Living under German occupation or under Vichy

Well, time somebody started this board off.

Obviously, the French "home front" meant living under the direct rule of the Germans or, at least until November 1942, for some of the French living under Vichy.

Particularly in many smaller rural communities, the physical German presence was minimal, yet life was hard, there were shortages and there were many petty restrictions.

Only a minority took part in resistance and of that minority, quite a small percentage were part of it before 1944.

The reality was, then, survival under occupation and in the aftermath of defeat.

So who wants to look in more detail at aspects of resistance and survival in wartime France?

 

During the Occupation of France, German soldiers were forbidden to loot and steal from any French Citizens, they also had strict orders to be respectfull to all French Citizens. Look at pictures of German soldiers in Paris, there buying soveniers and helping carry bundles for old ladies. The German High Command wanted the people of France to see that the Germans were good people and that they were respectfull. The French Resistance was a small element in the country and often had to depend on stolen/surplus supplies and supplies airdropped in by the RAF.
Not everyone in France was a member of the French Resistance but they would help them in many cases, such as hiding them or giving them food.

 

I have a small volume of Picasso prints produced in France during WWII. Don't get carried away, it is in poor condition and isn't worth a lot.

It did make me think, though, about how a foreigner (Spanish), of his politican views (member of the Communist Party for a time after WWII) and modernist of the art world, out of favour with the Germans and Vichy could survive in wartime France. I don't know how rich he was then and these prints may have been a way of raising money to live on.

 

Originally posted by angie999@May 16 2004, 06:31 PM
Only a minority took part in resistance and of that minority, quite a small percentage were part of it before 1944.
Actually, a lot of people "entered" in Résistance two minutes before the UK or the US troops entered in a town ! We call them "the résistants of the last hour..." But the "true" résistants agents kept in the shadow and didn't really talk about their fights during german occupation.

This periode is very dark for french people cause to the governement of Vichy and the "collaboration"... The epuration of 1944/45 stays also in the memory...

French population is actually discovering the true story 60 years after... and hot discusses started !!

cheers,

 

Originally posted by julien@Jun 14 2004, 08:39 AM

French population is actually discovering the true story 60 years after... and hot discusses started !!


On a visit to the la Coupole V2 site on the outskirts of St Omer a while back, I was impressed by the amount of books on sale about the wartime years in the Nord-Pas de Calais region. Very few if any have been translated for sale in the English speaking world. It does make you realise what a big topic it has become in France.

 

Originally posted by julien@Jun 14 2004, 03:39 AM


This periode is very dark for french people cause to the governement of Vichy and the "collaboration"... The epuration of 1944/45 stays also in the memory...


I read that both Maurice Chevalier and Coco Chanel collaborated with the Germans, and that Chanel even had to go to Switzerland for a short time to escape reprisals after liberation.

However, I read this on the internet, so I do not know how accurate the information is. Can anyone confirm, or deny, it?

 

Originally posted by julien@Jun 14 2004, 03:39 AM


This periode is very dark for french people cause to the governement of Vichy and the "collaboration"... The epuration of 1944/45 stays also in the memory...

I suspect that the Vichy Regime was, in many ways, harsh.

I have relatives who are French, and lived then in the Lyon area. I have read some letters that they wrote to the English branch of the family in the early part of the war. These letters, which came via the Red Cross, say nothing much really.

Although letters they remind me of the cards soldiers sent home - the kind where they crossed out what did not apply. I am well, I am sick etc etc

 

Few weeks ago, I have spoken with a woman for was a Resistant agent and who was send at Ravensbruck. Today she still angry only against the Vichy's police who arrested her and tortured her very badly. After this, they send her to the Germans. It was like a civil war, french people who fought with french people... At the museum in Tourcoing, we have a letter of a man who wrote : "My neightbour XXX hide a GB parachutist and the night, they both go out to murder germans..." During the war, if you didn't like your neightbour or your child's teacher, you could write a letter to gestapo or the Vichy's police and denounced him. It was very terrible. And it was the same at the Liberation, a lot of men or women were denounced like "collorateur" by error et were punished by wild trials !!

