Military Administration in France | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1940–1944 | |||||||||||||
 Thezone occupée: German (red) andItalian (yellow) occupation zones of France, thezone libre, thezone interdite, theMilitary Administration in Belgium and Northern France, and annexedAlsace-Lorraine | |||||||||||||
| Status | Territory underGerman military administration | ||||||||||||
| Capital | Paris | ||||||||||||
| Common languages | German French | ||||||||||||
| Military Commander | |||||||||||||
• 1940–1942 | Otto von Stülpnagel | ||||||||||||
• 1942–1944 | Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel | ||||||||||||
| Historical era | World War II | ||||||||||||
| 22 June 1940 | |||||||||||||
| 11 November 1942 | |||||||||||||
• Disestablished | 25 August 1944 | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
TheMilitary Administration in France[1] was aninterim occupation authority established byNazi Germany duringWorld War II to administer the occupied zone in areas of northern and westernFrance. This so-calledzone occupée was established in June 1940, and renamedzone nord ("north zone") in November 1942, when the previously unoccupied zone in the south known aszone libre ("free zone") was also occupied and renamedzone sud ("south zone").
Its role in France was partly governed by the conditions set by theArmistice of 22 June 1940 after theblitzkrieg success of theWehrmacht leading to theFall 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 itssoldiers would remain prisoners of war until the cessation of all hostilities.
The "French State" (État français) replaced theFrench 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. AsParis was located in the occupied zone, its government was seated in the spa town ofVichy inAuvergne, and therefore it was more commonly known asVichy France.
While the Vichy government was nominally in charge of all of France, the military administration in the occupied zone was ade facto Nazi dictatorship, where the actual sovereignty of the French government was seriously limited. Nazi rule was extended to the free zone when it was invaded by Germany and Italy duringCase Anton on 11 November 1942 in response toOperation Torch, the Allied landings inFrench 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 theLiberation of France after theNormandy andProvence 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.
Alsace-Lorraine had been annexed after theFranco-Prussian war in 1871 by theGerman Empire and returned to France after the First World War. It wasre-annexed by theThird Reich (thussubjecting their male population to German military conscription.) The departments ofNord and Pas-de-Calais were attached to themilitary administration in Belgium and Northern France, which was also responsible[2] for civilian affairs in the 20-kilometre (12 mi) widezone interdite along the Atlantic coast. Another "forbidden zone" wereareas in north-eastern France, corresponding toLorraine and roughly about half each ofFranche-Comté,Champagne andPicardie.War refugees were prohibited from returning to their homes, and it was intended for Germansettlers and annexation[3] in the coming NaziNew Order (Neue Ordnung).
The occupied zone (French:zone occupée,French pronunciation:[zonɔkype],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 ofAquitaine along the Atlantic coast, became thezone libre ("free zone"), where theVichy regime remained sovereign as an independent state, though under heavy German influence due to the restrictions of the Armistice (including a heavy tribute) and economic 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.[4] Thedemarcation line between the free zone and the occupied zone was a de facto border, necessitating special authorisation and alaissez-passer from the German authorities to cross.[5]
These restrictions remained in place after Vichy was occupied and the zone renamedzone sud ("south zone"), and also placed under military administration in November 1942.
TheItalian occupation zone consisted of small areas along theAlps border, and a 50-kilometre (31 mi) demilitarised zone along the same. It was expanded to all territory on the left bank of theRhône river after its invasion together with Germany of Vichy France on 11 November 1942, except for areas aroundLyon andMarseille, which were added to Germany'szone sud,and Corsica.[7][8]
The Italian occupation zone was also occupied by Germany and added to thezone sud afterItaly's surrender in September 1943, except for Corsica,which was liberated by the landings ofFree French forces and local Italian troops that became co-belligerents of the Allies.
After Germany and France agreed on anarmistice following the defeats of May and June,Colonel GeneralWilhelm Keitel andGeneral Charles Huntzinger, representatives of theThird Reich and of the French government of MarshalPhilippe Pétain respectively, signed it on 22 June 1940 at the Rethondes clearing inCompiègne Forest. As it was done at the same place and in the same railroad carriage where thearmistice ending the First World War when Germany surrendered, it is known as theSecond 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".[9] TheFrench 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 anoccupying 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.[9]
The military administration was responsible forcivil affairs in occupied France. It was divided intoKommandanturen (singularKommandantur), in decreasing hierarchical orderOberfeldkommandanturen,Feldkommandanturen,Kreiskommandanturen, andOrtskommandanturen.German naval affairs in France were coordinated through a central office known as theHöheres 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 theAdmiral Frankreich. AfterCase Anton, the "Admiral Frankreich" naval command was broken apart into smaller offices which answered directly to the operational command ofNavy Group West.
In order to suppress partisans and resistance fighters, the military administration cooperated closely with theGestapo, theSicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence service of theSS, and theSicherheitspolizei (SiPo), 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, toround up Jews, anti-fascists and other dissidents, and vanish them intoNacht und Nebel, "Night and Fog". It also had the help of notable French collaborators likePaul Touvier andMaurice Papon, along with collaborationists French auxiliaries like theMilice, theFranc-Gardes and theLegionary Order Service. The two main collaborationist political parties were theFrench Popular Party (PPF) and theNational Popular Rally (RNP), each with 20,000 to 30,000 members.
