was, after Germany, the second most severely bomb-devastated country on the Western Front of World War II
The Western Front was a military theatre of World War II encompassing Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. The Italian front is considered a separate but related theater. The Wester ...
. Allied bombings were particularly intense before and during Operation Overlord in 1944.
The Allies' Transportation Plan aiming at the systematic destruction of French railway marshalling yards and railway bridges, in 1944, also took a heavy toll on civilian lives. For example, the 26 May 1944 bombing hit railway targets in and around five cities in south-eastern France, causing over 2,500 civilian deaths.
Crossing the ''ligne de démarcation'' between the north zone and the south zone also required an ''Ausweis'', which was difficult to acquire. People could write only to their family members, and this was only permissible using a pre-filled card where the sender checked off the appropriate words (e.g. 'in good health', 'wounded', 'dead', 'prisoner'). The occupied zone was on German time, which was one hour ahead of the unoccupied zone. Other policies implemented in the occupied zone but not in the free zone were a curfew
A curfew is a government order specifying a time during which certain regulations apply. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to ''not'' be in public places or on roads within a certain time frame, typically in the evening and ...
from 10 p.m to 5 a.m, a ban on American films, the suppression of displaying the French flag
The national flag of France (french: link=no, drapeau français) is a tricolour featuring three vertical bands coloured blue ( hoist side), white, and red. It is known to English speakers as the ''Tricolour'' (), although the flag of Ireland ...
and singing the '' Marseillaise'', and the banning of Vichy paramilitary organizations and the Veterans' Legion.
Schoolchildren were made to sing ''" Maréchal, nous voilà !"'' ("Marshall, here we are!"). The portrait of Marshal Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), commonly known as Philippe Pétain (, ) or Marshal Pétain (french: Maréchal Pétain), was a French general who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of Worl ...
adorned the walls of classrooms, thus creating a personality cult
A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader, Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) ''Populism: A Very Short Introduction''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63. is the result of an effort which is made to create an id ...
. Propaganda was present in education to train the young people with the ideas of the new Vichy regime. However, there was no resumption in ideology as in other occupied countries, for example in Poland, where the teaching elite was liquidated. Teachers were not imprisoned and the programs were not modified overall. In the private Catholic sector, many school directors hid Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
children (thus saving their life) and provided education for them until the Liberation.
Nightlife in Paris
One month after the occupation, the bi-monthly soldiers' magazine ' (''The German Guide to Paris'') was first published by the Paris ''Kommandantur'', and became a success. Further guides, such as the ''Guide aryien'', counted e.g. the Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge (, ; ) is a cabaret in Paris, on Boulevard de Clichy, at Place Blanche, the intersection of, and terminus of Rue Blanche.
In 1889, the Moulin Rouge was co-founded by Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Ol ...
among the must-see locations in Paris.
Emotion in Motion: Tourism, Affect and Transformation
', Dr David Picard, Professor Mike Robinson, Ashgate Publishing, 2012, Famous clubs such as the Folies-Belleville or Bobino
Bobino at 20 rue de la Gaîté, in the Montparnasse area of Paris ( 14th arrondissement), France, is a music hall theatre that has seen most of the biggest names of 20th century French music perform there.
During its long history it was also ...
were also among the sought-after venues. A wide array of German units were rotated to France to rest and refit; the Germans used the motto ''"Jeder einmal in Paris"'' ("everyone once in Paris") and provided to the city for their troops. Various famous artists, such as Yves Montand
Ivo Livi (), better known as Yves Montand (; 13 October 1921 – 9 November 1991), was an Italian-French actor and singer.
Early life
Montand was born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Terme, Italy, to Giovanni Livi, a broom manufacturer, Ivo held stron ...
or later Les Compagnons de la chanson
Les Compagnons de la chanson were a French harmony vocal group from Lyon, France, founded in 1946. Their best known song was " Les trois cloches" recorded with Edith Piaf in 1946. They were a nine-member group, and they were popular in France with ...
, started their careers during the occupation. Edith Piaf
Edith is a feminine given name derived from the Old English words ēad, meaning 'riches or blessed', and is in common usage in this form in English, German, many Scandinavian languages and Dutch. Its French form is Édith. Contractions and var ...
lived above L'Étoile de Kléber, a famous bordello on the Rue Lauriston, which was near the Carlingue
The Carlingue (or French Gestapo) were French auxiliaries who worked for the Gestapo, Sicherheitsdienst and Geheime Feldpolizei during the German occupation of France in the Second World War.