 

I'm still learning alot about the war, particularly in Britain, and have since started to look into more about what life was like in France. I'm by no means an expert, so I'm glad I found this thread.

If I understand correctly, the Vichy kind of "sided" with Germany, while the rest was occupied. I would love to no more about what was gained by the Vichy, and what people would do to ensure it thrived.

Were people more willing to work with Germany in hopes to save lives after the devastating losses they suffered during the first war?

I recently saw a movie called Charlotte Gray, with Cate Blanchett. She played a British Spy in France. The movie portryed the Vichy as real scoundrels, doing almost anything to appease German superiors? Is this an accurate description?

I'd love to know more about this. Any input you guys and gals had would be greatly appreciated and enjoyed. Thank you.

 

This is an interesting thread.It is difficult to have any discussion about the Vichy regime without mentioning Petain.

The German occupation of France was brutal even though the Vichy regime was more than sympathetic to the Germans.Indeed Petain in a speech made after meeting Hitler at Montoire on the Loire in October 1940 said "I am today setting out along the road of collaboration".This was not enough for the Nazi as the Vichy regime had to meet the occupation bill of having German troops in France.Additionally young men and women were rounded up and transported to Germany as forced labour. French industry was harnessed by the Hitler, turning out vast amounts of war material.The reason why the leading car manufacturer,
Renault had his business requisitioned by De Gaulle, post war, was that Renault was an economic collaborator.

The best documentary to accompany any reading is Marcel Ophuls classsic documentary "The Sorrow and the Pity".Set in the town of Clermont Ferrand in the Auvergne, the documentary relates the life of the French under the German occupation.The resistance,the Vichy Milce,the German occupation troops from November 1942 and the ordinary citizen is on stage.

Marechal Petain openly wished for a German victory and saw the future of France lying with Hitler and his Greater Germany.Vichy France did more than appease the anti semitic policy of the Nazis and was a willing partner in rounding up the Jews and transporting them to the death camps.This man was not the same man who gave victory to the French at Verdun and is the reason he lies on the Ile d' Yeu and not alongside his fallen army at Verdun.

It is a fact that the rate of French joining the Milice and other Vichy organisations did not decline even after the Normandy invasions. Some citzens would say that they were always members of the resistance from the early days of the occupation.It inevitable that people would want to be associated with the winning side and profess their past loyality.However it was the resistance, this small number which De Gaulle motivated and co-ordinated,the Allies armed and DeGaulle's involvement and claim to represent the true interests of France that resulted in France being a liberated country and not an occupied enemy country.

 

Originally posted by Harry Ree@Jul 3 2004, 10:41 AM
This is an interesting thread.It is difficult to have any discussion about the Vichy regime
Apt name!

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SOEree.htm

 

I often think that the Attack on the French fleet In Algeria by the Royal Navy, Killing 1300 ( I think this is the correct number please feel free to correct me if I am wrong) French sailors, Went a long way to pushing Petain closer to the Nazi's.

Brum

 

Originally posted by Brummy@Jul 3 2004, 04:06 PM
I often think that the Attack on the French fleet In Algeria by the Royal Navy, Killing 1300 ( I think this is the correct number please feel free to correct me if I am wrong) French sailors, Went a long way to pushing Petain closer to the Nazi's.

Brum
I don't agree with this. I think the Vichy regime did not need a push to collaborate.

 

With this being the opening act of actual hot blooded war between Britain and Vichy France, And with the Vichy government making very real retaliations, breaking off diplomatic relations with Britain, Sinking the Destroyer Whirlwind off Gibralter and taking British merchant ships. I can not help but come to the conclusion that this act turned the Government of Vichy France from an element, that was at least talking to the Uk, to one that was at war with the UK and therefore now a very real military ally of Nazi Germany. Perhaps they did not need a push, but this was definately giving them one wether they needed it or not.