TheMilice participated with the Gestapo in seizing members of the resistance and minorities including Jews for shipment to detention centres, such as theDrancy internment camp, en route toAuschwitz, and other German concentration camps, includingDachau,Buchenwald andMauthausen.
Some Frenchmen also volunteered directly in German forces to fight for Germany and/or againstBolsheviks, such as theLegion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism. Volunteers from this and other outfits later constituted the cadre of the33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SSCharlemagne (1st French).
Stanley Hoffmann in 1974,[10] and after him, other historians such asRobert Paxton andJean-Pierre Azéma have used the termcollaborationnistes 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 leaderJacques Doriot, writerRobert Brasillach orMarcel Déat. A principal motivation and ideological foundation amongcollaborationnistes wasanti-communism.[10]
The Wehrmacht maintained a varying number of divisions inFrance. 100,000 Germans were in the whole of the German-zone in France in December 1941.[11] When the bulk of the Wehrmacht was fighting on theeastern 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 theDieppe raid marking its real beginning. The actions of Canadian andBritish Commandos against German troops brought Hitler to condemn them asirregular warfare. In hisCommando Order he denied them lawful combatant status, and ordered them to be handed over to theSS security service when captured and liable to besummarily executed. As the war went on, garrisoning theAtlantic Wall and suppressing the resistance became heavier and heavier duties.
Some notable units and formations stationed in France during the occupation:
The "Appeal of 18 June" by de Gaulle'sFree France government in exile in London had little immediate effect, and few joined itsFrench Forces of the Interior beyond those that had already gone into exile to join the Free French. After theinvasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, theFrench communist party, hitherto under orders from theComintern to remain passive against the German occupiers, began to mount actions against them. De Gaulle sentJean Moulin back to France as his formal link to the irregulars throughout the occupied country to coordinatethe eight majorRésistance groups into one organisation. Moulin got their agreement to form theNational Council of the Resistance (Conseil National de la Résistance).
Moulin was eventually captured, and died under brutal torture by theGestapo. The resistance intensified after it became clear the tide of war had shifted after the Reich's defeat atStalingrad in early 1943 and, by 1944, large remote areas were out of the German military's control and free zones for themaquisards, so-called after themaquis shrubland that provided ideal terrain forguerrilla warfare.
The most important anti-partisan action was theBattle of Vercors. The most infamous one was theOradour-sur-Glane massacre. Other notable atrocities committed were theTulle massacre, theLe Paradis massacre, theMaillé massacre, and theAscq massacre. Large maquis where significant military operations were conducted included themaquis du Vercors, themaquis du Limousin, themaquis des Glières, themaquis du Mont Mouchet, and themaquis de Saint-Marcel. Major round-up operations included theRound up of Marseille and theVel' 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'sRadio 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 theSpecial Operations Executive and theOffice of Strategic Services that air-dropped weapons and supplies, as well as infiltrating agents likeNancy Wake who provided tactical advice and specialist skills likeradio operation anddemolition, they systematically sabotaged railway lines, destroyed bridges, cut Germansupply 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.[12]
At the end of the war, some580,000 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 theFree French forces. Some 40,000malgré-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.[13]
Military propaganda for European countries under occupation was headquartered inPotsdam. 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 theHotel Majestic in Paris, with propaganda sections (Staffel) inBordeaux,Dijon, and other towns.[14]: 23
APropagandastaffel ("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.[14]: 23
After their victory inJune 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 thePropaganda-Abteilung Frankreich (France Propaganda Department), which developed Nazi propaganda and censorship services calledPropagandastaffel in the variousregions of France.[14]
EachPropagandastaffel was led by a commander and employed some thirty people.[14]: 23 There wereSonderführers (special directors) in charge of particular areas:censorship of shows and plays, publishing and press, cinematographic works, and public advertising and speeches.[14]: 23 The directors, chosen for their skills in civil matters, wore military dress and were subject to military regulation.[14]: 24
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.[15]
The life of the French during the German occupation was marked, from the beginning, by endemic shortages. They are explained by several factors:
Ersatz, or makeshift substitutes, took the place of many products that were in short supply;wood gas generators 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 andcaustic soda. Coffee was replaced by toastedbarley mixed withchicory, and sugar withsaccharin.
The Germans seized about 80 percent of theFrench food production, which caused severe disruption to the household economy of theFrench people.[18] 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 theChampagne.[19] Supply problems quickly affected French stores which lacked most items.
Faced with these difficulties in everyday life, the government answered byrationing, 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 fewercalories a day, supplemented by home gardens and, especially, black market purchases.[20]
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 asSwedish turnip andJerusalem artichoke. Food shortages were most acute in the large cities. In the more remote country villages, however, clandestine slaughtering, vegetable gardens and the availability ofmilk products permitted better survival.