The group, which was based at 93 rue Lauriston in th ...
headquarters and was often frequented by German troops. The curfew
A curfew is a government order specifying a time during which certain regulations apply. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to ''not'' be in public places or on roads within a certain time frame, typically in the evening and ...
in Paris was not upheld as strictly as in other cities.
The Django Reinhardt
Jean Reinhardt (23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953), known by his Romani nickname Django ( or ), was a Romani-French jazz guitarist and composer. He was one of the first major jazz talents to emerge in Europe and has been hailed as one of its most ...
song "Nuages
"Nuages" () is one of the best-known compositions by Django Reinhardt. He recorded at least thirteen versions of the tune, which is a jazz standard and a mainstay of the gypsy swing repertoire. English and French lyrics have been added to the pi ...
", performed by Reinhardt and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France in the Salle Pleyel
The Salle Pleyel (, meaning "Pleyel Hall") is a concert hall in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, designed by acoustician Gustave Lyon together with architect Jacques Marcel Auburtin, who died in 1926, and the work was completed in 1927 by ...
, gained notoriety among both French and German fans. Jean Reinhardt was even invited to play for the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. The use and abuse of Paris in the visitations of German forces during the Second World War led to a backlash; the intensive prostitution during the occupation made way for the ''Loi de Marthe Richard
Marthe Richard, née ''Betenfeld'' (15 August 1889, in Blâmont – 9 February 1982,) was a French politician and spy. She worked towards the closing of brothels in France in 1946.
Early life
In Nancy, France, Nancy, she became an apprentice ...
'' in 1946, which closed the bordellos and reduced raunchy stage shows to mere dancing events.
Oppression
During the German occupation, a forced labour policy, called ''Service du Travail Obligatoire
The ' ( en, Compulsory Work Service; STO) was the forced enlistment and deportation of hundreds of thousands of French workers to Nazi Germany to work as forced labour for the German war effort during World War II.
The STO was created under law ...
'' ("Obligatory work service, STO"), consisted of the requisition and transfer of hundreds of thousands of French workers to Germany against their will, for the German war effort. In addition to work camps for factories, agriculture, and railroads, forced labour was used for V-1 launch sites and other military facilities targeted by the Allies in Operation Crossbow
''Crossbow'' was the code name in World War II for Anglo-American operations against the German long range reprisal weapons (V-weapons) programme.
The main V-weapons were the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket – these were launched against Brita ...
. Beginning in 1942, many refused to be drafted to factories and farms in Germany by the STO, going underground to avoid imprisonment and subsequent deportation to Germany. For the most part, those "work dodgers" (''réfractaires'') became ''maquisards''.
There were German reprisals against civilians in occupied countries; in France, the Nazis built an execution chamber in the cellars of the former Ministry of Aviation building in Paris.
Many Jews were victims of the Holocaust in France
The Holocaust in France was the persecution, deportation, and annihilation of Jews and Roma between 1940 and 1944 in occupied France, metropolitan Vichy France, and in Vichy-controlled French North Africa, during World War II. The persecution b ...
. Approximately 49 concentration camps
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
were in use in France during the occupation, the largest of them at Drancy. In the occupied zone, as of 1942, Jews were required to wear the yellow badge
Yellow badges (or yellow patches), also referred to as Jewish badges (german: Judenstern, lit=Jew's star), are badges that Jews were ordered to wear at various times during the Middle Ages by some caliphates, at various times during the Medieva ...
and were only allowed to ride in the last carriage of the Paris Métro
The Paris Métro (french: Métro de Paris ; short for Métropolitain ) is a rapid transit system in the Paris metropolitan area, France. A symbol of the city, it is known for its density within the capital's territorial limits, uniform architec ...
. 13,152 Jews residing in the Paris region were victims of a mass arrest by pro-Nazi French authorities on 16 and 17 July 1942, known as the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup
The Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup ( ; from french: Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv', an abbreviation of ) was a mass arrest of foreign Jewish families by French police and gendarmes at the behest of the German authorities, that took place in Paris on 16 and 17 July ...
