German military administration in occupied France during World War II

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Nazi occupation of France
)
Military Administration in France
Militärverwaltung in Frankreich (German)
Administration militaire en France (French)
1940–1944
The zone occupée: German (red) and Italian (yellow) occupation zones of France, the zone libre, the zone interdite, the Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France, and annexed Alsace-Lorraine
The zone occupée: German (red) and Italian (yellow) occupation zones of France, the zone libre, the zone interdite, the Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France, and annexed Alsace-Lorraine
StatusTerritory under German military administration
CapitalParis
Common languagesGerman
French
Occitan
Military Commander 
• 1940–1942
Otto von Stülpnagel
• 1942–1944
Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel
Historical eraWorld War II
22 June 1940
11 November 1942
• Disestablished
25 August 1944
Preceded by
Succeeded by
1940:
French Third Republic
1942:
Vichy France
1943:
Italian military administration
Provisional Government of the French Republic

The Military Administration in France (German: Militärverwaltung in Frankreich; French: Administration militaire en France) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zone in areas of northern and western France. This so-called zone occupée was established in June 1940, and renamed zone nord ("north zone") in November 1942, when the previously unoccupied zone in the south known as zone libre ("free zone") was also occupied and renamed zone sud ("south zone").

Its role in France was partly governed by the conditions set by the Second Armistice at Compiègne after the blitzkrieg success of the Wehrmacht 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" (État français) replaced the French Third Republic 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 was located in the occupied zone, its government was seated in the spa town of Vichy in Auvergne, and therefore it was more commonly known as Vichy France.

While the Vichy government was nominally in charge of all of France, the military administration in the occupied zone was a de facto Nazi dictatorship. Nazi rule was extended to the free zone when it was invaded by Germany and Italy during Case Anton on 11 November 1942 in response to Operation Torch, the Allied landings in French North Africa on 8 November 1942. The Vichy government remained in existence, even though its authority was now severely reduced.

The German military administration in France ended with the Liberation of France after the Normandy 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

German soldiers march by the Arc de Triomphe on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, June 1940.

War refugees were prohibited from returning to their homes, and it was intended for German settlers and annexation[2] in the coming Nazi New Order
(Neue Ordnung).

The occupied zone (French: zone occupée, French pronunciation: [zon ɔkype], 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

laissez-passer from the German authorities to cross.[4]

German control post on the Demarcation Line,[5] 1941.

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

and Corsica
.

The Italian occupation zone was also occupied by Germany and added to the zone sud after

Free French forces
and local Italian troops that became co-belligerents of the Allies.

Administrative structure

After Germany and France agreed on an

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".[8] 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. 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.[8]

The military administration was responsible for

Kommandantur), 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

Parade of the collaborationist Milice Française, 1944.

In order to suppress partisans and resistance fighters, the military administration cooperated closely with the

round up Jews, anti-fascists and other dissidents, and vanish them into Nacht und Nebel, "Night and Fog". It also had the help of notable French collaborators like Paul Touvier and Maurice Papon, along with collaborationists French auxiliaries like the Milice, the Franc-Gardes 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 the Gestapo in seizing members of the resistance and minorities including Jews for shipment to detention centres, such as the

Buchenwald
.

Some Frenchmen also volunteered directly in German forces to fight for Germany and/or against

33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French)
.

Stanley Hoffmann in 1974,[9] and after him, other historians such as Robert Paxton and Jean-Pierre Azéma 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, writer Robert Brasillach or Marcel Déat. A principal motivation and ideological foundation among collaborationnistes was anti-communism.[9]

Occupation forces

Turkestani soldiers in northern France, October 1943.

The Wehrmacht maintained a varying number of divisions in

British Commandos 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. 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:

Anti-partisan actions

Roundup of French civilians in Le Faouët, Brittany, by German soldiers in July 1944

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
(Conseil National de la Résistance).

Moulin was eventually captured, and died under brutal torture by the Gestapo, possibly by Klaus Barbie 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

Round up of Marseille and the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup
.