Brum

 

On the fall of France,Petain and Laval stated publicly that they wish for a German victory.They thought that it was only a matter of time when the British Isles would be invaded and overcome by a German invasion.Later on after the German invasion of Russia, the Vichy regime saw themselves along with the Nazi regime as the only opposition to a Europe dominated by Soviet Russia and its communism. Make no mistake,the Vichy Government was a right wing organisation who saw the problems of pre war France as those caused by the rule of democracy.It was a puppet government which followed every beck and call of its masters in Berlin.

An interesting fact of this period is that the US were one of the first neutrals to recognise the Vichy Government. After the US entered the war and after it was apparent that the Vichy Government would not survive for its collaboration,the US backed General Giraud and with US approval wanted to utilise prominent Vichyites.De Gaulle would have none of this and successfully prosecuted the the Vichyites who had made themselves readily accessible in Algeria.Giraud was only interested in military affairs and not the wider political issues that De Gaulle focused on and quickly withdrew from the stage on a principle of unity, leaving De Gaulle to represent the resistance to German occupation and the true interests of a free France.

FDR preferred Giraud to De Gaulle as the Free French representative but was forced to recognise De Gaulle as the person who had co-ordinated and organised resistance to the German invader.Even so, De Gaulle was not told that an allied invasion had taken place on Frence soil on 6 June 1944.

Had the Vichy Government not been undermined by De Gaulle and through him, a resistance established then France would have been an occupied country, ruled by an Allied Military Government after the successful invasion of 1944.

 

Originally posted by Harry Ree@Jul 12 2004, 11:52 PM
Had the Vichy Government not been undermined by De Gaulle and through him, a resistance established then France would have been an occupied country, ruled by an Allied Military Government after the successful invasion of 1944.
The Americans in particular set up an AMGOT (Allied Military Govenment of the Occupied Territories) organisation ready to step in in France. They even printed new currency. But the fact that the Free French had their own people in place to step in and sieze control of the government machinery meant that AMGOT never stood a chance in France.

And once the landings in the South of France took place, France had an army in the field, in addition to Leclerc's 2e DB which landed in Normandy.

 

I wander if you have seen a harrowing french drama Le Vieux fusil (1975) ? It is set in southern France in the last days of german occupation.

 

I found it quite disturbing to read that the french actually deported their own (Jewish) people without the assistance of any germans from Vichy to the camps, I understand they were given a quota and told to get on with it, which they did with vigour

I know degaulle's solution was to brush it all under the table, he created a myth of a resistant France united against a common, foreign enemy, 'we were all part of the resistance' (paraphrased, i can't find the quote)

 

Originally posted by harribobs@Feb 9 2005, 10:59 AM
I found it quite disturbing to read that the french actually deported their own (Jewish) people without the assistance of any germans from Vichy to the camps, I understand they were given a quota and told to get on with it, which they did with vigour

I know degaulle's solution was to brush it all under the table, he created a myth of a resistant France united against a common, foreign enemy, 'we were all part of the resistance' (paraphrased, i can't find the quote)
[post=31346]Quoted post[/post]
De Gaulle wasn't the only one to brush the Vichy regime under the table. Remember that at the time of Operation Torch, the US did not want to have anything to do with the imperious De Gaulle, so they negotiated with Vichy leaders like Admiral Darlan to bring the French North African forces over to the Allied side. A lot of the French forces that fought in the war after that were former Vichy troops and assets, including the battleship Richelieu and Marshal Juin and his French Expeditionary Corps in Italy. Ironically, that was one of the best Allied forces in Italy.

 

De Gaulle wasn't the only one to brush the Vichy regime under the table. Remember that at the time of Operation Torch, the US did not want to have anything to do with the imperious De Gaulle, so they negotiated with Vichy leaders like Admiral Darlan to bring the French North African forces over to the Allied side. A lot of the French forces that fought in the war after that were former Vichy troops and assets, including the battleship Richelieu and Marshal Juin and his French Expeditionary Corps in Italy. Ironically, that was one of the best Allied forces in Italy.
[post=31348]Quoted post[/post]

Kiwi

Was it Darlan who was assassinated by the free french guy?

On a similiar thread, didn't two battalions of the foriegn legion end up fighting each other in the middle east? ( but the vichy side 'come' over to the allies afterwards)