TheArmistice of 22 June 1940, sometimes referred to as theSecond Armistice at Compiègne, was an agreement signed at 18:36 on 22 June 1940[1] nearCompiègne,France by officials ofNazi Germany and theFrench Third Republic. It became effective at midnight on 25 June. Signatories for Germany included Colonel GeneralWilhelm Keitel, head of the German armed forces (OKW),[2] while those on the French side held lower ranks, led by GeneralCharles Huntziger.[1]
Following the decisive German victory in theBattle of France, thearmistice establisheda German occupation zone in Northern and Western France that encompassed about three-fifths ofFrance's European territory, including allEnglish Channel andAtlantic Ocean ports. The remainder of the country was to be left unoccupied, althoughthe new regime that replaced the Third Republic was mutually recognised as the legitimate government of all of Metropolitan France exceptAlsace–Lorraine.
The French were also permitted to retain control of all of their non-European territories. Adolf Hitler deliberately choseCompiègne Forest as the site to sign the armistice because of its symbolic role as the site of theArmistice of 11 November 1918 that signaled the end ofWorld War I with Germany's surrender.
The best, most modernised French armies had been sent north and lost in the resulting encirclement; the French had lost their best heavy weaponry and their best armoured formations. Between May and June, French forces were in general retreat and Germany threatened to occupyParis. The French government was forced to relocate toBordeaux on 10 June to avoid capture and declared Paris to be anopen city the same day.
The proposal of aFranco-British Union to shore up support forPaul Reynaud's government following the fall of Paris split support. With many pro-Armistice ministers in the cabinet, such as the Deputy Prime MinisterPhilippe Pétain, and the commander-in-chief of the French Army General Weygand, Reynaud resigned on 16 June. Pétain became prime minister. While French resistance continued with theFree French Forces led byCharles de Gaulle, the surrender ofMetropolitan France ended any further attempts by the British to unite the two countries.
By 22 June, the German Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) had losses of 27,000 dead, more than 111,000 wounded and 18,000 missing. French losses were 92,000 dead and more than 200,000 wounded. TheBritish Expeditionary Force suffered 68,000 casualties, with around 10,000 killed[citation needed].
When Adolf Hitler received word from the French government that it wished to negotiate anarmistice, he selected Compiègne Forest as the place for the negotiations. Compiègne had been the site of the1918 Armistice, which endedWorld War I with Germany's surrender. As an act ofrevenge Hitler held the signing in theCompiègne Wagon, thesame rail carriage where the Germans had signed the 1918 Armistice. The preamble describes the German view of the World War I Armistice, including accusations of Allied breaches. The preamble states, "On 11 November 1918, in this railcar, the time of suffering for the German people began."[3] The preamble goes on to claim that the choice of the forest of Compiègne for this new armistice will re-establish "justice", and end Germany's "deepest humiliation".
In the last sentence of the preamble, the drafters inserted: "However, Germany does not have the intention to use the armistice conditions and armistice negotiations as a form of humiliation against such a valiant opponent", referring to the French forces. In Article 3, Clause 2, the drafters said that Germany did not intend to heavily occupy north-west France after the cessation of hostilities withBritain.[4]
William Shirer, who was present on that day, reported, "I am but fifty yards from him. [...] I have seen that face many times at the great moments of his life. But today! It is afire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, triumph."[5] Then, on 21 June 1940, in the same railway carriage in which the 1918 Armistice had been signed (removed from a museum building and placed exactly where it was in 1918), Hitler sat in the same chair in which MarshalFerdinand Foch had sat when he faced the representatives of the defeatedGerman Empire. After listening to the reading of the preamble, Hitler—in a calculated gesture of disdain for the French delegates—exited the carriage, as Foch had done in 1918, leaving the negotiations to the chief of theOberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces), GeneralWilhelm Keitel. The negotiations lasted one day, until the evening of 22 June 1940: General Huntziger had to discuss the terms by phone with the French government representatives, who had fled to Bordeaux, mainly with the newly nominated defence minister, GeneralMaxime Weygand.