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,

supply lines, 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.[11]

At the end of the war, some

Free French forces. Some 40,000 malgré-nous ("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.[12]

Propaganda

Military propaganda for European countries under occupation was headquartered in Potsdam. 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 (Staffel) in Bordeaux, Dijon, and other towns.[13]: 23 

A Propagandastaffel ("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 (Staffel, "squadron") in each important town.[13]: 23 

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 Propaganda-Abteilung Frankreich (France Propaganda Department), which developed Nazi propaganda and censorship services called Propagandastaffel in the various regions of France.[13]

Each Propagandastaffel was led by a commander and employed some thirty people.[13]: 23  There were Sonderführers (special directors) in charge of particular areas: censorship of shows and plays, publishing and press, cinematographic works, and public advertising and speeches.[13]: 23  The directors, chosen for their skills in civil matters, wore military dress and were subject to military regulation.[13]: 24 

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.[14]

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:

  1. 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
    plunder and resulted in endemic food shortages and malnutrition, particularly amongst children, the elderly, and the more vulnerable sections of French society such as the working urban class of the cities.[16]
  2. The disorganisation of transport, except for the railway system which relied on French domestic coal supplies.
  3. The cutting off of international trade and the Allied blockade, restricting imports into the country.
  4. The extreme shortage of petrol and diesel fuel. France had no indigenous oil production and all imports had stopped.
  5. 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.
Rationing tickets for the French population, July 1944.

caustic soda. Coffee was replaced by toasted barley mixed with chicory, and sugar with saccharin
.

The Germans seized about 80 percent of the

French food production, which caused severe disruption to the household economy of the French people.[17] 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.[18]
Supply problems quickly affected French stores which lacked most items.

Faced with these difficulties in everyday life, the government answered by

calories a day, supplemented by home gardens and, especially, black market purchases.[19]

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. 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 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 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 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.[20] 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.[21] 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.[22]

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".[23] 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.[24]

With nearly 75,000 inhabitants killed and 550,000 tons of bombs dropped, France was, after Germany, the second most severely bomb-devastated country on the Western Front of World War II.[25] Allied bombings were particularly intense before and during Operation Overlord in 1944.

The Allies'

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.[26]

Crossing the ligne de démarcation between the north zone and the south zone also required an Ausweis, which was difficult to acquire.

Marseillaise, and the banning of Vichy paramilitary organizations and the Veterans' Legion.[4]

Schoolchildren were made to sing "

Jewish children (thus saving their life) and provided education for them until the Liberation.[citation needed
]

Nightlife in Paris

German soldiers talking with French women by the Moulin Rouge in June 1940, shortly after the German occupation of Paris.

One month after the occupation, the bi-monthly soldiers' magazine

Edith Piaf lived above L'Étoile de Kléber, a famous bordello on the Rue Lauriston, which was near the Carlingue headquarters and was often frequented by German troops. The curfew
in Paris was not upheld as strictly as in other cities.

The

Jean Reinhardt was even invited to play for the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht.[30] 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
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

V-1 launch sites and other military facilities targeted by the Allies in Operation Crossbow. 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.[31]

Many Jews were victims of

Auschwitz where they were killed.[32]

Overall, according to a detailed count drawn under Serge Klarsfeld, slightly below 77,500 of the Jews residing in France died during the war, overwhelmingly after being deported to death camps.[33][34] 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.[35]

  • The yellow Star of David made mandatory by the Vichy regime in France.
    The
    Vichy regime
    in France.
  • "Jews not admitted here". Sign outside a restaurant in Paris, rue de Choiseul.
    "
    Jews
    not admitted here". Sign outside a restaurant in Paris, rue de Choiseul.
  • French Jewish women wearing the yellow badge.
    French Jewish women wearing the yellow badge.
  • German soldiers entering a synagogue in Brest that has been converted into a Soldatenbordell (military brothel → German brothels in occupied France).
    German soldiers entering a synagogue in Brest that has been converted into a Soldatenbordell (military brothelGerman brothels in occupied France).
  • Adolf Hitler strolling in front of the Eiffel tower in Paris, 23 June 1940.
    Eiffel tower
    in Paris, 23 June 1940.
  • Execution chamber inspected by a Parisian policeman and members of the FFI after the liberation.
    Execution chamber inspected by a Parisian policeman and members of the FFI after the liberation.
  • German road signs in occupied Paris. The Feldgendarmerie was responsible for military traffic..
    German road signs in occupied Paris. The Feldgendarmerie was responsible for military traffic..
  • German soldiers and captured communists, July 1944.
    German soldiers and captured
    communists
    , July 1944.
  • German army band in Bordeaux, 1942.
    German army band in Bordeaux, 1942.

Aftermath

The

V-E day, making it the fourth largest Allied army in Europe.[36]

as a symbol of peace and reconciliation.

The

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
.

The spearhead of the Free

Hohenzollern
dynasty.

