PARIS UNDER NAZI OCCUPATION 1940-1944 Scenes from Political and Social Life
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Paris under Nazi Occupation 1940 – 1944 DAVID WINGEATE PIKE World Association of International Studies PARIS UNDER NAZI OCCUPATION, 1940-1944 COVER PHOTO. August 1941. Generaloberst Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, later appointed Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich (MbF), sauntering through Les Halles with his staff. PARIS UNDER NAZI OCCUPATION 1940-1944 Scenes from political and social life DAVID WINGEATE PIKE The American University of Paris World Association of International Studies By the same author: Vae Victis! (Paris: Ruedo ibérico, 1969). La Presse française à la veille de la Seconde Guerre mondiale (Paris: Richelieu, 1973). Les Français et la guerre d’Espagne (Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 1975). Latin America in Nixon’s Second Term, ed. (London: Bennett & Starling, 1982). Jours de gloire, jours de honte (Paris: Sedes, 1984). The Opening of the Second World War, ed. (New York: Peter Lang, 1991). In the Service of Stalin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). Spaniards in the Holocaust (London: Routledge, 2000). The Closing of the Second World War: Twilight of a Totalitarianism, ed. (New York: Peter Lang, 2001). Españoles en el holocausto (Barcelona: Random House Mondadori, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2015). Mauthausen, L’Enfer nazi en Autriche (Toulouse: Édouard Privat, 2004). Betrifft: KZ Mauthausen: Was die Archive erzählen (Linz: BuchVerlag Franz Steinmassl, 2005). Franco and the Axis Stigma (London/New York: Macmillan, 2008). Franco y el Eje Roma-Berlín-Tokio: Una alianza no firmada (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2010). Crimes against Women, ed. (New York: Nova Science Publishing, 2010). France Divided: The French and the Civil War in Spain (Eastbourne / Portland, Oregon / Vaughan, Ontario: Sussex Academic Press, 2011). Oberbefehl West, Armeegruppe G: Les Armées allemandes dans le Midi de la France,1944 (Paris: Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains/ Presses Universitaires de France, 2013). La Galia dividida: los franceses y la guerra civil (Corunna: Ediciones del Viento, 2016). Les Iles anglo-normandes sous l’occupation allemande (Paris: Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains/ Presses Universitaires de France, 2016, 2017). The Kōgun and the Jugun Ianfu: Imperial Japan and its ''Comfort Women'', 1932-1945. (Paris: American Graduate School of International Relations and Diplomacy / New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2011). A Spaniard’s Deathcamp Notebook (World Association of International Studies, 2018). Nuremberg: The Photographic Proof (World Association of International Studies, 2018) © David Wingeate Pike Printed by COPY-TOP, Rennes-Raspail, Paris, 2017 Ai miei cari amici dell'Universitá "Bocconi" negli anni cinquanta: - Enrico Maria Clerici, di Milano, centro mondiale della musica, - Luciana Fusi, di Cremona, centro mondiale dei violini. Entrambi gran conoscitori ed ammiratori della capitale transalpine, cittá di tristi ricordi, ... ed amore! Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank the following members of the research team at The American University of Paris which, in the years 1983-1984, completed a study of the collaborationist press in Paris at key moments in the period 1940-1944: Jessie Andres (family life); B. Behjatina (Le Cri du Peuple); Patricia Black (Le Petit Parisien); Louis Bruhnke (L’Atelier); Marion V. Craig (Les Nouveaux Temps); Christopher O. Frechette (Les Dernières Nouvelles de Paris); Kenneth Houston (Le Cri du Peuple); Malcolm Klein (Le Matin); Ruth Lauer (Paris-Soir); Alix Luyendijk (La Gerbe); Mercedeh T. Moghadam (La France Socialiste); Catherine Moizeau (Le Matin); Farah Nayeri (Jeunesse); Vinicius Rene Silva (Aujourd’hui); Carla Stuart (daily life); Christian Ungerer (Le Reveil du Peuple). The author extends his thanks also to his assistants Aurora Eck Nilsen from Norway, Meduna Margania and Tamara Asatiani from Georgia, and Lucas Miglionico from the United States, who helped in the technical presentation of this work. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction……………………...…………………………………… …… 9 Illustrations…………………………………………………………. ……. 11 1. A city in mortal dread………………………………………………... 25 2. The Wehrmacht savors its victory…………………………………... 27 3. Repercussions of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact................................... 29 4. French defeat and the blame game....................................................... 32 5. Hitler’s visit to Paris………………………………………………… 35 6. Vichy as seen from Paris..................................................................... 39 7. Pétain to the rescue.............................................................................. 