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VICHY GOVERNMENT IN FRANCE
THE CAPTURE OF SAARBRÜCKEN
THE DEATH OF A GREAT ESCAPER No. 170
9
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770306 154103
£5.00
NUMBER 170
© Copyright
After the Battle
2015
Editor: Karel Margry
Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey
Published by
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On May 10, 1940, Nazi Germany invaded France and the Low Countries. Within five
weeks the Blitzkrieg offensive had defeated the French armies and on June 14, 1940,
the Germans entered Paris. Propaganda-Kompanie photographer Otto Kropf pictured
a German military band leading troops down the Champs Élysées.
CONTENTS
THE VICHY GOVERNMENT IN FRANCE
2
GERMANY
The Capture of Saarbrücken
32
IT HAPPENED HERE
The Death of a Great Escaper
52
Front Cover:
An American M24 Chaffee
light tank set up outside the French
village of Spicheren in northern Alsace,
close to the German-French border. It was
donated to the commune by the US 70th
Division Veterans Association on May 8,
1992 to commemorate that division’s
battles on the Spicheren Heights in
February-March 1945 and its subsequent
capture of the nearby German city of
Saarbrücken. (Karel Margry)
Back Cover:
Squadron Leader Roger Bushell,
executed after the mass escape from Stalag
Luft 3 on March 24/25, 1944, now buried in
Grave 9.A in Poznan Old Garrison Cemetery.
(The War Graves Photographic Project)
Acknowledgements:
For help with the Vichy
story the Editor and Jean Paul Pallud would
like to thank the French Ministère de la
Justice, the Steven Spielberg Film and
Video Archive, United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum, Alain Carteret, Antoine
Jézéquel, François de Lannoy, Bruce Levy
and Sabrina Youbi.
Photo Credit Abbreviations:
BA — Bundes-
archiv; ECPAD — Médiathèque de la
Défense, Fort d’Ivry; NIOD — Nederlands
Instituut
voor
Oorlogsdocumentatie,
Amsterdam; SZ — Süddeutsche Zeitung
Photo, Munich; USNA — US National
Archives.
PARIS
VICHY
Article 2 of the Armistice signed on June 22 provided that ‘to assure the interests of the
German Reich’, German forces would occupy the northern and western parts of France
(known in French as the ‘Zone Occupée’), while the territory south of the demarcation
line, the Free Zone (‘Zone Libre’), would be administered by the French government.
Nearly 1,200 kilometres long, the demarcation line between the two zones ran from the
Spanish border, passing through Mont-de-Marsan, Angoulême, Moulins, Chalon-sur-
Saône and Dole before reaching the Swiss border near Bellegarde.
2
BA BILD 101l-751-0067-34
From June 1940 to November 1942 the
unoccupied part of France was adminis-
tered by a government headed by
Maréchal Philippe Pétain, the aged and
venerated hero of Verdun, with its admin-
istration based at the small spa and resort
town of Vichy in central France, some 400
kilometres south-east of Paris. Many
French people supported the regime,
putting their faith in Pétain and his slogan
‘Work, Family, Nation’. Hoping to obtain
concessions and an honourable peace
treaty, the Vichy administration showed
itself increasingly prepared to collaborate
with the Germans, remaining in place
even after the German army crossed the
Demarcation Line to take over the Free
Zone in November 1942. While Pétain
slowly receded into the background, Pre-
mier Pierre Laval and other more-radical
collaborationists came to the fore, main-
taining an ever-more-compromised and
increasingly hated regime until the libera-
tion of France in the summer of 1944.
However, Pétain himself remained popu-
lar, being seen by many as the symbol of
French unity.
Right:
The old Maréchal
being cheered by children, lined up with
their mothers in the Rue du Parc in the
spring of 1942. With him is Raymond
Grasset, at that time Secretary of State
for Health and Family.
THE VICHY GOVERNMENT IN FRANCE
After eight months of ‘Phoney War’ on the
Western Front, the Wehrmacht launched
their attack on May 10, 1940, quickly out-
manoeuvring the French armies by a surprise
thrust across Belgium. French Prime Minis-
ter Paul Reynaud soon relieved the Com-
mander-in-Chief, Général Maurice Gamelin,
and summoned Général Maxime Weygand
from his command in the Levant to replace
him. Reynaud also recalled Maréchal
Philippe Pétain — the ‘Victor of Verdun’ of
First World War fame — from Madrid where
he was the French Ambassador. He returned
to become Vice-Premier.
