When war erupted in 1939, France mobilized against a traditional enemy, Germany. French society had faced Germany less than a quarter century before. This paper explores how the German military conquest of France in the summer of 1940 changed the government of France. It changed from a constitutional democracy to a totalitarian regime under the French hero of Verdun who earned his fame during the Great War. Marshal Philippe Pétain was that hero. During the course of World War II significant Vichy French leaders clandestinely and French society in general would eventually defy the dictate of Nazi Germany. This aided the Allied cause in spite of the armistice called for by Pétain in June 1940.
There is a great deal of debate among historians concerning what role the government and populace of Vichy France played in the outcome of World War II. American historian Robert Paxton wrote: “no one who lived through the French debacle of May-June 1940 ever got over the shock. For Frenchmen, confident of a special role in the world, the six weeks’ defeat by German armies was a shattering trauma.”[1] The unexpected rapid defeat of France shattered the confidence of the Allies in their quest to curb or if possible halt Hitler’s blatant aggression and obvious intension to dominate Europe and the World.
In 1940 the renowned French historian and resistance fighter Marc Bloch wrote a first-hand account of the German invasion and rapid collapse of France, which occurred during his service as a reserve officer in the French army. The significance of Bloch’s account was it provided historians a view of the military collapse of France through the eyes of a first-rate historian whose critical faculty and all the penetrating analysis added credibility to the account far in excess of a typical narrative. In this work, Bloch agonizingly struggled with why France and the French army were so inefficient in defense of the homeland. Bloch, after significant analysis, concluded that the main cause of the disaster was the incompetent French High Command as well as other important factors including how French national solidarity had been comprised since 1870. Bloch intuitively wrote: “the duty of reconstructing our country will not fall on the shoulders of my generation. France in defeat will be seen to have had a Government of old men. That is but natural. France of the new springtime must be the creation of the young.”[2] Historians continue to write and argue the copious factors that caused the rapid collapse of the French army in 1940 but it is difficult for any to exceed the insight and analysis of Marc Bloch.
The catastrophic defeat that Bloch described was a reality and by the middle of June 1940, the government leaders in Paris were packing up their offices and preparing to leave Paris to the German invader. What to do now? It was apparent that someone had to step forward and deal with Adolf Hitler while keeping order in France and its colonies. Who amid all the chaos commanded the instant respect and possessed legitimacy with the French people? One possibility was Marshal Henri Phillipe Pétain, the hero of Verdun, advocate of the Maginot Line, and recently named Paul Reynaud’s vice-premier. As the victorious German army marched into Paris, on June 16, 1940, French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud resigned in favor of a hero of the First World War, Marshal Pétain who immediately requested terms for an armistice from Hitler. The Third Republic had collapsed.
It should be noted that only eight months prior to the collapse M. Edouard Daladier, President of the Council of Ministers, had proclaimed in Paris to the French people “Men and women of France! We are waging war because it has been thrust on us. Every one of us is at his post, on the soil of France, on that land of liberty where respect of human dignity finds one of its last refuges. You will all cooperate, with a profound feeling of union and brotherhood, for the salvation of the country, Vive la France!”[3]
Daladier’s words “for the salvation of the country” must have been in the mind of Marshal Pétain when he petitioned Germany for an armistice in June 1940. Historically, France had been at odds with Germany for centuries with the memory of World War I and the harsh terms and reparations that France and its Allies had demanded of Germany at Versailles in 1918. At this juncture in the summer of 1940, Marshal Pétain and the people of France had little choice but to ask Germany for an armistice. Marshal Pétain did what he perceived as the only viable option in order to save France as a nation. This paper will argue that even though Vichy France collaborated with Germany partly on ideological terms on similar perspectives of the Jewish question that it would also be open for collaboration with the Allies for the purpose of redeeming France as an independent nation. In doing so Vichy France would aid the Allied cause.
The exigent circumstances that precipitated the call for an armistice were evident in many of the desperate actions taken by the retreating French army. Robert Paxton wrote: “for there was simply no mistaking the wave of relief which came flooding after the anguish when Marshal Pétain announced over the radio, shortly after noon on June 17, that the government he had formed the night before was seeking an armistice. ‘With heavy heart, I tell you today that it is necessary to stop the fighting.”[4] Pétain, the French army and the people of France found themselves in a foreboding situation that would take time to sort out but eventually a significant number of Vichy leaders would exact revenge on their traditional enemy Germany by aiding the Allies most notably in the Allied invasion of North Africa that would occur in November 1942. At this point, it was necessary to weather the storm and hopefully save at least a modicum of National sovereignty.
Historians continue to argue how the French populace during the early Vichy period viewed the devastating military defeat, the terms of the armistice and the new Vichy government. Three important themes of the Vichy experience that received considerable analysis were resistance, collaboration and memory. This paper will focus on collaboration from two perspectives; the collaboration between the Vichy and the Nazi regime and the collaboration between some high ranking members of the Vichy government and the Allies. From the perspective of the resistance, focus will be on the resistance aimed at the Germans and the resistance against the Vichy government will be explored. Additionally, the role the French police played in support of the Vichy government and police collaboration with the Nazi regime certainly had a critical function in helping the Vichy government continue the policies outlined in the armistice agreement. Article 3 of the Franco-German Armistice of June 1940 stated the obligation the French police had to collaborate with the Nazi regime. This stated that:
In the occupied parts of France the German Reich excises all rights of an occupying power. The French Government obligates itself to support with every means the regulations resulting from the exercise of these rights and to carry them out with the aid of French administration. All French authorities and officials of the occupied territory therefore, are to be promptly informed by the French Government to comply with the regulations of the German military commanders and to cooperate with them in a correct manner…[5]
Ineluctable authoritarian states use the police to ensure the suppression of public liberties. In doing so, police use methodology that would include monitoring public opinion on behalf of the government. Historian Simon Kitson wrote: “Vichy considered the institution as a means of guaranteeing the survival of the state, particularly since ministers were aware from as early as the middle of 1941 that their government was extremely unpopular.”[6] During the middle of 1941, it was becoming increasingly more apparent that many Vichy leaders and the populace were reaching a point that the Nazi regime could no longer be passively tolerated and must be driven from French soil. The United States had entered the war in December 1941 giving the French hope that the Allies and Vichy militaries would receive vast material assistance as well as large infusions of American troops.