Collaborators were put on trial in legal purges (

high treason, among them Pierre Laval, Vichy's prime minister in 1942–44. Marshal Pétain, "Chief of the French State" and Verdun hero, was also condemned to death (14 August 1945), but his sentence was commuted to life three days later.[37]
Thousands of collaborators were summarily executed by local Resistance forces in so-called "savage purges" (épuration sauvage).

See also

Notes

  1. .
  2. ^ Schöttler, Peter (2003). "'Eine Art "Generalplan West": Die Stuckart-Denkschrift vom 14. Juni 1940 und die Planungen für eine neue deutsch-französische Grenze im Zweiten Weltkrieg". Sozial.Geschichte (in German). 18 (3): 83–131.
  3. ^ ""La ligne de démarcation", Collection " Mémoire et Citoyenneté ", No.7" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 January 2020.
  4. ^ .
  5. ^ The name ligne de démarcation did not figure in the terms of the armistice, but was coined as a translation of the German Demarkationslinie.
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ « L’occupation italienne », resistance-en-isere.com. Retrieved 24 October 2008.
  8. ^ a b La convention d'armistice, sur le site de l'Université de Perpignan, mjp.univ-perp.fr, accessed 29 November 2008.
  9. ^ a b Hoffmann, Stanley (1974). "La droite à Vichy". Essais sur la France: déclin ou renouveau?. Paris: Le Seuil.
  10. ^ "The Civilian Experience in German Occupied France, 1940-1944". Connecticut College.
  11. ^ Dear and Foot 2005, p. 321.Dear; Foot (2005). The Oxford Companion to World War II. p. 321.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Military Intelligence Service (29 July 1943). "14. German Army Propaganda Units". Tactical and Technical Trends (Technical report). War Department. p. 22–24. 30. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  13. ^ g, J. (1942). "Statistiques récentes [La population de la France d'après le recensement du 1er avril 1941]". Annales de Géographie. 51 (286): 155–156.
  14. ^ The American Historical Association. ""Book Review of Morts d'inanition: Famine et exclusions en France sous l'Occupation"". Retrieved 15 December 2007.
  15. ^ Marie Helen Mercier and J. Louise Despert. "Effects of War on French children" (PDF). Retrieved 15 December 2007.
  16. ^ E. M. Collingham, The Taste of War: World War Two and the Battle for Food (2011)
  17. ^ Kenneth Mouré, "Food Rationing and the Black Market in France (1940-1944)", French History, June 2010, Vol. 24 Issue 2, pp. 272-273
  18. ^ Mouré, "Food Rationing and the Black Market in France (1940-1944)" pp 262-282,
  19. ^ Ousby, Ian Occupation The Ordeal of France, 1940-1944, New York: CooperSquare Press, 2000 pages 157-159.
  20. ^ Ousby, Ian Occupation The Ordeal of France, 1940-1944, New York: CooperSquare Press, 2000 page 159.
  21. ^ Ousby, Ian Occupation The Ordeal of France, 1940-1944, New York: CooperSquare Press, 2000 page 158.
  22. ^ Ousby, Ian Occupation The Ordeal of France, 1940-1944, New York: CooperSquare Press, 2000 page 170.
  23. ^ Ousby, Ian Occupation The Ordeal of France, 1940-1944, New York: CooperSquare Press, 2000 pages 171, 18 & 187-189.
  24. ^ Centre d'études d'histoire de la défense, Les bombardements alliés sur la France durant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, Stratégies, bilans matériels et humains, Conference of 6 June 2007, Defense.gouv.fr Archived 2 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 5 November 2009
  25. ^ See French language Wikipedia article fr:bombardement du 26 mai 1944
  26. ^ Hetch, Emmanuel (October 2013). "Le Guide du soldat allemand à Paris, ou comment occuper Fritz". L'Express (in French). Retrieved 23 October 2013.
  27. .
  28. ^ "NAZI PERSECUTION". Imperial War Museum. 2011. Retrieved 18 April 2012.
  29. ^ Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence: Case Study: The Vélodrome d'Hiver Round-up: July 16 and 17, 1942
  30. ^ Summary from data compiled by the Association des Fils et Filles des déportés juifs de France, 1985.
  31. ^ Azéma, Jean-Pierre and Bédarida, François (dir.), La France des années noires, 2 vol., Paris, Seuil, 1993 [rééd. Seuil, 2000 (Points Histoire)]
  32. ISSN 0046-757X
  33. .
  34. ^ by de Gaulle, then leader of the Provisional Government of the French Republic

Further reading

External links