Within three weeks the German offensive
had led to the surrender of the Netherlands
and Belgium; wiped out three French armies,
and forced the British Expeditionary Force
to retreat. On June 5 the Wehrmacht
launched the second phase of the campaign
— Operation ‘Rot’ — designed to break
through a new hastily-established French
line. Then, on June 10, Italy declared war on
France and Great Britain.
As German troops threatened Paris, the
French government pulled out south-west-
wards, finally reaching Bordeaux on June 14.
Prime Minister Reynaud held to the policy of
continuing the struggle, favouring the idea of
a ‘redoubt’ in Brittany, but Général Wey-
gand rejected the plan as completely unreal-
istic and insisted that an armistice was imper-
ative. Pétain backed him. At a Cabinet
meeting on the morning of June 16 Reynaud
read out the reply he had received from US
President Franklin D. Roosevelt to his
appeal for help: it was unequivocally nega-
tive. Still confident, he proposed to transfer
the government to North Africa and con-
tinue the war from there.
Pétain then stood up and declared that he
could no longer remain a member of a gov-
ernment that refused to bring an end to hos-
tilities and which contemplated leaving the
soil of France. Reynaud appealed for time
for a last conference with British Prime Min-
ister Winston Churchill to which Pétain
agreed.
That afternoon Reynaud talked on the
telephone with Churchill about a proposal
for the creation of a ‘Franco-British Union’.
Both men were enthusiastic over the idea
and they arranged to meet in Brittany the
following day to work out further plans with
their military and naval advisers.
The French Cabinet met again later in the
afternoon when Reynaud read out the pro-
posal of the Franco-British Union. It was the
worst possible timing as a message had just
come in from the French High Command
reporting on the despairing military situa-
tion. A hotly contested debate followed but
in the end the vote was 14 to 10 in favour of
the defeatists. That evening, Reynaud
handed in his resignation and Président
Albert Lebrun immediately asked Pétain to
form a government. This was quickly done
and the new government held its first meet-
ing later that evening. At 1 a.m. on June 17,
in the dead of night, Paul Baudouin, the new
Minister of Foreign Affairs, telephoned the
By Jean Paul Pallud
Spanish ambassador to ask him to transmit a
request for an armistice to Germany. Later
that day, Pétain informed the French people
in a radio broadcast that he had asked the
Germans to discuss an armistice.
Général Charles de Gaulle was Under-
Secretary of State for National Defence
and War in Reynaud’s last government, and
had just returned to Bordeaux from Lon-
don late on the morning of the 17th when
he heard that the French government had
asked for an armistice. De Gaulle lost no
time deciding his position and he immedi-
ately boarded the aircraft of Major-General
Edward L. Spears, the British Liaison Offi-
cer, which was about to leave for Britain.
After a stop at Jersey for refuelling, it
The picture was taken across the street from the Hôtel du Parc. The covered walk-
ways bordering the Parc des Sources remain to this day.
3
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Left:
As senators and deputies assembled in Vichy, the theatre
in the Grand Casino ([1] on the plan on page 10) was adapted
to house the two assemblies that formed the French Parlia-
ment. On July 10, after several days of debate, they passed a
resolution granting full powers to Pétain. The Vichy regime
was established the following day with Constitutional Act No.
reached London that afternoon. The next
day, June 18, de Gaulle broadcast over the
BBC that France had lost a battle but that
the war was not lost.
2 ‘defining the authority of the Chief of the French State’.
Right:
Opened in 1902, shining bright in ivory, yellow and gold,
Vichy’s theatre is one of the most-stunning examples of Art
Nouveau. Today, it offers over 20 shows a year, with a winter
season dedicated to theatre and dance and a summer pro-
gramme featuring music and opera.
two parts: an Occupied Zone which comprised
northern France and the length of the Atlantic
Coast, while the remaining two-fifths of the
country, south of a ‘Demarcation Line’, would
The armistice with Germany was signed on
June 22 (a separate agreement was also
reached with Italy) and hostilities ceased three
days later. The armistice divided France into
Particularly vocal in those critical days of 1940 was Pierre Laval, Independent Senator for
the Seine region and former Prime Minister (1931-32 and 1935-36), who urged the sena-
tors and deputies to vote full powers to Pétain. Here he addresses the National Assem-
bly. Behind him, chairing the debate, is Jules Jeanneney, President of the Senate.