Adolf Hitler had a number of reasons for agreeing to an armistice. He wanted to ensure that France did not continue to fight fromFrench North Africa, and he wanted to ensure that the French Navy was taken out of the war. In addition, leaving a French government in place would relieve Germany of the considerable burden of administering French territory, particularly as he turned his attentions towards Britain. Finally, as Germany lackeda navy sufficient to occupy France's overseas territories, Hitler's only practical recourse to deny the British use of them was to maintain a formally independent and neutral French rump state.[citation needed]
According toWilliam Shirer's bookRise and Fall of the Third Reich, French GeneralCharles Huntziger complained that the armistice terms imposed on France were harsher than those imposed on Germany in 1918. They provided for German occupation of three-fifths of metropolitan France north and west of a line through Geneva and Tours and extending to the Spanish border, so as to giveNazi Germany'sKriegsmarine access to all FrenchChannel andAtlantic ports. All people who had been granted political asylum had to be surrendered and high occupation costs were demanded of France by Germany, approximately 400 millionFrench francs a day. A minimalFrench Army would be permitted. As one of Hitler's few concessions, theFrench Navy was to be disarmed but not surrendered, for Hitler realised that pushing France too far could result in France fighting on from theFrench colonial empire. An unoccupied region in the south, theZone libre, was left relatively free to be governed bya rump French administration based inVichy. The Vichy regime also administered the occupied zones (other thanAlsace-Lorraine) to some extent, albeit under severe restrictions.
This was envisaged as a temporary treaty until a final peace treaty was negotiated. At the time, both French and Germans thought the occupation would be a provisional state of affairs and last only until Britain came to terms, which they both thought was imminent.[citation needed] For instance, none of the French delegation objected to the stipulation thatFrench soldiers would remain prisoners of war until the cessation of all hostilities. Nearly 1,000,000 Frenchmen were thus forced to spend the next five years in German POW camps. About a third of the initial 1,500,000 prisoners taken were released or exchanged as part of the Germans'Service du Travail Obligatoire forced labour programme by the time the war ended.[6]
A final peace treaty was never negotiated, and the free zone (zone libre) was invaded by Germany and its ally Italy inCase Anton following the invasion of French North Africa by the Allies in November 1942.
Article 19 of the Franco-German armistice required the French state to turn over to German authorities any German national on French territory, who would then frequently face deportation to a concentration camp (the "Surrender on Demand" clause).[7] Keitel gave verbal assurances that this would apply mainly to those refugees who had "fomented the war", a euphemism for Jews, and especially German Jews who until then had enjoyed asylum in France. Keitel also made one other concession, that French aircraft need not be handed over to the Germans.[8]
The French delegation—led by GeneralCharles Huntziger—tried to soften the harsher terms of the armistice, but Keitel replied that they would have to accept or reject the armistice as it was. Given the military situation that France was in, Huntziger had "no choice" but to accede to the armistice terms. The cease-fire went into effect at 00:35 on 25 June 1940, more than two days later, only afteranother armistice was signed between France and Italy, the main German ally in Europe.
The armistice did have some relative advantages for the French, compared to worse possible outcomes, such as keeping the colonial empire and the fleet, and, by avoiding full occupation and disarmament, the remaining French rump state in the unoccupied zone could enforce a certainde facto independence and neutrality vis-à-vis the Axis.[citation needed]
The Armistice site was demolished by the Germans on Hitler's orders three days later.[9] The carriage itself was taken to Berlin as a trophy of war, along with pieces of a large stone tablet. TheAlsace-Lorraine Monument (depicting aGerman Eagle impaled by a sword) was also destroyed and all evidence of the site was obliterated, except notably the statue ofFerdinand Foch; Hitler ordered it to be left intact, so that it would be honoring only a wasteland. The railway carriage was later exhibited in Berlin, and then taken toCrawinkel inThuringia in 1945, where it was destroyed by SS troops and the remains buried. After the war, the site and memorials were restored byGerman POW labour.[citation needed]
49°25′39″N02°54′22″E / 49.42750°N 2.90611°E /49.42750; 2.90611