Some people benefited from theblack 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 andbarter againstcigarettes 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 acurfew and it was forbidden to go out during the night without anAusweis. 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.[21] 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.[22] The British historianIan 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.[23]
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".[24] 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.[25]
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 theWestern Front of World War II.[26] Allied bombings were particularly intense before and duringOperation Overlord in 1944.
The Allies'Transportation Plan aiming at the systematic destruction of French railwaymarshalling 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.[27]
Crossing theligne de démarcation between the north zone and the south zone also required anAusweis, which was difficult to acquire.[5] 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').[5] The occupied zone was on German time, which was one hour ahead of the unoccupied zone.[5] Other policies implemented in the occupied zone but not in the free zone were acurfew from 10 p.m to 5 a.m, a ban on American films, the suppression of displaying theFrench flag and singing theMarseillaise, and the banning of Vichy paramilitary organizations and the Veterans' Legion.[5]
Schoolchildren were made to sing"Maréchal, nous voilà !" ("Marshall, here we are!"). The portrait of MarshalPhilippe Pétain adorned the walls of classrooms, thus creating apersonality cult. Propaganda was present in education to train the young people with theideas of the new Vichy regime. However, there was no resumption in ideology as in other occupied countries, for examplein 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 hidJewish children (thus saving their life) and provided education for them until the Liberation.[citation needed]
One month after the occupation, the bi-monthly soldiers' magazineDer Deutsche Wegleiter für Paris [fr] (The German Guide to Paris) was first published by the ParisKommandantur, and became a success.[28] Further guides, such as theGuide aryien, counted e.g. theMoulin Rouge among the must-see locations in Paris.[29] Famous clubs such as theFolies-Belleville orBobino 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"recreational visits"[clarify] to the city for their troops.[30] Various famous artists, such asYves Montand or laterLes Compagnons de la chanson, started their careers during the occupation.Edith Piaf lived aboveL'Étoile de Kléber, a famous bordello on the Rue Lauriston, which was near theCarlingue headquarters and was often frequented by German troops. Thecurfew in Paris was not enforced as strictly as in other cities.
TheDjango Reinhardt song "Nuages", performed by Reinhardt and theQuintet of the Hot Club of France in theSalle Pleyel, gained notoriety among both French and German fans.Jean Reinhardt was even invited to play for theOberkommando der Wehrmacht.[31] 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 theLoi deMarthe Richard in 1946, which closed the bordellos and reduced raunchy stage shows to mere dancing events.
During the German occupation, a forced labour policy, calledService du Travail Obligatoire ("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 forV-1 launch sites and other military facilities targeted by the Allies inOperation 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) becamemaquisards.
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.[32]
Many Jews were victims ofthe Holocaust in France. Approximately 49concentration camps were in use in France during the occupation, the largest of them atDrancy. In the occupied zone, as of 1942, Jews were required to wear theyellow badge and were only allowed to ride in the last carriage of theParis Métro. 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 theVel' d'Hiv Roundup, and were transported toAuschwitz where they were killed.[33]
Overall, according to a detailed count drawn underSerge Klarsfeld, slightly below 77,500 of the Jews residing in France died during the war, overwhelmingly after being deported todeath camps.[34][35] 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.[36]
TheLiberation of France was the result of the Allied operationsOverlord andDragoon in the summer of 1944. Most of France was liberated by September 1944. Some of the heavily fortifiedFrench Atlantic coast submarine bases remainedstay-behind "fortresses" until the German capitulation in May 1945. TheFree French exile government declared the establishment of aprovisional French Republic, ensuring continuity with the defunct Third Republic. It set about raising new troops to participate in theadvance to the Rhine and theinvasion of Germany, using theFrench Forces of the Interior asmilitary 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 toLend-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 byV-E day, making it the fourth largest Allied army in Europe.[37]
TheFrench 2nd Armored Division, tip of the spear of theFree French forces that had participated in theNormandy Campaign and hadliberated Paris on 25 August 1944, went on toliberate Strasbourg on 22 November 1944, thus fulfilling theOath of Kufra made by GeneralLeclerc almost four years earlier. The unit under his command, barely abovecompany-size when it had captured the Italian fort, had grown into a full-strength armoureddivision.
The spearhead of the FreeFrench First Army, that hadlanded in Provence on 15 August 1944, was theI Corps. Its leading unit, theFrench 1st Armored Division, was the first Western Allied unit to reach theRhône (25 August 1944), theRhine (19 November 1944) and theDanube (21 April 1945). On 22 April 1945, it captured theSigmaringen enclave inBaden-Württemberg, where the last Vichy regime exiles, including Marshal Pétain, were hosted by the Germans in one of the ancestral castles of theHohenzollern dynasty.
Collaborators were put on trial in legal purges (épuration légale), and a number were executed forhigh treason, among themPierre Laval, Vichy's prime minister in 1942–44. Marshal Pétain, "Chief of the French State" andVerdun hero, was also condemned to death (14 August 1945), but his sentence was commuted to life three days later.[38]Thousands of collaborators weresummarily executed by local Resistance forces in so-called "savage purges" (épuration sauvage).
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