A plaque on the theatre’s outer wall
records that it was here on July 10, 1940,
that the National Assembly granted
plenipotentiary powers to Marshal Pétain
stating: ‘Thus ended the Third Republic’.
However, the wording on the plaque turns
the facts around, praising the minority
that
refused
to vote for the resolution
instead of condemning the majority — 569
— that voted in favour. It reads: ‘80 mem-
bers of the National Assembly through
their vote affirmed their attachment to the
Republic, their love for freedom, and their
faith in victory [over Germany]’.
Parliamentarians leaving the Grand Casino after the fateful
meeting. The original caption to this Press photo stated that
the Ambassadors of the United States, Spain, Japan and Brazil
had attended the debate.
4
The former Grand Casino is now in use as a convention centre.
Its Art Nouveau glass entrance canopy (added in 1900) project-
ing from its Napoléon III façade is another of Vichy’s architec-
tural treasures.
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be under the French government. The border
territory of Alsace and Lorraine, which had
been annexed by the German Empire in 1871
following its victory in the Franco-Prussian
War and returned to France in 1919, was taken
back and put under direct German administra-
tion, while a sliver of French territory in the
Alps came under Italian administration. At the
cessation of hostilities the Germans held some
1.6 million French soldiers as prisoners of war.
VICHY CAPITAL
Since Bordeaux fell within the Occupied
Zone, the French government left the city on
June 29 to relocate to Clermont-Ferrand but
that town proved to have poor communica-
tions and lacked adequate housing and office
space. The cities of Lyon, Toulouse and Mar-
seille were all considered as alternatives but
each was rejected, either for political reasons
(the mayors of the first two were key figures
in the Third Republic) or because of the fear
of social unrest. The name of Vichy was then
proposed.
Situated within the Free Zone but reason-
ably close to Paris (just over four hours by
train), Vichy was an ideal location. A top-of-
the-line resort town, it possessed 300 hotels
that could be requisitioned for government
purposes and offered a modern infrastruc-
ture and communications system by road,
rail and telephone.
Senators and deputies began to congre-
gate in Vichy from June 30, Pétain arriving
that evening. The Grand Casino — an Art
Nouveau theatre with 1,500 seats — was
quickly adapted to house the National
Assembly — the Chamber of Deputies and
the Senate assembled together. Pétain
named politician Pierre Laval, who had been
Prime Minister in the early 1930s, as Vice-
Prime Minister, and on July 7 he formally
directed Laval to represent him at the
debate of the assembly.
While Laval and his friends were particu-
larly vocal in urging senators and deputies to
vote full powers to Maréchal Pétain, the
senior political leaders were too over-
whelmed by the turn of events to propose
alternatives. To make things worse, another
blow hit unexpectedly on July 3 when
Churchill ordered the Royal Navy to destroy
the French naval squadron at anchor at Mers-
el-Kébir in Algeria. (In June, the French fleet
had withdrawn her ships from France and
sent them to harbours beyond Germany’s
reach.) Not only was a battleship sunk and
five other ships damaged, but it also cost the
lives of 1,300 French sailors. This ill-advised
attack by an ally resulted in tremendous
resentment in France towards Britain, and in
turn dealt a major counter-blow to de
Gaulle’s efforts to continue the war, conse-
quently boosting Pétain’s authority.
Whilst Pétain and his government resigned themselves to the defeat and requested
the Armistice on June 17, Général Charles de Gaulle, the Under-Secretary of State for
National Defence and War in Paul Reynaud’s last government, flew to England and on
the 18th launched an appeal over the BBC to continue the fight against Nazi Germany.
The Germans decreed that the Demarcation Line could only be crossed at a small number
of official checkpoints, and only by those who could present an Ausweis (free pass). This
document was only issued after many formalities had been approved. This is the check-
point set up at the bridge over the Valserine river at Bellegarde, near the Swiss border.
ARCHIVES MUNICIPALES DE CHALON-SUR-SAÔNE
The Germans also pressurised the Vichy government by
thwarting the return of refugees — the millions who had fled
the invading German armies in May and June 1940 – back to
the occupied northern zone. Each person had to obtain a
repatriation certificate from the French administration, with
access from 1941 onwards being limited to just four crossing
points: Langon, Vierzon, Moulins and Chalon-sur-Saône.
Right:
The checkpoint at the latter town was at the eastern
end of the Pont des Chavannes, the bridge over a branch of
the Saône river.
5
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