, and were transported to Auschwitz where they were killed.
Overall, according to a detailed count drawn under Serge Klarsfeld
Serge Klarsfeld (born 17 September 1935) is a Romanian-born French activist and Nazi hunter known for documenting the Holocaust in order to establish the record and to enable the prosecution of war criminals. Since the 1960s, he has made notab ...
, slightly below 77,500 of the Jews residing in France died during the war, overwhelmingly after being deported to death camps. Out of a Jewish population in France in 1940 of 350,000, this means that somewhat less than a quarter died. While horrific, the mortality rate was lower than in other occupied countries (e.g. 75 percent in the Netherlands) and, because the majority of the Jews were recent immigrants to France (mostly exiles from Germany), more Jews lived in France at the end of the occupation than did approximately 10 years earlier when Hitler formally came to power.
File:Juif.JPG, The yellow
Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the ...
Star of David made mandatory by the Vichy regime
Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...
in France.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-S59096, Plakat im Fenster eines französischen Restaurants.jpg, "Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
not admitted here". Sign outside a restaurant in Paris, rue de Choiseul.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B21356, Paris, Französinen mit Judenstern.jpg, French Jewish women wearing the yellow badge
Yellow badges (or yellow patches), also referred to as Jewish badges (german: Judenstern, lit=Jew's star), are badges that Jews were ordered to wear at various times during the Middle Ages by some caliphates, at various times during the Medieva ...
.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101II-MW-1019-07, Frankreich, Brest, Soldatenbordell.jpg, German soldiers entering a synagogue in Brest
Brest may refer to:
Places
*Brest, Belarus
**Brest Region
**Brest Airport
**Brest Fortress
* Brest, Kyustendil Province, Bulgaria
* Břest, Czech Republic
*Brest, France
** Arrondissement of Brest
**Brest Bretagne Airport
** Château de Brest
*Br ...
that has been converted into a ''Soldatenbordell'' (military brothel → German brothels in occupied France).
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H28708, Paris, Eifelturm, Besuch Adolf Hitler.jpg, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
strolling in front of the Eiffel tower
The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
Locally nicknamed "' ...
in Paris, 23 June 1940.
File:Execution chamber in the cellars of the former Ministry of Aviation building in Paris.jpg, Execution chamber inspected by a Parisian policeman and members of the FFI after the liberation.
File:Musee-de-lArmee-IMG 1058.jpg, German road signs in occupied Paris. The '' Feldgendarmerie'' was responsible for military traffic..
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J27289, Frankreich, Festnahme von Franzosen.jpg, German soldiers and captured communists, July 1944.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-074-2852-36A, Bordeaux, Platzkonzert der Wehrmacht.jpg, German army band in Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...
, 1942.
Aftermath
The Liberation of France
The liberation of France in the Second World War was accomplished through diplomacy, politics and the combined military efforts of the Allied Powers, Free French forces in London and Africa, as well as the French Resistance.
Nazi Germany inv ...
was the result of the Allied operations ''Overlord'' and ''Dragoon'' in the summer of 1944. Most of France was liberated by September 1944. Some of the heavily fortified French Atlantic coast submarine bases remained stay-behind "fortresses" until the German capitulation in May 1945. The Free French exile government declared the establishment of a provisional French Republic, ensuring continuity with the defunct Third Republic. It set about raising new troops to participate in the advance to the Rhine and the invasion of Germany, using the French Forces of the Interior
The French Forces of the Interior (french: Forces françaises de l'Intérieur) were French resistance fighters in the later stages of World War II. Charles de Gaulle used it as a formal name for the resistance fighters. The change in designation ...
as military cadres and manpower pools of experienced fighters to allow a very large and rapid expansion of the French Liberation Army (''Armée française de la Libération''). Thanks to Lend-Lease, it was well equipped and well supplied despite the economic disruption brought by the occupation, and it grew from 500,000 men in the summer of 1944 to more than 1.3 million by V-E day
Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the official end of World War II in Europe in the Easte ...
, making it the fourth largest Allied army in Europe.