41 8. Social life resumes.............................................................................. 43 9. Early collaboration.............................................................................. 46 10. Property requisitions........................................................................... 48 11. The first signs of hunger..................................................................... 51 12. Cultural revival and the first disturbance............................................ 53 13. The first Christmas and New Year...................................................... 55 14. The eve and morrow of Barbarossa..................................................... 57 15. Social and cultural life progresses....................................................... 58 16. Cinemas and films............................................................................... 60 17. Books and bookshops.......................................................................... 62 18. The new society……………...……………………………………..... 63 19. Exhibitions and distractions................................................................. 64 20. Discord and deeper collaboration........................................................ 66 21. Atrocities against the Jews................................................................... 68 22. A change in the German high command ……………………………. 70 23. Hope rekindled..................................................................................... 71 24. D-Day and its aftermath....................................................................... 73 Annex: The Paris Press…………………………………………………... 77 Epilogue ………………………………………………………………… 95 Bibliography……………………………………………………………... 97 9 INTRODUCTION Vast is the literature on everyday life in Paris under the German occupation. Apart from the many testimonials of the inhabitants, there are those of the Nazi occupants, together with several accounts by Americans who were free to remain in Paris after the German arrival and until Pearl Harbor.1 Among the many historians, of those writing in English three stand out: David Pryce- Jones (1981), Alan Riding (2011), and David Drake (2015). This short work is presented as a modest contribution. What gives it its place are its unpublished primary sources, even when they are submerged in the swell of secondary sources. The primary sources may be relatively few, but it was these that inspired the author to produce his account. It all stems from an academic experiment of short duration in the 1980s, when he invited his senior class in History at The American University of Paris to work on the French press. The author had already learnt, from his time in Toulouse under the direction of Jacques Godechot, Dean of the Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, of the vital importance of the press as primary source. Never was the examination of the press more useful than in the process of studying a dictatorship, whether it be Franco’s Spain or France under Hitler. Where there is no press freedom, then the press represents the frank and honest expression of the government and of those who choose to serve it. Nothing published in that press is out of line with government policy, or if it is, it is quickly liquidated. Just as my work Franco and the Axis Stigma, based on Franco’s four-cornered press,2 can be taken as an indication of how much more can be achieved by widening the search, so the present work could encourage professors to invite their students (those with sufficient language ability) to engage in further investigation. As with Franco and the Axis Stigma, a limit to the extent of the research was automatically imposed, and here in this study only a few of the 1 Such a one was Edmund Pendleton, organist at the American Church at 65 Quai d’Orsay, and later Composer in Residence at The American College in Paris. Before he was forced to leave France, he allegedly hid in the church’s attic certain personnel who were on the run from the Nazi authorities. 2 Army, Church, Monarchy, Falange. Each had its organ in the mainstream Spanish press. 10 key moments in the war could be examined. Many times more such key events could be investigated, to the great benefit of our knowledge of that time. The originality of the present work thus lies in its coverage of the collaborationist press, both in what it reveals of social and political life in Paris and in what it reports on unfolding events at selected moments in the period of the Occupation. In covering a period of well over four years, the author recognizes the imbalance in his survey. Let it be said in reply that the work, however truncated, brings to a much studied theme a fresh inside look. DWP November 14, 2017 11 June 23, 1940, Place de Trocadéro. Hitler makes his only visit to Paris. He is standing with his chief architect Albert Speer (left) and his favorite sculptor, Arno Becker. 12 The first German parade in Paris. Wehrmacht troops skirt the Arc de Triomphe and march