The French 2nd Armored Division, tip of the spear of the Free French
Free France (french: France Libre) was a political entity that claimed to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic. Led by French general , Free France was established as a government-in-exile ...
forces that had participated in the Normandy Campaign
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Norm ...
and had liberated Paris on 25 August 1944, went on to liberate Strasbourg on 22 November 1944, thus fulfilling the Oath of Kufra
The Capture of Kufra (, it, Cufra) was part of the Allied Western Desert Campaign during the Second World War. Kufra is a group of oases in the Kufra District of south-eastern Cyrenaica in the Libyan Desert. In 1940, it was part of the colony ...
made by General Leclerc almost four years earlier. The unit under his command, barely above company-size when it had captured the Italian fort, had grown into a full-strength armoured division
Division or divider may refer to:
Mathematics
*Division (mathematics), the inverse of multiplication
*Division algorithm, a method for computing the result of mathematical division
Military
*Division (military), a formation typically consisting ...
.
The spearhead of the Free French First Army
The First Army (french: 1re Armée) was a field army of France that fought during World War I and World War II. It was also active during the Cold War.
First World War
On mobilization in August 1914, General Auguste Dubail was put in the ch ...
, that had landed in Provence on 15 August 1944, was the I Corps. Its leading unit, the French 1st Armored Division, was the first Western Allied unit to reach the Rhône
The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...
(25 August 1944), the Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, so ...
(19 November 1944) and the Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , p ...
(21 April 1945). On 22 April 1945, it captured the Sigmaringen enclave
The Sigmaringen enclave was the exiled remnant of France's Nazi-sympathizing Vichy government which fled to Germany during the Liberation of France near the end of World War II in order to avoid capture by the advancing Allied forces. ...
in Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...
, where the last Vichy regime exiles, including Marshal Pétain, were hosted by the Germans in one of the ancestral castles of the Hohenzollern dynasty.
Collaborators were put on trial in legal purges ('' épuration légale''), and a number were executed for high treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
, among them Pierre Laval
Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occ ...
, Vichy's prime minister in 1942–44. Marshal Pétain, "Chief of the French State" and Verdun
Verdun (, , , ; official name before 1970 ''Verdun-sur-Meuse'') is a large city in the Meuse department in Grand Est, northeastern France. It is an arrondissement of the department.
Verdun is the biggest city in Meuse, although the capital ...
hero, was also condemned to death (14 August 1945), but his sentence was commuted to life three days later.[by de Gaulle, then leader of the Provisional Government of the French Republic]
Thousands of collaborators were summarily executed
A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...
by local Resistance forces in so-called "savage purges" ('' épuration sauvage'').
See also
* Hôtel Terminus
The Hôtel Mercure Lyon Centre Château Perrache, originally Hôtel Terminus, then Pullman Perrache, then Château Perrache, is a hotel of the AccorHotels group built in 1906. It is located on cours de Verdun in the 2nd arrondissement of Lyon. T ...
* '' Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie''
* Paris in World War II
Paris started mobilizing for war in September 1939, when Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union
attacked Poland, but the war seemed far away until May 10, 1940, when the Germans attacked France and quickly defeated the French army. The French governme ...
Notes
Further reading
* Isabelle von Bueltzingsloewen, (ed) (2005). ''"Morts d'inanition": Famine et exclusions en France sous l'Occupation''. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
*
* Robert Gildea (2002). ''Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation 1940–1945''. London: Macmillan.
* Gerhard Hirschfeld
Gerhard Hirschfeld (born 19 September 1946 in Plettenberg, Germany) is a German historian and author. He was director (between 1989-2011) of the Stuttgart-based Library of Contemporary History, Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte / Library of Contemp ...
& Patrick Marsh (eds) (1989). ''Collaboration in France: Politics and Culture during the Nazi Occupation 1940-1944''. Berg Pub,
* Julian T. Jackson
Julian Timothy Jackson (born 10 April 1954) is a British historian who is a fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Historical Society. He is a professor of History at Queen Mary, University of London, he is one of the leading authorities ...
(2001). ''France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944''. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
.
* Shtasel, Rebecca. "Workers’ resilience in occupied France: workers in Le Havre, 1941–1942." ''French History'' 34.2 (2020): 235-252.
External links
Cliotexte: sources on collaboration and resistance
An Unwelcome Visitor is a webpage relating Hitler's triumphal tour of Paris.
{{Use dmy dates, date=February 2022
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
Jewish French history
Military history of France during World War II
Vichy France
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
Axis powers
1940 establishments in France
1944 disestablishments in France